Luke Ford

Dennis Prager said that he would've come in yesterday except that he needed a boat. There is a picture of him and an article on him in the Los Angeles Times front page of the Lifestyle Section. The morning show on KABC had fun with "Farmer Den."

Prager then talked about the execution of pickaxe murderer Barbara Faye Tucker. She said: "I would like to say to the family… I am so sorry… Everybody has been so good to me… I love you very much. I am going to be face to face with Jesus. I will see you all when I get there. I will wait for you."

According to reports, she had a smile on her face and was calm when she was executed.

Prager says he has been absorbed by the world's reaction to us. "Europe has a different view of morality than we do. We take evil more seriously. We combated native fascism and native communism. They didn't. Italy is one of the passionate opponents of capital punishment. But they don't do such a great job with the Mafia… They had Mussolini.

"The US led the world fighting Soviet evil and the Iraqi extinction of the state of Kuwait. The German fan who stabbed Monica Selles? He put a kitchen knife through her shoulder blade. He got no jail time. Only probation. The enlightened European view is that we do not punish those who do evil. We do, and that is why we have less.

"The World Council of Churches is morally primitive. They stated: 'We are convinced that hearts of stone can be replaced by hearts of flesh…And hope that the traditional American value of justice will prevail…" This is the typical sanctimoniousness of the left. They have hearts of flesh. If you disagree, you have a heart of stone. They think that murderers should get to live. That is justice to them.

"I am saddened by the Pope's opposition to all capital punishment. I have great admiration for this pope. The thinking is, 'We're pro-life.' Who is more pro-life? The one who wishes to let murderers get away with murder, by living, or those who wish murderers executed.

"I did share a tear for Tucker. Those who cheer when there are executions are not my emotional peers… To take the lives of murderers is a sad necessity.

"Murderers…facing their own mortality… will frequently repent. Children are more likely to say that they are sorry if they are facing punishment. If you let people get away with what they've done, they are usually less contrite. Would Tucker have become the new person except for the death sentence hanging over her head."

CALLER: "I remember when the Salvation Army pulled out of the World Council of Churches when the ANC [funded in part by the Council] in South Africa killed some of their missionaries… The Salvos said: 'The World Council is trying to change people through politics, we are trying to change people one soul at a time.' If someone is truly repentant, they will render unto Caesar, what is Caesar's."

DP: "I was on Politically Incorrect the other night with Culio… He said, in effect, 'who does not find God in prison? And I've been there.'"

Prager: The suicide rates in Auschwitz were no higher than in Warsaw before the war. [People love life.] Hope. While the person who was murdered has no hope.

2:08

Prager thanked Marnell Jameson for her article in today's LA TIMES. "You put your life in your hands [when journalists write on you].

Prager said he debated whether or not he would smoke his pipe in front of her. He did. He decided to act as naturally as possible.

"I'm sure there are people reading it, who think 'he smokes and he's Mr. Morality?'

"Marnell spent a while in private with my wife…"

Prager: "My son said to me, 'you were on [Politically Incorrect] with Culio?' Before the show, in the green room, Culio was reading a book. I was impressed.

"You can teach a computer logic, but you can't teach it feelings. On purely logical, it makes sense to shoot everybody on welfare. But emotionally we recoil from that idea."

Becky phoned in to say that an article in Ultimate Issues [and in Prager's book THINK A SECOND TIME] persuaded her to call her father after years… They developed a relationship for two years until her father died of cancer.

PRAGER: "Being known as Mr. Morality [headline kicker in LA TIMES]… It makes you sound boring, dull, hateful of sin…"

Larry Elder: "Well, what is your point?"

Prager: "I think the Right [politically] often hold the correct positions, but they do not sound humane. Regarding Karla Tucker… It is appropriate to want her executed and still shed a tear."

Camille Paglia on Barbara Faye Tucker:

I favor capital punishment as society's ultimate judgment on particularly atrocious crimes. In the ancient Roman and Old Testament way, I view punishment as retribution and revenge, not as rehabilitation. I loathe the way namby-pamby social-welfare ideology has crept into the criminal justice system. As a libertarian, I believe our laws should be simple and few, with no arcane subsets such as those nosing into ambiguous motivation (as in "hate-crimes" statutes) or those excusing heinous acts because of sudden prisonhouse reformation via psychologists or clerics.

Karla Faye Tucker's predicament was tragic, but she committed acts of barbaric savagery for which a man would be expected to pay the price. As an equity feminist, I believe that women cannot demand equal opportunities in society without also being ready to accept equal risks and responsibilities. Women should not ask for special protections based on gender -- on death row or on the battlefield, where women with the right level of physical stamina and training should be sent into combat.

Tucker's conversion to evangelical Protestantism cuts no ice with me. As an atheist, I feel that no sect has a right to intervene in the legal process. As a pugnacious Amazon, I also dislike the way Tucker's new, very breathy, very feminine persona played on conservative heart-strings. There have been plenty of black men on death row who experienced similar spiritual transformations, but they couldn't play Pollyanna, could they?

Despite the advances of feminism, most people still don't believe that a woman can be as criminal as a man. And despite the confused claims of those who have never deeply studied the historical record, we have yet to find a single woman who has committed gruesome atrocities of the level of Jack the Ripper, Richard Speck, John Wayne Gacy, Ted Bundy or Jeffrey Dahmer. The isolated stalker as rationally systematic, sex-tinged murderer remains a male phenomenon. Karla Faye Tucker, like the giddy girls of the Charles Manson gang, seems to have been on a manic lark with her boyfriend. But that should not let her off the hook. Justice must be blind to gender.