Click for bigger picture
In 1999, when George W. Bush was governor of Texas and running for the presidency, he talked with reporter Tucker Carlson about Karla Faye Tucker, a convicted murderer whose execution Bush, as governor, had refused to stay. This is what Carlson wrote, as quoted in National Review:
In the week before [Karla Faye Tucker's] execution, Bush says, Bianca Jagger and a number of other protesters came to Austin to demand clemency for Tucker. "Did you meet with any of them?" I ask.
Bush whips around and stares at me. "No, I didn't meet with any of them," he snaps, as though I've just asked the dumbest, most offensive question ever posed. "I didn't meet with Larry King either when he came down for it. I watched his interview with [Tucker], though. He asked her real difficult questions, like 'What would you say to Governor Bush?' "
"What was her answer?" I wonder.
"Please," Bush whimpers, his lips pursed in mock desperation, "don't kill me."
Carson later looked up the transcript of Karla Faye Tucker's appearance on Larry King Live and found out that she never had asked the governor to stay the execution during that show.
Timothy Noah in Slate: Remembering Bush's worst public moment