Say No to Sycophantism

Hendrik Hertzberg on the Moussaoui sentencing in this week's New Yorker. Money quote:

"After the sentence was pronounced, MSNBC trotted out a bullet-headed talk-radio host to sneer at “the sissification of America.” But if it was mercy he was deploring his indignation was misplaced. “Life imprisonment without possibility of parole” hardly begins to describe the bleakness that awaits Moussaoui. He will be taken to the federal Supermax prison, in Florence, Colorado. He will be locked in a featureless, soundproof concrete box, seven feet by twelve. There he will remain—in solitary confinement, with scarcely a glimpse of sky and none of greenery, and no contact with other living things besides guards and insects—until he dies. The cruelty of this is terrible indeed, and any satisfaction it brings must be mixed with pity and even with shame."

It is difficult to argue that this sentence is less cruel than death, and this point is succinctly made in Moussaoui's attempt to retract the testimony that resulted in his conviction and sentencing. Killing Moussaoui would have made him a hero, sending him to a 7x12 cell is going to make him just another sucker with an addled brain. This time around the American justice system did exactly what it was supposed to do, DESPITE the federal prosecutors' inept handling of the entire case.