Is Obama Whimping out on the Death Penalty?

Instapundit had this up that caught my eye.


RADLEY BALKO: Why Did Obama Wimp Out on a Death Penalty Case? “The president who was once a champion of defendants’ rights to DNA evidence as a senator in Illinois has now let his Justice Department oppose that right at the Supreme Court. What happened?” At a guess, institutional politics in the Solicitor General’s office, but that’s just a guess. Or maybe just politics — Elena Kagan hasn’t been confirmed yet, and may not want news stories about a position-switch. But that’s just a guess, too.
Posted at 9:52 am by Glenn Reynolds .

This is all pretty interesting. Now there might be a Institutional question here. We saw this to some extent as to the Bush White House (generally Pro Gun Rights) and the Justice's Departments in the recent ground breaking Supreme Court case on the issue.

Still this is an area where I find many conservatives and liberals have found common ground. It seems many think these DNA tests are very good things. The famed Innocence project has shook a lot of people up.

I reserve judgement till I look at the Govt position.

Still I suspect in Catholic Social Justice circles this will largely go unnoticed. I can recall back when people said they had to vote against George H Bush and for Dukakis because of the issue of State execution. (IT SOMEHOW TRUMPED ABORTION) But since Bill Clinton rushed back to Arkansas during his primary to make sure a mentally incompetent man was executed there has not been strangely the past urgency on this issue.

Funny how that worked