This piece is forceful in its condemnation of Obama's comments, but may not be a fair interpretation of Obama's reasons. While it certainly is politically expedient for him not to speak out against the death penalty for child rapists, I am not certain that he is simply playing politics. What he says is that "if a state makes a decision that under narrow, limited, well-defined circumstances the death penalty is at least potentially applicable, that that does not violate our Constitution." Conveniently, he does not comment on whether in fact the Constitution should be amended specifically to prohibit the death penalty, or that Supreme Court justices should find the death penalty to be "cruel and unusual" (knowing what we know about the justice system), but addresses only the Constitutionality of it. Since Obama's expertise is in Constitutional law, his interpretation may very well be technically correct, if not morally complete. If that is the case, it is much more forgivable that he would fail to enunciate the greater concern in order to secure political advantage.