WonkiFact: Yep, Rick Scott Delayed Execution For Attorney General's Campaign Schedule

During the second, fan-free debate between former Florida Gov. Charlie Crist* and current Gov. Rick Scott (R-Malfoy Manor) Tuesday night, the accusations flew hot and heavy. One of the more notable exchanges involved the question of whether Gov. Voldemort knowingly delayed a prisoner's execution last year so it wouldn't conflict with a campaign event being held by his attorney general, Pam Bondi.

Instead of saying whether he knew that Bondi had requested him to reschedule the execution of convicted murderer Marshall Lee Gore so she could hold her big campaign launch party, Scott repeatedly said only that Bondi had apologized for doing that, so no harm, no foul. She made a mistake and she's sorry, and nunyabinniss what Scott knew or when he knew it. As one of our brilliant commenters noted, he certainly wasn't the first Gore to be arbitrarily put down by the State of Florida.

The debate fireworks started when the moderator asked Crist about the rescheduling, and whether he thought it indicated that Scott took executions lightly. (Of course it does! It is a point of pride for Republican governors to execute people quickly and frequently, ideally with a quip:  "Please don't kiiiiiiill me." )

Crist hit Scott on the delay, saying, “Just this past year, an execution here in Florida was delayed by the governor so the attorney general could go forward and have a political fundraiser…to me and my way of thinking, that doesn’t sound like someone is taking that solemn duty as seriously as they should.”

Scott shot back, arguing that Crist “doesn’t know all the facts.” Crist, however, did not let it go, asking Scott repeatedly to explain what happened. “I asked him a simple question. Did the Attorney General ask you to delay the execution so she could go forward with her political fundraiser?” he asked.

“She asked me to delay it because it didn’t work on the dates that she thought it was going to be on,” Scott said. When Crist continued to push, Scott repeated “she apologized” four times, asking Crist “What would you like her to do?”

As it happens, Yr Wonkette covered that story last fall when it happened, and we aren't sure whether we should give Gov. Scott a "Mostly True-ish" or a "Pinnochio on Fire" for that answer, because it was such a thoroughly non-answer answer. Bondi definitely did ask for the execution to be delayed, and Scott definitely arranged the rescheduling. As the  Tampa Bay Times  reported at the time, Scott said he didn't know the reason for Bondi's request, but on the other hand, he also refused last year to say whether he thought that a campaign fundraiser was a terrific reason to delay killing a guy. He simply said, "When another Cabinet officer asks for something, we try to work with them," and left it at that.

So really, while Rick Scott remains a slimy Gollumesque freak who won't give a straight answer to a question, he was only slightly more evasive in the debate than he was last year. To be completely consistent with his earlier position, he could have said that he didn't know Bondi's reason for asking for a delay, but we don't know whether trying to avoid saying "I didn't know" again actually counts as a lie. 

Also too, as we said last year:

[The] real outrage here is that the state’s machinery of death was slowed down by a trivial reason, not that the state has machinery of death. We need to be serious and dignified about killing evildoers, after all, and it’s very unseemly to let politics intrude on the completely apolitical business of executing people.

We therefore award Rick Scott a WonkiFact score of "Eggplant" and politely demand that he take immediate measures to prevent his face from haunting the terrified nightmares of small children.

*To the person who arrived at our fair blog with the interweb search "Is Charlie Christ a homo?" we are sorry we do not have the answer for you. Also, who is Charlie Christ and is he related to Jesus?

[ ThinkProgress ]