Is he dead yet?

Never let it be said that I can’t change my mind — because I think I’m in the midst of doing just that.

The issue — executions. More specifically, the question of whether executions should be public and in fact, televised. Not pay per view; just there, on free TV for everyone to see.

Literally, until today, I was a vociferous advocate of public executions. It didn’t matter. Do it in the village square or televise it. Why not? Be there to say good riddance!

After all, the criminal in question was responsible for a heinous crime against society. The criminal was arrested, charged, held, tried, convicted and sentenced. The criminal was given the legal means to appeal and finally, his time ran out. Just as time ran out for the hapless and innocent victims who suffered terrible and painful deaths.

My argument has always been that we have a right to see the end of the trail of blood. The crime is considered a violation of society’s rules for civilized living; society pays for the procedures of justice; society has a right to see the outcome of the exercise of the system.

What’s the big deal? Tune in any newscast and the cameras wallow in gore and wreckage. You want crashes? They’ve got ’em! Take your pick — on any given day — car, train, truck, bus, plane, helicopter and even space shuttle. Accidents? Of course. Falls, collapses, drownings, shootings, ODs, fires and more. Natural disasters? Wow! What pictures — hurricanes, floods, blizzards, tornadoes, forest fires. And of course, injured people involved in all of these and more.

People want to see wreckage — whether human or mechanical; man-made or natural and they want to see the human-interest side of it all. That’s journalism’s polite way of saying, audiences want to see broken people, hysterical people, angry people and, yes, injured and dead people. Why do you think live coverage of shoot-outs gets good ratings?

Interesting isn’t it, that we have no compunction about showing all that carnage in the news and we certainly have no hesitation in showing every possible human mutilation in “entertainment” venues — movies, TV, cable, videos, games.

So why is there such a hue and cry about executions? Of all of the carnage and destruction, an execution is the only one which is done with care and will make society safer. That criminal, at least, will never commit a crime again.

But there is a hue and cry against capital punishment in general and against having public executions. The issue has come up again with the enormous public concern in the case of Timothy McVeigh who is scheduled to be executed on May 16 in Terre Haute, Ind.

McVeigh stands convicted of the Oklahoma City Bombing. The massive destruction of the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building resulted in the death of 168 people, 19 of them children, and the injuring of some 500 others. It is a crime of such magnitude that requests by victims’ families to see the execution of McVeigh were granted by Attorney General John Ashcroft. Closed circuit television will handle it and the families will — what? Feel closure? Feel revenge? Feel glad to see the SOB dead? Probably all of those and more.

Interesting isn’t it that in this crime, it’s acceptable to want revenge. In any other case, anyone who wanted public execution of that particular misfit was berated for wanting revenge. What, if you kill enough people, revenge is OK? It gets a quantity discount? I’m sorry, that’s stupid. Either it’s OK or it isn’t. Even a single death can create a desire for revenge on the part of the victim’s family. Society does not practice revenge; it practices justice. Execution is a passive personal revenge.

McVeigh gave up his chance for clemency and wants his execution. He’s playing it for all it’s worth, though — just this week getting face-time on TV and in print with a letter claiming to have wanted to carry out hits against Janet Reno and others. There is a book out about him and his case, and a TV documentary is readying for release right after he breathes his last. And the pope has asked President Bush to grant clemency. I’m sick of McVeigh now, and he isn’t even dead yet.

Then I read that CBS’ Don Hewett, executive producer of “60 Minutes” (a man who knows how to get ratings), has changed his mind about televising the execution of McVeigh for the masses. He originally said he’d never consider it and said, “Over my dead body.”

But now, why not? “You put a guy on a gurney and stick a needle in his arm. People watch that on ER every week. What’s the big deal?” Hewett went on to say that the guy just goes to sleep and that it seems “pretty humane.”

Now that’s frightening. Think of it. A powerful television executive who ought to know better, equates make-believe medicine and deaths on a TV series with the real execution of a fiend who callously and cruelly killed one or more other human beings. In his mind, there’s no difference.

So maybe I will change my mind. Maybe public executions will make us more callous about crime and violence because, after all, it’s just TV. Isn’t it? We’ll see the man lie there and we’ll be told he’s dead. But he’ll look like he’s sleeping, and since we never knew him as a real, living person, his “death” has no more meaning than an actor in a western shoot-out.

Hey, I have a better idea: Let’s do have public executions, but let’s make them more realistic. A guillotine might be nice, or a firing squad, or the electric chair or the gas chamber. At least we’ll see a bit of suffering and we’ll know for sure he’s dead.

Couldn’t happen to a nicer guy.