Attorney Gen. Pam Bondi (R)

Attorney General Pam Bondi persuaded Gov. Rick Scott to postpone an execution scheduled for tonight because it conflicted with her re-election kick-off reception. "What's going on down there? It's ridiculous," said Phyllis Novick, the Ohio mother of one of Marshall Lee Gore's victims, when told Monday about the reason for the delay.

Well now this is a nice headline: Execution rescheduled to accommodate Pam Bondi fundraiser Have we found the key to ending executions in America? We just schedule so many fundraisers for the executors that they have no time for anything else? While I have little doubt it would work, it probably would send the wrong message.

The execution has been rescheduled for Oct. 1. I am personally against the death penalty—although recent events on Wall Street have had me reconsidering that stance, I will admit—but having an execution rescheduled because it conflicts with your personal re-election bash would seem to be in poor form. Bondi now knows she stepped in it, and is attempting to oops her way out of it:



"As a prosecutor, there was nothing more important than seeing justice done, especially when it came to the unconscionable act of murder. I personally put two people on death row and, as Attorney General, have already participated in eight executions since I took office, a role I take very seriously," Bondi said. "The planned execution of Marshall Lee Gore had already been stayed twice by the courts, and we absolutely should not have requested that the date of the execution be moved," said Bondi, who has long championed victims' rights.

Yes, oops. What a shameful oversight. In the meantime, Attorney General Bondi's re-election event will continue as planned, and so far nobody is contemplating what ought to happen to an attorney general who manipulates state execution schedules so as to not conflict with her fundraising events.