According to a column in the Philadelphia Daily News by Carol Towarnicky, the whole Mumia Abu-Jamal story is finally fading from public consciousness- and it’s about time.
Yes, the cold-blooded murder of Philadelphia policeman Daniel Faulkner by Abu-Jamal took place more than 24 years ago. But the “plight” of the death-row inmate has unquestionable receded over the years as a left-wing cause celebre, partially because the Bush Administration has given those people a lot more to be pissed off about. But moreso, Towarnicky writes, the case has simply reached a stalemate, and with Mumia less likely to be executed, it’s lost the attention of anti-death penalty activists.
It seemed the otherworldly proliferation of myths about the case would never end. Yet there were those who said the "Mumia as political prisoner" phenomenon was more about the U.S. devotion to the death penalty than the merits of the case.Actually, I think the cause really lost all its momentum when Rage Against the Machine broke up. Posted by Stephen Silver at October 25, 2005 05:20 PMNow it's clear they were right.
Dude, you stole my punchline!
Posted by: Jim Treacher at October 27, 2005 07:52 AM