Love it or hate it, Brian Williams’ brief exchange with Rick Perry about the death penalty at this week’s presidential debate certainly struck a nerve.
It’s not a topic the country discusses very often these days, and Williams’ raising of the Texas execution record has opened up a lot of old debates about the death penalty — and, conservative critics say, shown that Williams has a pro-liberal bias.
“Would you ask a liberal politician about sleeping at night if they favored abortion or choice?” Wallace told Fox News Friday. “It is so built into the drinking water, if you will, in some of these liberal outlets that they don’t even understand it happens.”
Away from a Fox News set, the moment at the debate has a new mini-debate about execution.
“How can you applaud death?” exonerated Texas death row inmate Anthony Graves told ABC News.
The conservative John Guardiano over at the American Spectator stood up for Perry and the crowd who applauded his states record on putting prisoners to death.
“Given how difficult it is to apply the death penalty, and given how infrequently this punishment is meted out,” Guardiano wrote, “I think Perry’s response was entirely justified.”
Watch Chris Wallace call Brian Williams biased here.
