Mark Warner--lame duck governor of Virginia, so-called moderate Democrat and presumptive candidate for his party's presidential nomination--has burnished his credentials with his party's far-left base by granting clemency to a death-row inmate who happened to be the person who, if his execution was carried out, would be the 1000th execution victim since the Supreme Court ruled in 1976 that executions were constitutional.
Warner's decision may have been warranted: he does not assert the innocence of the condemned man, only that the state acted improperly by destroying physical evidence which could have been subjected to more sophisticated DNA testing, not available at the time of trial, to corroborate or exonerate.
However, does anyone doubt that Warner, tagged with the "moderate" label that makes him perhaps electable in November 2008 but unable to raise funds or win party's primaries, is adding a leftist credential to his resume before he leaves office?
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