Killer Christmas

The bad one and the good one.

As Christmas approached last year, Joe Biden commuted the sentences of 37 convicted murderers on federal death row. The commutations included Thomas Sanders, who shot 12-year-old Lexis Roberts and cut her throat after murdering the child’s mother. The Delaware Democrat also commuted the sentence of Jorge Avila-Torrez, who sexually assaulted Laura Hobbs, 8, and Krystal Tobias, 9, before stabbing them to death.

Back in December 1989, Romanians living under Stalinist dictator Nikolai Ceausescu took different approach. In the city of Timisoara, Ceausescu’s Securitate attacked pastor Laszlo Tokes for criticizing the regime, and on December 17, 1989, the people organized an anti-government demonstration. Ceaușescu ordered his forces to fire on the crowds, killing nearly 100 protesters. Mass protests broke out across the country, and this time, the military sided with the people. Ceaușescu fled in a helicopter, but the pilot forced a landing and soldiers took him into custody. Nicolae and wife Elena were swiftly tried for crimes against humanity and sentenced to death.

On Christmas Day, an elite unit led the pair toward an outdoor toilet block in a courtyard. Nicolae sang the “Internationale” while Elena shrieked filth at a soldier, who hauled off and smashed her face. The troops then stood the pair against a wall, set their Kalashnikovs on full automatic, and opened fire. Unlike the bloody scene in Timisoara, the rifle reports came as tidings of comfort and joy.

For the first time in decades, Romanians openly celebrated Christmas, and the next year, the nation held free elections. Too bad that the vile Ceaușescu was the only Stalinist dictator rightfully executed while in power. Mao Zedong, Enver Hoxha, Erich Honecker, Pol Pot and Fidel Castro all escaped the justice they deserved.

So did an American criminal convicted of murdering two FBI agents. On his last day in the White House, Biden commuted the sentence of Leonard Peltier who “is now 80 years old, suffers from severe health ailments, and has spent the majority of his life (nearly half a century) in prison.” Biden’s action surprised the family of Anna Aquash, who believed Peltier was involved in her murder. The Peltier commutation, signed with autopen, was doubtless the work of the composite character formerly known as Barry Soetoro. He held back during his first two terms but thought it was safe when, as Tablet’s David Samuels revealed in “The Obama Factor,” the “fictional character” was still running the country, and “responsible for the disaster that we are living through now.” That was under Joe Biden, as Conrad Black said, a waxworks effigy of a president.

If anybody thought Peltier should have been strapped onto Old Sparky and turned up to eleven it would be hard to blame them. Stalin, Mao Zedong, Hoxha, Pol Pot, and Honecker should have been shot dead in the manner of Ceausescu. His long overdue departure may give hope to people in China, Cuba, Venezuela and other tyrannies. “There have been tyrants and murderers, and for a time they can seem invincible,” Gandhi noted, “but in the end they always fall. Think of it – always.” In the meantime, as we say up north, Joyeux Noel.