Gov Rick Perry and Executions

Over at the Althouse Blog we have a discussion of the Brian Williams question and supplemental to Governor Rick Perry re Texas and the Death Penalty.

Here is an interesting comment on the Althouse Blog post:

The Texas Constitution was amended in specific response to corruption scandals in the 1920s and 1930s in which Texas Governors Pa & Ma Ferguson reportedly sold pardons. (Yes, of course they were Democrats. Did you really wonder?)

In the decades since then, the Governor of Texas — be he Rick Perry, or George W. Bush, or be she Ann Richards — has had no more constitutional power than to grant one 30-day stay. The governor does appoint the members of the Pardons & Paroles Board, but those appointments are subject to senate confirmation, and the governor can't interfere in the Board's decisions, much less overturn the Board's decisions.

Lots and lots of lefties have been told this, and deliberately choose to ignore it. I would make a large wager that Sullivan has made similarly misinformed statements in the past and that he's been corrected. Because Andrew Sullivan is a liar who deliberately spreads lies. I regret that Prof. Althouse has given him even the attention of exposing another of his lies, because the only cure for the blogospheric disease that is Andrew Sullivan is to ignore him.

Because we are a federal system there is a chance that one state may not do it the same way as another, and that is the glory of the system.  So questions during "Presidential Debates" should be couched in terms that allow for those difference.  It appears Mr Brian Williams does not subscribe to that point of view.

Regards  —  Cliff