Oh please.
No conservative is making excuses for Lay - he was a criminal, he was convicted and he was set to do some serious time and I don't know of any conservative who had a problem with it.
Likewise, I don't know of a single conservative who believes that stealing a loaf of bread is a life offense, or a conservative who feels that culpability for the theft of a loaf of bread is intensified or diminished depending upon the thief's race.
Utter hyperbole, and the kind of rhetoric I would expect to read in a Paul Krugman column, not on FR.
I can think of one.