President Bill Clinton should be glad Reuben "Hurricane" Carter is a gentle man. The President recently hosted an advance screening of "The Hurricane," the movie about Carter's 1966 conviction for a racial killing of two white men and a white woman. The boxer sat in a New Jersey prison for 17 years until he was released on appeal in 1985.

Neither Carter nor any of the former boxer's friends at the gathering were impolite enough to point out to the President the irony of this praise from the man who signed the Anti-Terrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act.

Had the law been in effect back in 1985, when Carter filed his habeas corpus appeal to the federal court, Hurricane would still be in jail today.

-- Dave Lindorff