In what could only be described as a macabre deathwatch, the media has been focused lately on the 1000th execution since the Supreme Court reinstituted the death penalty. The much heralded "1000th execution" was delayed yesterday by clemency from Virginia's governor.

The clemency was granted for valid reasons: because the evidence had been improperly destroyed and could not be accessed for DNA testing. But I have a feeling there's something bigger than that.

See, I don't think most states want their name linked with execution in the way that it would be if they performed this "milestone" execution. The death penalty has become out of vogue with modern liberals, but not because they're morally opposed to the death penalty, but rather, because they want to de-stigmatize crime. Granted, a few activists may truly oppose the death penalty, but this is a world in which one can blow up a shopping mall and be labelled a "freedom fighter" or an "insurgent" rather than the demeaning label of "terrorist", which implies that the actions are wrong, rather than acknowledging one's point of view. This is a world, I'm afraid, where we're dangerously close to erecting a monument to the hijackers of the cruise chip "Achille Lauro", those who so "heroically" pushed wheelchair-bound Leon Klinghoffer overboard to his agonizing death in the Atlantic.

I'm going to make a prediction here: some 40 plus years ago, Che Guevara was hunted down and killed in the Bolivian rainforest as he worked to create a communist insurgency there. He has since been lionized as a cult figure, portrayed twice on film by megastar Antonio Banderas, and is a folk hero of sorts. Yassir Arafat was also once an active terrorist leader, organizing some of the most prolific acts of terror throughout the world before spending his final years regaled as a man of peace and a "hero". Osama bin Laden will be next in line.

Within the next 20-30 years, college "revolutionaries" will be sporting Osama bin Laden TShirts, and posting quotes from this "martyred revolutionary" on their dorm room walls. Hollywood will produce a major motion picture praising the attributes of this "freedom fighter". And it will be traced back to the moral slide that began well before this date.

At some date not far off, a state will ignore the negative press and execute the 1000th in the 29 years since the death penalty's reinstatement. But their name will be forever linked with that act by a public that cheapens the life of the innocent and lauds the acts of the guilty. A public that is calling good evil and evil good.

I personally wish that the death penalty could be done away with. I don't think it accomplishes what it was intended to accomplish. But my hope is that it is done away with in the legislature, NOT in the court of public opinion or in federal courts. And I hope (as a close family member of a victim of violent crime) that it is done in such a way as to satisfy the families of the victims that the perpetrator will never, EVER see the light of day again unless some evidence is produced to CONCLUSIVELY prove their innocence.