1. United States
2. Va.
3. Letter

The White House's call to livestream the execution of the Fort Hood shooter is unacceptable. You must condemn it. Not only is this not who we are as a nation; it is unconstitutional. The last public execution in the United States was almost a century ago. Today, every state has prohibitions on public execution as does nearly every country in the world that we care to associate with. It is, by any definition, a cruel and unusual punishment. This is another desperate play from an administration facing the possibility of a brutal midterm. It's a callous attempt to throw some red meat to an increasingly isolated and disillusioned base in the hope of turning them out for the midterm. There will come a day when everyone will have always been against this. When it does, the eye of history will look back and judge how you acted in this moment. Choose wisely.