I suppose it’s no real secret about my feelings regarding the rapidity of the use of the death penalty in this state, as well as the questions surrounding the Todd Willingham case. But I find it disappointing and disconcerting that a few simple questions by the Dallas Morning News’ Rodger Jones were dismissed by John Bradley, who heads the Texas Forensic Science Commission.
Jones details in the DMN’s Death Penalty blog the list of questions he submitted, which to me are a chance for Bradley to clear the air and answer some of his critics. Instead, he dismisses Jones as sounding like a New York lawyer, and refuses to answer the questions.
Are the questions really that hard?
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Apparently Perry appointees don’t have to answer to the public or the media, just the governor.
Yeah. You and I don’t agree on much political stuff…but this execution makes us bedfellows.
Look, John Bradley believes in transparency, all right? It’s just that if Governor Perry’s coffee isn’t made just so, he gets very cranky with “Bottom Boy” (as Perry affectionately calls John, in the fine George W. Bush tradition of fraternal nicknames), and the first batch was unfortunately nearly 10 degrees too cool.
Believe it or not, some things are more important than dancing to some Dallas journalist’s tune.
Bethany: It’s another case of the ol’ media double standard. Jones himself says his questions here were “accusatory,” not nice. Which would be fine–if the same standard were applied to all the DMN “Point Person” interviews. Consider the paper’s earlier softball for “Point Person” interviewee Steve Lerner, an author described as focusing on environmental and social justice issues: “Why do the topics of air and water pollution so quickly earn activists the label of tree huggers and liberal loonies?”
But Glenn, even if the questions were accusatory, surely John Bradley knows the perception about the commission and the governor.
It’s his wording that to me is asinine. Say Jones sounds like a writer whose publication has come out in favor of abolishing the death penalty, sure. But to use the same old “New York lawyer” tag they’ve used on everything regarding this case is ridiculous, and smacks more of, “Yes, we know you think we’re backwater, but we don’t care. Yankees bad, Texans good. No good came from listening to a Yankee.”
It’s the inability and disinterest in even entertaining another possibility that rankles. He’s just perpetuating this perception of bloodthirst.
Call me, crazy, Mr. Hunter, but I think there should be different standards for different interviews. Are you really suggesting that the tone in a conversation with a last-minute political appointee who’s tasked with reviewing a dubious execution – because it was indeed fishy – should get the same treatment as an environmental author? Especially when said appointee finds no fault with erroneous science that led to the state killing a man with less than 100 percent certainty that he was guilty?
If the state is going to be in the business of killing people, I, for one, think it better be darn sure it’s killing the guilty ones. Anything less makes a mockery of our justice system. Posing tough questions to people who think they’re above answering to the public on this one seems more than fair.
Roger Jones…trust me, I know…. is one of the two most conservative members of the DMN editorial board by any stretch of imagination. To Roger, the label ‘liberal’ is akin to what ‘malaria’ is to anyone near the equator. It gives him chills. So that is a subtext worth considering.
@Glenn: So, just to make sure I understand, accusatory and not nice questions trump transparency? Wow, Nixon really missed his defense.
@James, @Sarah: It’s not a question of transparency–or “tough questions.” The issue is getting a fair shake from an obviously biased media source.