Evil Visits Again

I'm not really one for Bob Englehart, or cartoonists in general, but this work of his happened to say it all.

Last weekend the brutality and evil of the variety we became acquainted with in Cheshire last summer visited two innocent women in New Britain over the weekend. A woman was shot in her home and left for dead, while her guest was abducted, shot to death, and her body dumped in Bristol.

The despicable animal who is accused of perpetrating this deed has, as predicted, quite a list of priors.

This, after the Democrats in the General Assembly's Judiciary rejected a "Three Strikes" law which would lock up for life those criminals three times convicted of a violent felony.

Democrats have now, for a second time this year, rejected the public call for tougher sentencing. Liberals are apparently clinging to intellectual arguments about judicial discretion and how vital that is. Judicial discretion gave us the Petit case in Cheshire, and apparently has given us this latest New Britain horror as well.

Take a gander at the liberal commenters on other CT political blogs who actually dare comment on this (My Left Nutmeg is awkwardly silent on the subject, too busy picking on Rell appointees and frenetically pleasuring themselves over Joe Lieberman's latest utterances to address something like public safety) and you will see parsed sensibilities. The gist of their arguments seem to be that this latest event doesn't even qualify as a "Three Strikes"-worthy topic as this new offender had only one violent offense.

Quite naturally, they miss the point. This beast had his other offenses plead down, something that might not have happened if a "Three Strikes" law were on the books.

These liberals complain that this issue is "political," a complaint they lodge only when both public opinion and good reason are both beyond their grasp.

The Democrats in the legislature will have another chance at bat before adjournment. The call right now on them is two strikes, no balls. And I predict they carve air in the political batter's box.