The botched execution of Oklahoma inmate Clayton Lockett on Tuesday night provoked horror in many corners. Some pundits, though, saw little reason for concern.
This is how the New York Times described the execution:
Witnesses described Mr. Lockett as lying on the gurney in the execution room, mumbling “man” after being declared unconscious. He was “grimacing, grunting and lifting his head and shoulders entirely up from the gurney,” wrote Ziva Branstetter, enterprise editor of The Tulsa World and one of 12 news media witnesses to the execution. In describing the scene, Ms. Branstetter wrote: “Reporters exchange shocked glances. Nothing like this has happened at an execution any of us has witnessed since 1990, when the state resumed executions using lethal injection.”
Other witnesses described the scene as one akin to "torture."
For many conservative pundits, though, there was nothing to worry about:
I wouldn’t call that execution botched. He was executed more humanely than the person he executed.
— Erick Erickson (@EWErickson) April 30, 2014
If we could just go back to hangings or a firing squad, we wouldn’t have to wring our hands over how humanely we execute savage murderers.
— Erick Erickson (@EWErickson) April 30, 2014
Aw. This is the guy who suffered before he died? This one? Geez, so sad. http://t.co/jiteeSScVH
— Sonny Bunch (@SonnyBunch) April 30, 2014