I Oppose the Hanging of George W. Bush

Before things go any further, I want to be very clear: I oppose the hanging of George W. Bush.

True, the man has shown himself to be a menace to the entire globe, a shambling sociopath incapable of uttering the truth or acknowledging another's pain, an unrecovered addict with messianic delusions who spread death and pestilence wheree'er he stepped. He has drunkenly piloted the ship of state toward the rocks, and because of him we are likely doomed.

But he should be tried by an international court and, if convicted, sent to prison for the remainder of his unreflective life. That's how we do things in the civilized world.

Hence my concern about the recent New Orleans tribunal, taking place as it did in a waterlogged former brothel — with evidence permitted only from left-wing blogs, lesbian poets and "conscious" rappers. And hence my distaste at the verdict: Bush and his cohorts, Cheney and Rove, must hang before the Super Bowl.

I suppose I see the logic: Bush's ever-shrinking but still crazed and furious supporters will be unable to tear themselves away from the big game, despite their grief. The conflagrations of the gridiron will provide them with some kind of catharsis. We cannot hope to understand the minds of the Christo-fascists, anti-science jihadists and other Megachurchian megalomaniacs who terrorize our land; perhaps it's true that executing their Imams will show them the folly of their ways.

But I continue to oppose the hanging of Bush. Not because of what it will do to him, but because of what it will do to all of us. The death penalty is wrong — even when the mendacity and grinning evil of the condemned is manifest.

And so, as Bush and his coterie huddle in the looming shadow of the gallows, trying to bribe the guards with Halliburton stock and the alleged home numbers of Dallas Cowboys cheerleaders, and erupting into internecine slapfights, we have a decision to make.

I hope it will be a merciful one.