William Jefferson Clinton, aka "Slick Willy," hungered for the White House. But in the early months of 1992, it did not look as though the Arkansas governor's appetite would be satisfied; he had been defeated in the Iowa caucuses and the Massachusetts primary. New Hampshire was crucial, but Willy was trailing Sen. Paul Tsongas badly. Willy needed an issue.
Fate has been remarkably kind to Clinton, and in 1992, the gods handed him just the right opportunity in a year when capital punishment was a hot issue. Ricky Lee Rector, having exhausted all his appeals, was awaiting a lethal injection on Arkansas' death row. Rector had killed two people, one of them a cop, then turned the gun on himself and blown away a substantial chunk of his brain. His lawyers argued that, even though he could speak, he was so intellectually impaired that he did not know what death was and thought the people he killed were still alive. Or as one of his lawyers phrased it, "He is, in the vernacular, a zombie." The appellate judges rang up a "No Sale."
Enter Clinton, who astonished the nation by breaking off his New Hampshire campaign to fly back home for the purpose of denying Rector clemency. And in the process, to demonstrate to voters how tough he was on crime. Really tough people must surely have been gratified that Rector lay strapped down on the death gurney for an hour while his executioners probed and jabbed for a vein to inject the deadly three-drug cocktail, until at 10:00 PM they finally got lucky and dispatched Rector, including what was left of his brain, to meet his maker.
Slick Willy began to come up from behind in New Hampshire and, thanks to the way that he and Hilary squirmed out of the Jennifer Flowers affair - he placed a close second behind Tsongas, in the process earning a new name: "The comeback kid."
As for Rector, his lawyers were proven right all along. Rector presumably enjoyed his last meal - he left his pie for "later" - and entertained himself by watching the news on television. What he saw inspired him to tell his guards that he planned to vote for Clinton.
As for Rector, his lawyers were proven right all along. Rector presumably enjoyed his last meal - he left his pie for "later" - and entertained himself by watching the news on television. What he saw inspired him to tell his guards that he planned to vote for Clinton.
Source: Robert Wilbur, Truthout, Feb. 8, 2012
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