Clark: Not in a Dutch prison. Chris, they're under water, they're damp, they're cold, they're really miserable.
According to Weasley, Dutch prison uniforms look like this:
Posted on 01/16/2004 9:44:00 AM PST by Davis
For sheer goofiness, it's hard to beat the pronouncement of the Brit lawyer for Dr. Harold Shipman. The aforesaid physician had killed at least 215 (sic) patients. He was convicted four years ago of killing 15 and sentenced to 15 consecutive life terms. (With what wizardry this was to be accomplished, the sentencing judge did not say.) Dr. Shipman had been sojourning at public expense in Her Majesty's prison at Wakefield, when, just the other day, he hanged himself in his cell with a noose fashioned from his bed sheets.
The aforesaid Brit lawyer, one Giovanni di Stefano, told a London newspaper that prison officials failed to safeguard his client. "The fact that he had done this is an outrage and the fault lies entirely, absolutely with the authorities," said di Stefano.
The herein above-referred to lawyer, who had been working on Dr. Shipman's appeal, apparently neglected to mention that his client's early departure for the hereafter had served to quicken the payment of his considerable National Health Service benefits: a lump sum payment of "over £100,000" to his beloved widow, Primrose, along with a yearly pension of £18.000.
•••
Gen. Wesley Clark's goofiness was on display when he appeared on Chris Matthews' program on December 5.
Matthews: General, do you think Osama bin Laden, if we catch him, when we catch him, should be tried here at the U.S. or in The Hague, the international court?
Clark: I would like to see him tried in The Hague, and I tell you why. I think it's very important for U.S. legitimacy and for building other support in the war on terror for trying them in The Hague, under international law with an international group of justices, bringing witnesses from other nations. Remember, 80 other nations lost citizens in that strike on the World Trade Center. It was a crime against humanity, and he needs to be tried in international court.
Matthews: Well, 3,000 Americans were killed here. Do you believe he should be held exempt from capital punishment, because if you send him to Hague he will be. They don't have capital punishment at The Hague.
At this point, Gen. Clark should have retreated. He could have mumbled something about the place of trial being immaterial as long as it involved international cooperation, which would have worked quite well, I think. But no, lacking spontaneous wit and feeling trapped by his blunder, he blindly soldiered on.
Clark: I think that's a separate issue.
Matthews: No, it's a key issue, because the sentencing limitation, they do not execute people at the Hague.
Note that Gen. Clark has stealthily abandoned his position under cover of verbiage, and heads for the hills of Goofyland.
Clark: I think that you can adequately punish Osama bin Laden, and you've got to look beyond simple retribution against an individual. You have to look at what's in the long-term security interest in the security in America and you have to look at how we handle the war on terror from here on out.
This is quite goofy, but Gen. Clark hasn't finished with goofiness, and to Matthews' cogent next question. "But doesn't life in Holland beat life in a cave?" he responds in a fashion befitting him as the former Supreme NATO Commander in Kosovo, that is, with supreme goofiness.
Clark: Not in a Dutch prison. Chris, they're under water, they're damp, they're cold, they're really miserable.
Who wins the goofiness contest, di Stefano or Gen. Clark?
For consideration for publication in our celebrated Sages Pages, please let me have your vote together with a brief statement of your reasons therefor. atrentino@atrentino.com.
That was just the first statement which raised the possibility that the writer is as goofy as either of them.
Before we started handing down life sentences "with no chance for parole," that was the way we finagled something approaching a real life sentence, too. Perhaps the Brit judges don't have the better option available to them.
I guess the author was trying to mock the wussy, stupid change in British law that looks with horror on capital punishment even for a guy who committed 215 murders.
Ah, good point. Some of our states (Iowa, for one) are similarly saddled with a no-death-penalty system. But, in Iowa, when it's first-degree murder, it's mandatory life-without-parole. No more need for consecutive life sentences here. But, I'd still prefer the gallows (ideally, public stoning).
Clark: Not in a Dutch prison. Chris, they're under water, they're damp, they're cold, they're really miserable.
According to Weasley, Dutch prison uniforms look like this:
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.