Right Wing Nut House

Jill Carroll released a statement through her employer, the Christian Science Monitor, that proves, as Jim Gerghaty says, the efficacy of editors:

During my last night in captivity, my captors forced me to participate in a propaganda video. They told me they would let me go if I cooperated. I was living in a threatening environment, under their control, and wanted to go home alive. I agreed.

Things that I was forced to say while captive are now being taken by some as an accurate reflection of my personal views. They are not. The people who kidnapped me and murdered Alan Enwiya are criminals, at best. They robbed Alan of his life and devastated his family. They put me, my family and my friends–and all those around the world, who have prayed so fervently for my release–through a horrific experience. I was, and remain, deeply angry with the people who did this.

I also gave a TV interview to the Iraqi Islamic Party shortly after my release. The party had promised me the interview would never be aired on television, and broke their word. At any rate, fearing retribution from my captors, I did not speak freely. Out of fear I said I wasn’t threatened. In fact, I was threatened many times.

Also, at least two false statements about me have been widely aired: That I refused to travel and cooperate with the US military and that I refused to discuss my captivity with US officials. Again, neither is true.

(HT: Michelle Malkin)

I will not name names nor link to bloggers who thought the worst of Miss Carroll. They and their readers know who they are and I trust they will be suitably chastised. And if they have an ounce of integrity, they will write a public apology.

But after the sack cloth has been worn and the ashes spread, it might be a good idea to step back and see what the hell is going on here.

The speed and ferocity with which people piled on Miss Carroll for not immediately disavowing her propaganda statement as well as her first statements to the press which seemed to give her brutal captors a pass reminded me of the jaw-dropping way the left pounced on the Administration in the immediate - and by immediate I mean that lefty bloggers were screaming “incompetence” less than 24 hours after hurricane winds had died down in New Orleans - aftermath of Katrina. The point isn’t to bash the left here but to highlight a problem with blogs that seems to be presenting itself with alarming regularity.

In people’s haste to be first, or different, or just plain ornery and contrary (all the better to get links and readers) a culture of “shoot first and ask questions later” has arisen in the blogosphere that quite frankly, is proving every bad thing that the MSM has been saying about blogs from the beginning. Many of us - including myself - have been guilty in the past of hitting that “Publish” button when perhaps it would have been prudent and proper to take a beat or two to think about what we just wrote and the impact it might have beyond the small little world we inhabit in this corner of Blogland.

Scalp hunting has become the national pastime of blogs. Both lefty and righty lodgepoles have some pretty impressive trophies hanging on them; Dan Rather, Mary Mapes (twice), Eason Jordon, Trent Lott, Ben Domenech, to name a few more noteworthy ones.

But is this what we are? Is this what we are becoming? Are we nothing more than a pack of digital yellow journalists writing pixelated scab sheets vying to see who we can lay low next? If this be the way to fame and fortune in the blogosphere, I truly fear that, like television, the last great technological breakthrough that promised to change the world, we will degenerate into a mindless, bottomless pit of muck and mudslinging, dragging down the culture and trivializing even the most important issues.

This is no idle concern that can be dismissed as the nature of the beast or the way of the world. This kind of thing has to be stopped, an admitted impossibility with 29 million blogs out there. Maybe it’s enough that we are aware of it and that people of good faith and good intentions will, in the end, marginalize the muckrakers and come out on top.

Don’t count on it.

Meanwhile, less than 24 hours after being released from a captivity in which she endured unspeakable fear and hardship for 87 long days, Jill Carroll was forced to come out and issue a press release stating the obvious; someone had a gun to her head threatening to kill her if she didn’t say nice things about the brutes who held her captive. The reason she was forced to issue the statement was largely a result of questions raised by the 24 hour news nets about her captivity - questions that originated on blogs. And in the ever more symbiotic relationship between the great, gaping maw that is cable news and the content rich medium of blogs that feeds the beast, questions raised if left unanswered fester like an open wound until an answer is forthcoming.

Jill Carroll was twice a victim - once of jihadist terrorists who kidnapped her and once of a culture that sought to exploit her tragedy to satisfy personal ambition and ego.

Shame on us all for allowing this to happen.

UPDATE

More Geraghty:

Permit me a Derbian moment of gloom. Carroll issues a coerced statement before she’s released, and some corners of the blogosphere erupt with a torrent of scathing hatred, declaring that Carroll “may as well just come right out and say she was a willing participant”, that she’s a “spoiled brat America-hater” and “she was anti-America when she went over there and I say the kidnapping was a put up deal from the get go.”

This is what we’ve got a blogosphere for? For these kind of (pardon my French) pissing contests? The citizenry around the globe has the greatest mass communications tool in the history of the world, and this is what it’s led to?

My question is what will the blogosphere look like 5 years from now? If things continue the way they are, we’ll be just another cog in the great mass communications bordeom killing machine, titillating and entertaining our readers with our own snarky takes on the dirt dished by the MSM while our blogs are festooned with ads for everything from cold cream to the latest super-absorbent manifestation of Depends.

So much for citizen-journalists…

UPDATE II

Ed Morrissey links here and makes a point that everyone - including me - seems to forget:

Finally, for those who blamed her for being in Iraq in the first place, let me remind you that we have continually harped on the media for being balcony reporters — for not getting outside of the Green Zone and trying to get the true stories of Iraq. Well, that’s what Jill Carroll tried to do, and she got unlucky enough to get kidnapped for her efforts. We need reporters to take those kind of chances, and we should have been more supportive of her all along. Now that she’s home, let’s hope we remember that with the next reporter unfortunate enough to find themselves the victim of violence and not victimize them a second time when they cooperate enough to be set free.

If you haven’t read this gut wrenching column by David Ignatius on how hard it is to cover the situation in Iraq, please do so. It reinforces what Ed was saying.

And Don Surber has chastised me in the comments for not linking to the bloggers who jumped on Jill Carroll so soon after her release.

As I explained to Mr. Surber in an email, I did not link because I did not want to start the petty back-and-forth between bloggers who criticize one another known as a “Blog War.” They’re silly. They’re a waste of time. And I had no intention of getting embroiled in one.

SEE UPDATE BELOW BEFORE READING

After first defending himself at RedState in what I will charitably call a curious fashion, Mr. Domenech has finally come clean and done the right thing:

I want to apologize to National Review Online, my friends and colleagues here at RedState, and to any others that have been affected over the past few days. I also want to apologize to my previous editors and writers whose work I used inappropriately and without attribution. There is no excuse for this - nor is there an excuse for any obfuscation in my earlier statement.

I hope that nothing I’ve done as a teenager or in my professional life will reflect badly on the movement and principles I believe in.

I’m deeply grateful for the love and encouragement of all those around me. And although I may not deserve such support, it makes it that much more humbling at a time like this. I’m a young man, and I hope that in time that I can earn a measure of the respect that you have given me.

I was unaware of Mr. Domenech’s enormous talent as a writer as evidenced in this piece he did for the New York Press:

I walked out of the bright Friday sun and into the Capitol Bldg.’s Document Entrance two hours before the gunman arrived. The back of my collar scratched sweat against my skin, and I loosened my tie in a vain effort to find relief from the sultry July heat. I remember nodding hello to the tall black policeman who was standing at the metal detector in front of the Document Entrance door. I don’t remember if he smiled back. From what friends tell me now, he usually did.

At 3:40 that July afternoon, Russell Weston Jr. stepped into the air conditioning of the Capitol Bldg. through that same door. He took five short steps across the tiles to where the officer on duty, 58-year-old J.J. Chestnut, was writing down directions for a group of tourists who had just finished the official tour. Weston raised his gun with speed and silence and put a .38-caliber bullet through the back of Chestnut’s head.

I don’t care whether you’re right wing, left wing, or a chicken wing, if you can’t recognize that the boy plays music with words there’s something wrong with you. And this makes his word thefts all the more mystifying. Plagiarism is the crime of hacks, those of little talent and an indolent nature whose imagination and vision are as limited as their intellectual acumen. When someone blessed with such obvious gifts gives in to temptation like Mr. Domenech now admits he did, there must be other reasons than simple laziness.

In the heart of every artist, there is a gnawing sense of inadequacy, a belief that at bottom, they are just not good enough to deserve the plaudits and encomiums they receive from their peers and the public. In one respect, this makes many artists insufferable louts as they seek to cover this inadequacy with bluster and braggadocio. But in a more uplifting aspect of this phenomena, it drives the artist to excel. Writing, being part artistic endeavor and part journeyman’s craft, opens itself to practitioners who exemplify the best of creativity while requiring the attitude of a bricklayer. Carefully laying down ideas in a logical and coherent fashion (if indeed that is the writer’s goal) can be a chore at times and it is this facet of the craft that can be irksome.

That irritation can lead to temptation, a desire to shortcut the process by not re-inventing the wheel. There is also the unwritten rule that a nice turn of the phrase or a play on words can be copied and pasted - a curious form of flattery of which I have been guilty in the past (use the site search here to look for references to “dirty necked galoots” which I first saw used by R. Emmett Tyrell). Put it all together and plagiarism becomes an easy trap to fall into unless one is firmly grounded with a strict moral sense and strong ethical standards.

Jeff Goldstein, who for some reason has recently come under attack by some pretty heavy hitters on the left for…well, being Goldstein, I guess, places the imbroglio in context:

Having met Ben last month, I can report that I found him to be a very bright, very articulate, very glib young man. He is also a very gifted writer. On the charges of plagiarism, I’ll accept Ben’s explanation—whatever it is—because I also found him to be quite a forthright gentleman, which means that I expect he will admit to any wrongdoing.

What is most distasteful about this episode from the perspective of the blogosphere, on the other hand, is the palpable glee with which many on the left set out after Ben and are now luxuriating in his resignation. And, of course, they have taught the WaPo the lesson they wished to teach it: that rightwing commentary will be scrutinized in direct inverse to the acceptance they give to the obvious biases of leftwing media figures.

There has been a concerted effort by the left in the past year to try and knock down the idea that there is a liberal bias in major media. In fact, liberals are attempting to portray the media as nothing more than a mouthpiece for the GOP and conservatives. They believe if they say “Rush Limbaugh” and “Fox News” often enough and loud enough, people will actually start believing that Chris Matthews is a conservative masquerading as former Chief of Staff to Democratic Speaker of the House Tip O’Neill or that Katie Couric is a closet Republican.

This from the Reality Based Community.

The furious reaction by left wing blogs to the very idea of a page on the Washington Post website devoted to conservatives represents a recognition by the left that their once total dominance of the flow of information (and hence the power to set the national agenda) is under serious challenge. And as Goldstein points out, the next conservative blogger hired by the Post better have a thick skin:

Because make no mistake: their entire schtick has become political theater—and often of the most hateful variety. In recent months, we’ve seen a ratcheting up of attempts to undermine the credibility of writers who don’t toe the progressive line (for my part, I’ve been called an idiot, a failed academic, a pill-popping hausfrau, untalented, uncreative, pretentious etc., etc.). But of course, it’s the right who engages in the “politics of personal destruction.” That’s just, well, an established given.

Ben Domenech is not Dan Rather; but no matter. The scalp is the thing. And the left has theirs today.

Which brings us to a double standard on the left so unfair, so obvious that one can easily question the personal integrity of people who perpetrate it, as Goldstein does here:

[T]hose on the left who have been braying all day over Ben’s downfall have two choices, as I see it: they can continue to gloat and carry around his scalp as a trophy to their own viciousness (they went after him for a host of other things, from his schooling to his family to his supposed “racism” before they got around to the plagiarism charge)—showing themselves to be the very fetishists of schadenfreude I accused them of being; or they can now explain to us why they don’t hold their own to the same ethical standards. Ben has owned up to his mistakes. He has, as I anticipated he would, taken that most difficult first step to rehabilitating his credibility. Now it’s time for other folks to do the same: Molly Ivins; Larry Tribe; Stephen Ambrose; Dan Rather; Jason Leopold; Joe Biden; Micah Wright; Ward Churchill; Eason Jordan; CNN’s agreement with Saddam’s Iraq; Joe Wilson; Steve Erlanger—we’re looking at you.

Surely, our principled guardians of publishing ethics could use their newfound momentum to prompt similarly intensive investigations into the ethical lapses of those mentioned above, yes? Or is it only conservatives who are to be publicly pilloried by the reality based community.

You know—because of the nuance.

Ever so slowly, the attack memes carefully knitted together by the left over the past 3 long years to form a devastating narrative that puts the President in the most evil, unflattering light are unravelling before our eyes. The Saddam documents promise to do what thousands of right wing bloggers could never do; change the tone and tenor of the debate over the Iraq War (and thus the President) by giving the lie to all of the myths, half-truths, exaggerations, and outright falsehoods perpetrated by hateful, spiteful, jealous liberals whose irritation at losing elections has reached the point that they will do anything and say anything, even to the point of bringing shame and humiliation to the United States, in order to achieve power.

Yes, they brought down a conservative blogger. But later this summer, as the revelations continue about not only Saddam but the conspiracy involving our erstwhile allies against our efforts at both the UN and on the battlefield in Iraq becomes more generally known, the decision by Democrats and the netroots to make the election about George W. Bush could very well seem in retrospect to be a blunder of monumental proportions.

UPDATE

My jaw is on the floor and I am royally pissed off.

After Anne informed me in the comments that the piece I linked to from the New York Press above was actually cribbed from an article from the Washington Post I initiated a search of lefty blogs and sure enough, Domenech had copied almost word for word a piece that appeared in the Post on July 26, 1998 on page one!

It appears that my praise for Mr. Domenech was given for a piece in which he had lifted large segments of someone else’s beautiful work and claimed it as his own.

I apologize to my readers for 1)implying that Ben Domenech has any proven talent, and 2) misleading them about the author of the piece I linked above.

Domenech has come far and fast in life. It is apparent that he took many shortcuts to reach the height from which he has now fallen. It is also apparent from reading RedState and Jeff Goldstein that he has many friends who care about him and will stand by him in his hour of trial. This is a good thing because judging by the sheer volume of work in which he has shamelessly stolen others ideas and words, he will never write professionally again. And anyone who would hire him as a writer is a fool.

BTW - as of 7:00 PM Central on Saturday night, the list of plagiarized cites at Daily Kos are 7 pages long in MS Word.

This just in from Post.Blog, Jim Brady’s site:

In the past 24 hours, we learned of allegations that Ben Domenech plagiarized material that appeared under his byline in various publications prior to washingtonpost.com contracting with him to write a blog that launched Tuesday.

An investigation into these allegations was ongoing, and in the interim, Domenech has resigned, effective immediately.

When we hired Domenech, we were not aware of any allegations that he had plagiarized any of his past writings. In any cases where allegations such as these are made, we will continue to investigate those charges thoroughly in order to maintain our journalistic integrity.

Brady tips his cap to lefty bloggers:

We appreciate the speed and thoroughness with which our readers and media outlets surfaced these allegations. Despite the turn this has taken, we believe this event, among other things, testifies to the positive and powerful role that the Internet can play in the the practice of journalism.

We also remain committed to representing a broad spectrum of ideas and ideologies in our Opinions area.

I certainly hope that last is true. More than most media outlets - including all the biggies - WaPo has made a concerted effort to integrate their news coverage with the new media on the web. I applaud their efforts to make conservatives “feel at home” at a news source that in the past has shown open hostility to conservative ideas and personalities.

That said, all this incident has done is further erode confidence in the press. Already ranked by the American people at the bottom of the list for trustworthiness (right there with the Congress) and suffering from a concentration of power at both the local and national levels, the media is in real danger of trailing off into irrelevancy. And that would be a disaster for our democracy.

This article originally appears in The American Thinker

It appeared to be the beginning of something new and exciting for the mainstream press. The Washington Post hires a conservative blogger ostensibly to give the view from the right on issues covered by the paper’s news department. The Post has proven itself innovative in other ways when it comes to the use of the web having recently included a Technorati listing of blogs covering specific articles. It has also increased its on-line content to include other blogs on culture and politics as well as extensive internet live chats with personalities from media, politics, and entertainment.

In fact, it was Dan Froomkin’s political blog White House Briefing that had conservatives calling for a blog to reflect the views of the right at the Post. The laughable bias of Mr. Froomkin contributed in no small way to the eventual decision by Executive Editor Jim Brady to hire Ben Domenech, founder of the blog RedState and at the tender age of 24, a seasoned political operative having worked at the White House and on Capitol Hill as a speech writer.

No sooner had Mr. Domenech gotten his feet wet than the attacks by the netnuts began. Apparently believing that the Washington Post was their exclusive preserve, a place where they hunt down and destroy conservatives not where they give them jobs, lefties went ballistic. The first attacks were for some pretty stupid things Domenech had said blogging at RedState as “Augustine” such as calling Coretta Scott King a communist the day after she died (for which he apologized) and making an ignorant remark about lower crime rates the result of a high number of abortions among blacks (although he didn’t put it quite as matter of factly as I just did). He tried to explain away the remark by claiming he was only quoting pro-life Pastor Neuhaus who was disgusted with using such “evidence” to support abortion. A pretty lame explanation but understandable if not acceptable.

There is not a blogger on this planet who has not written something and then regretted hitting the “publish” button. The immediacy and speed with which blogs cover and comment on issues sometimes leads to writing stupid, emotional posts full of ad-hominem attacks and vituperative digressions from the facts. I’d hate to think what someone doing a hit piece on me would find when I was venting against the latest outrage from the MSM or some idiot lefty.

So Domenech can be excused - barely - for what he has written in haste or otherwise on his blog. Chalk it up to the nature of the beast and forgive him for writing without thinking.

But what simply cannot be tolerated in any venue where the written word is revered and opinions respected is plagiarism. And according to material dug up by several lefty bloggers, the shocking fact is that Domenech is a word stealer of epic proportions, someone who has lifted entire articles from other sources and claimed the words and ideas as his own.

The issue of why the Washington Post couldn’t have found this out before hiring Mr. Domenech is another question entirely and will not be dealt with here. Suffice it to say that this incident along with recent stupidities at the New York Times regarding a fake hurricane victim and a bogus Abu Ghraib poster boy shows how lazy the media has gotten about fact checking.

Writing, being a combination of art and craft, is an extraordinarily personal way to express oneself. So when a plagiarizer lifts entire paragraphs containing ideas that are not his own, he in effect, takes a little of the writer along with the words. It is a personal affront to the originator of those ideas as well as being acts of selfishness and dishonesty.

The plagiarism of Mr. Domenech cannot be chalked up to youthful indiscretion nor to some kind of unconscious parroting of something he read before putting words to paper. The examples unearthed so far - and bloggers are finding more examples almost by the hour - are so clearly copied verbatim from other sources as to constitute an unusually good case for plagiarism against Mr. Domenech. Most plagiarizers will subtly change the wording of what they intend to copy so as to disguise their crime. Mr. Domenech didn’t even take the time and effort to do that. Here is just one example, a review of the film Final Fantasy that appeared in the National Review Online:

Ben Domenech in National Review Online in July of 2001:

“Translucent and glowing, they ooze up from the ground and float through solid walls, wriggling countless tentacles and snapping their jaws. They’re known as the Phantoms, alien thingies that, for three decades, have been sucking the life out of the earthlings of “Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within.” Swollen nightmares from a petri dish, they’re the kind of grotesque whatsits horror writer H.P. Lovecraft would have kept as pets in his basement.”

Steve Murray (Cox News):

“Translucent and glowing, they ooze up from the ground and float through solid walls, splaying their tentacles and snapping their jaws, dripping a discomfiting acidic ooze. They’re known as the Phantoms, otherworldly beings who, for three decades, have been literally sucking the life out of the earthlings of the human.”

There is beauty in the imagery evoked by Mr. Murray’s description - a juxtapostion of words that are pleasing when listened to by our inner voice as well as exciting to our imagination when conjuring up a picture drawn with such clarity.

For Mr. Domenech to steal those words and ideas is like slapping Mr. Murray in the face and laughing at the same time. For at bottom, the plagiarizer fully realizes what he is doing and thinks he is being clever by getting away with it. This is not a case where some graduate assistant helping with research on a book for some famous academic lifts entire passages from someone else’s thesis or an obscure article in an scholarly journal as has happened in recent years with several historians. This is a case where Mr. Domenech was using the platform provided by NRO to advance his own career and pad his credentials, the result being he was shortly thereafter hired by the White House as a speech writer.

Dan Reihl is a conservative blogger who gives voice to sentiments that should be echoed by conservative writers across the country:

No one with a healthy respect for original ideas, or the written words of others could do what it seems Domenech has done. If he’s guilty, his judgment displays a profound lack of moral and ethical grounding. Ambition is no excuse for theft. And that’s precisely what plagiarism is.

I’m assuming the WaPo will act, if it hasn’t already. If guilty, allowing him to continue representing the Right would be terribly wrong.

If we conservatives have any claims to promoting honesty and decency, there will be more calls on the right for Mr. Domenech to do the honorable thing and save himself and his employer the embarrassment of being fired by resigning immediately. Little can be gained from his continuing to blog at the Washington Post as I for one never plan on linking to anything he writes and would hope that other conservatives would join me in such a boycott.

Ben Domenech is not the kind of writer we want representing the conservative viewpoint at the Washington Post or anywhere else. With so many eloquent and able conservative writers, I’m sure the Post will have no problem finding someone else to take over a blog that should be espousing honesty and decency as the principles by which we on the right live by.

Anything short of that just won’t do.

UPDATE

The Political Pit Bull has the best round-up - right or left - of the plagiarism issue. Patterico has some more thoughts here including a personal experience he had with a plagiarizer.

I can’t help but thinking that with these and other conservative bloggers already weighing in on this matter -coming out four square against Domenech’s plagiarism - it would be an interesting thought experiment to think of what kind of reaction lefty bloggers would have if one of their own was accused of something similar. Given the left’s penchant to close ranks for the likes of Joe Wilson (a proven liar) and Bill Clinton, I daresay that there would be nary a peep from the netnuts if the shoe were on the other foot in this case.

John Cole defends Mr. Domenech from the charges of racism (because he called a black person a communist?) as well as other blathering charges from the left. In a comment in the same post, Cole gives his views on the plagiarism issue.

UPDATE II

Michelle Malkin, for whom Mr. Domenech was an editor on her last book, weighs in:

As someone who has worked in daily journalism for 14 years, I have a lot of experience related to this horrible situation: I’ve had my work plagiarized by shameless word and idea thiefs many times over the years. I’ve also been baselessly accused of plagiarism by some of the same leftists now attacking Ben.

The bottom line is: I know it when I see it. And, painfully, Domenech’s detractors, are right. He should own up to it and step down. Then, the Left should cease its sick gloating and leave him and his family alone.

And James Joyner has a thoughtful defense of Domenech here:

I am not ready to toss Domenech under the proverbial bus or call for his firing at the moment. There may, indeed, be perfectly reasonable explanations for these charges. But while Erickson is probably right that “Facts have never been debate winners among the haters,” they should damned well be debate winners among the rest of us. Let alone, I should add, the side that so loudly heralds traditional virtues like honor.

Ordinarily I would agree with Mr. Joyner. However, the examples of Mr. Domenech’s plagiarism ferreted out so far are so egregious, so obvious that the only possible “reasonable explanation” is that either Mr. Domenech’s work is being copied by people like P.J. O’Rourke or Mr. Domenech has been caught red-handed.

So the Abu Ghraib poster boy turns out to be a ringer. And the New York Times in its eagerness to bash the war and the Bush Administration falls for the guy’s carny act hook, line, and sinker and then tries to blame the Administration anyway for not warning them off the story. Of course, that kind of whining brings to mind the efforts of Scooter Libby and Karl Rove in trying to warn the Times and other news organs off the Joe Wilson fantasy. We know how that turned out, don’t we?

But in the end, after giving the New York Times its just helping of crow, what do we have? Is the Abu Ghraib incident and dozens others like it going to disappear into the sort of “non-history” that the left has become famous for? Are we going to pretend they didn’t happen?

The US Army has investigated more than 400 torture allegations. As of today, 24 US military men and women have been convicted of abusing their captives with investigations on going that could up that number considerably. We’re not talking about ACLU fantasies here. These are cases discovered by the military and being investigated by the FBI and military police.

Andrew Sullivan, over the top and hysterical as always, nevertheless makes some salient points:

To recap: we have a president who for the first time decrees that torture and abuse is legal in the U.S. military if “military necessity” allows it; we have White House memos saying that anything short of death and major organ failure cannot be categorized as “torture”; we have “cruel, inhuman and degrading conduct” at Gitmo, conduct that is subsequently declared within military guidelines; we have the head of, in John Podhoretz’s phrase, the “excesses at Gitmo” assigned to Abu Ghraib to “Gitmoize” it; we have an outbreak across every theater of war of brutal torture and abuse practices; and we have what is a clear directive from Washington to get better intelligence on the insurgency - and fast. We now have much clearer evidence of an elite, secret unit setting up what can only be called a torture camp, and no one in authority seems able to put an end to it.

A couple of things about that rant that should be corrected for the record:

* The memos Sullivan refers to were exploratory in nature and most of the recommendations - including the definition what constituted torture - were not adapted.

* The “cruel, inhuman and degrading conduct” at Gitmo occurred after the Commander who set up the successful interrogation program at the camp was transferred to Abu Ghraib. In fact, General Geoffrey Miller set up what many consider the most professional interrogation regime in American military history at Guantanamo. It employed “stress techniques” that are recognized around the world as legitimate means to acquire information from military prisoners.

As for the rest, the fact is that there have been 21 cases classified as “homicides” at American detention centers - most of which are still under investigation - as well as the hundreds of reports of routine beatings and other out of bounds actions by interrogators shows that a culture was created where guards and interrogators believed they had leeway to mistreat prisoners.

Sully hits the nail on the head when he lays the blame for the torture directly at the feet of the civilian leadership. Once the insurgency got rolling in Iraq, pressure was applied by the Pentagon to elicit more and more information from prisoners. And with a limited supply of professional interrogators - men and women highly trained to use the stress techniques of physical discomfort in conjunction with psychological pressures - local commanders were forced to rely on less qualified personnel with predictable results; Abu Ghraib and numerous other examples of brutal treatment.

With word that the same unit in charge of interrogations at Abu Ghraib was simply moved down the road and allowed to set up camp elsewhere where they continued to abuse prisoners, we have at the very least the prospect that high ranking members of the military not only approved interrogation techniques totally at odds with the standards set forth in our own military code but also in violation of the Geneva Convention - a standard that President Bush said we should follow in our treatment of prisoners.

I am not one to believe every allegation of mistreatment spouted by lawyers for detainees nor am I inclined to hold military interrogators to standards that we don’t even hold our own police departments to as the ACLU would have it.

But we have to face up to this mess: Torture is being carried out as a matter of military routine and it must stop. This can only happen when we start prosecuting up the chain of command and hold responsible commanders who either look the other way or actually give orders allowing physical brutality.

It may be satisfying to pile on the New York Times for their cluelessness and partisan stupidity. But pointing out the Times’ foibles will not make the issue of prisoner mistreatment go way nor will it redeem our military. Only the application of sensible guidelines on prisoner interrogation and the swift punishment of transgressors can do that.

IMPORTANT UPDATE AT BOTTOM OF PAGE

The wheels of justice can grind the victims of crime to powder almost as easily as the criminal. And once they start moving, they can be a fearsome thing to behold.

There is no more emotionally wrenching ordeal for the victim of a crime than having to testify against a criminal who has physically violated them. By being forced to relive the attack, all of the fear and psychic pain caused during the ordeal is brought to the surface and the process of victimization reaches perhaps it zenith as memories of the violation are recounted in excruciating detail.

For the victim of rape, the experience is not only painful, but usually embarrassing as well. We are told by psychiatrists that the rape victim is full of self loathing as well as fear, humiliation, anger, guilt/shame and feelings of degradation and powerlessness. By being forced to relive details of the rape in open court, the woman also is forced to relive the actual event - all the sensations and feelings she experienced during the attack are resurrected in all their horrifying detail.

Is it any wonder that so many rapes go unreported?

But the justice system is based on the Constitution. And the Constitution gives the accused the absolute right to face their accuser. With lawyers taking an oath to do their utmost to defend their client, the adversarial process almost guarantees that the defense in rape cases will seek to “blame the victim” for the attack. There really is little else a defense lawyer can do in many cases. The law has changed over the years so that some things like the victims past sexual history and other factors cannot be brought up during the trial. But that is usually cold comfort to the victim of a rape who must endure the assault of a defense attorney who seeks to make it appear that the attack was in fact consensual sex.

In Illinois, a woman has been told by a judge that she must answer a defense lawyer’s questions while watching a videotape of her own rape or face jail for contempt:

The woman was 16 years old when she allegedly was assaulted and videotaped four years ago at a party in the Burr Ridge home of Adrian Missbrenner, 20. He was one of four men charged in connection with the incident, and his trial on charges of aggravated criminal sexual assault and child pornography began Tuesday in Cook County Circuit Court in Bridgeview. He faces 6 to 30 years in prison if convicted.

The woman answered questions from prosecution and defense attorneys for about an hour. But when Missbrenner’s attorney, Patrick Campanelli, placed a video monitor in front of her and said he was going to play segments of the 20-minute videotape as he questioned her, she stated emphatically “I don’t want to see it.”

After the judge warned the woman that she was expected to testify Wednesday, Campanelli quickly asked that the criminal case against Missbrenner be dismissed.

“Your honor, my client has a constitutional right to confrontation of a witness,” he said.

Assistant State’s Atty. Michael Deno argued against dismissal. “This witness has testified to every other question, and she has testified that she doesn’t have any recollection or memory of the videotape incident at all,” he said.

The judge has refused to rule on the motion to dismiss until today when he will once again ask the woman to view the tape while the defense attorney peppers her with questions. The defense contends that the sex was consensual despite the fact that she appears to be unconscious during the attack.

Three other men have been charged in connection with the case. One was acquitted, while another pled guilty to making the tape itself and was sentenced to boot camp for child pornography. One other man fled the country and has not returned.

One might question whether it is necessary for the tape to be shown to the woman who has refused to view it in the past. Chicago columnist Eric Zorn points out the obvious:

Defense attorneys argue that the tape impeaches the woman’s account.

And that may be. I certainly haven’t seen it.

But surely it speaks for itself. Surely the jury in the case can compare what they see on the tape to the woman’s testimony and decide for themselves if she consented to having sex.

Surely, surely nothing can justify re-traumatizing — re-victimizing, if you will — this woman on the grounds that the defendant has the right to “confront” his accuser.

She accuses him of nothing during the time the videotape was shot. She says she has no memory of that time whatsoever. If the jury in the Bridgeview courthouse thinks she’s lying when she says she can’t answer questions about it, let them come to that conclusion and rule accordingly.

Zorn downplays the notion that the tape may be exculpatory which could be true. The fact that the defense feels it necessary means that in our system, there would have to be a pretty good reason for the accused to be denied the opportunity to confront the witness with the evidence.

As horrifying as this ordeal is for the woman, this is how the system works (or continues to victimize depending on your point of view). We make it hard to convict someone of rape because of of the possibility that the victim isn’t a victim at all but a spurned lover or a regretful one. Here’s the defense attorney:

Campanelli argued that the sex was consensual.

“One-night stands happen all the time, and in the morning you regret it,” he said, adding that he thinks the witness’ answers to questions while viewing the videotape would “strongly help Adrian’s case.”

[...]

Campanelli said Missbrenner was concerned the girl was going to claim that the sex was not consensual so he gave the tape to the friend to save, if needed, to support his claim.

Reading a newspaper account of this outrages us. We feel for the victim and have nothing but contempt for the defense attorney. But do we have all the facts? Do we know what the defense attorney is going to point to on that tape that may place reasonable doubt in the minds of the jury when they see the woman’s response?

We don’t know which is why sensational stories like this should be viewed in context.

One thing we know for sure; the story will make it less likely that more women will come forward and report attacks which means that rapists will be free to rape again. Until some solution in the law is found that will protect the victim while allowing the accused a fair trial with an impartial judge and a determination made by a jury of his peers based on evidence fairly presented - including the right of the accused to confront all of his accusers - we will continue to be outraged by forcing victims to relive their worst nightmares.

UPDATE

Shakespear’s Sister is outraged:

This is just utter bulls**t. If the woman has testified she doesn’t remember anything about the incident, then the video should be allowed to speak for itself—whether that hurts her or helps her. Why is the case predicated on her willingness to relive her attack and be asked questions about it she can’t possibly answer in front of a courtroom full of people? And, more importantly, why is she being threatened by having charges against the defendant dismissed and being put in jail herself if she doesn’t watch the tape? Does her reluctance to watch the tape somehow change what’s actually on the tape? If the tape shows men having sex with her while she’s unconscious, spitting on her, and writing on her body, her impressions of the tape matter a hell of a lot less than the jury’s.

Good points. I would like to point out that not knowing what exactly the videotape shows, the victim’s contention that she doesn’t remember anything cannot be verified. And I suppose that’s the reason why the judge might - might - feel it necessary for her to view it while the defense is questioning her.

Would the defense be hamstrung if they were only allowed to show the video to the jury without being able to question the victim about its specifics? The judge must think so which is why one must conclude either the judge is acting improperly or the law stinks.

I wouldn’t be surprised in the end if it turned out to be a little of both.

And Scott Lemieaux weighs in with some definitive legal opinions:

Sixth Amendment rights are not absolute–defendants are legally prevented from presenting types of evidence in any number of ways. While it is in the self-interest of the defense to grasp at every conceivable straw, it’s the judge’s role to consider the other rights and interests at stake as well. And in this case, I just can’t agree that the balance of interests is even particularly close. The defense has been allowed to confront the witness–the only question is the very narrow one of whether she should be compelled to watch the tape, and I just can’t see what value this would have that would outweigh the obvious intention to intimidate the victim.

Okay then. It may not even be a close call in which case the judge is a cretin and the defense attorney, scum. That is, unless there are factors that Scott is not privy to from a newspaper story, something that is possible but perhaps not likely.

UPDATE II: JUDGE RELENTS

The judge in the case relented today and agreed that the rape victim would not have to view the videotape:

After a brief hearing on the issue in the Bridgeview branch of Cook County Circuit Court, Judge Kerry Kennedy backed off the threat he made Tuesday to jail the woman if she continued to refuse to watch the tape.

With little elaboration, Kennedy agreed with prosecutors’ arguments that the Constitution grants special treatment to rape victims.

Before making his decision, the judge today asked the woman, visibly shaken, if she would view the video. She declined, as she had Tuesday, the first day of testimony in the jury trial of the 20-year-old Burr Ridge man charged in the crime. Today, however, Kennedy acquiesced.

“I am not going to force her to watch the video during cross-examination,” Kennedy said. “I don’t believe Adrian Missbrenner’s case is being injured.”

Was the judge influenced by the outpouring of rage and disgust against him?

If he was, it wouldn’t be surprising but at the same time, it would be troubling. The law must be beyond anything that the “passions of the people” can influence. I realize the judge is only human and that he is basing his decision on solid legal principles. But one wonders what would have happened if this story had remained buried.

What happens to a society when it makes a conscious, reasoned choice that some of its members - the weakest and least able to defend themselves - don’t deserve to live?

In the classical western societies of Greece and Rome, it was considered the duty of parents to kill their own children if they were considered too weak or sickly to contribute. While we would consider this barbaric today (would we?), the reasons were sound. A deformed or sickly child would be a drain on scarce resources that would be better used to keep the rest of the family alive.

The only thing worse that I could imagine a parent having to go through than murdering their own child would be if the State, against their most devout wishes, did the job for them:

The parents of Charlotte Wyatt have been told that doctors are to be allowed to let their profoundly ill baby daughter die if they feel it is in her best interests. A High Court judge yesterday lifted a previous ruling that she should always be resuscitated, on the grounds that the two-year-old was now on a “downward rather than an upward trend”.

Mr Justice Hedley heard an emergency application from doctors treating her that she had developed an aggressive chest infection and was unlikely to survive any moves to keep her alive.

“Medical evidence speaks with one voice, that ventilation simply will not achieve the end for which no doubt the parents would wish,” he said. Charlotte’s condition was said to be “deteriorating” last night. Her mother, Debbie, 24, from Portsmouth, still believes that if her daughter were ventilated she would recover.

But Mr Justice Hedley said there had been a “very significant deterioration in Charlotte’s condition”. It is the fifth time he has had to make a ruling about Charlotte’s treatment.

Doctors at St Mary’s Hospital, Portsmouth, had previously argued that her life was so intolerable that if her condition worsened they should be allowed to withhold treatment. Charlotte suffers from severe lung, brain and kidney damage. But her condition improved so much that last October the judge removed a ruling allowing doctors to let her die.

(HT: Michelle Malkin)

Her condition improved to the point last October that she was able to go home for a couple of weeks and live with her parents without any assistance from medical personnel. The child then developed a chest cold and has been re-hospitalized, a place where parents would normally expect doctors to act as healers and not Angels of Death.

But this is 21st century Europe. And the socialized medical systems that look upon humans as numbers on a chart rather than living, breathing, laughing, cuddling, thinking beings simply can’t tolerate an individual hogging more than their fair share of medical resources to stay alive. Best put the beast down, pat the parents on the head, and tell them to run along and not bother them with their silly notions of parental love and responsibility.

Welcome to the Brave New World.

I wish I could say I was surprised by this kind of thing but ever since it was revealed a year ago that Doctors in Holland had developed procedures for terminating the lives of infants who they considered unworthy of expending the time and resources in trying to save, this kind of outrage is simply the next logical step in the dehumanization of society’s fringe players, those who the godlike purveyors of medical wisdom have determined would be better off dead.

John Hinderaker’s words written at the time the Groningen story broke still haunt me:

“For most of my life, I thought that philosophers could generate intellectual systems, independent of religious belief, that would, on a strictly rational basis, reproduce all of the essentials of the 20th century system that has worked well for this country. I no longer believe that to be the case. It seems appallingly clear, now, that the secular path—the road that has been taken by the Netherlands and almost all of western Europe—leads inexorably to the view that men and women are cattle, and the only reasonable approach is to appoint a committee of wise men to decide when it is time for them to die.”

In actuality, the Groningen Protocols as they became known, were not a set of guidelines designed to help in the decision making process to end an infants life. The Protocols were written to keep doctors out of jail. They were developed by lawyers so that doctors could stay one step ahead of the prosecutor in cases where children up to 12 years old were determined (in consultation with parents) to be either “incurable” or whose “quality of life” was such that they didn’t deserve to live.

Not that there would be much chance of a doctor anywhere in the socialized health care paradise of Europe being clapped in irons for not wasting medical resources on marginal, helpless human beings. It used to be that doctors were lionized for saving lives. Now they’re feted for saving money.

Those of us who argued during what became the Terri Schiavo circus that we were witnessing a “slippery slope” where against the wishes of a loved one, a human life could be terminated were called all sorts of names by those on the other side. “Hysterics” and “religious nuts” were two of the milder epithets directed against those of us who saw the fight to save Terri as a fight to preserve the dignity and value of all human life. Since then, I have come to see many arguments made by those on the other side as heartfelt and sincere as mine.

However, in the end, I thought that their biggest blind spot was in the probablity that it was a short step from Terri’s situation to what we are witnessing in Britain right now; the efforts by the medical community to take it upon themselves to decide - against the heartfelt wishes of a loving parent - to terminate the life of someone who, while gravely ill, nevertheless has battled courageously, clinging to life against all the odds.

The fact that many two year olds would have succumbed already is proof that whatever spark of humanity in this child, whatever level of awareness, whatever glimmer of understanding exists in the damaged brain of this little girl, it is directed toward a fierce, unbending determination to live. For that reason alone, she deserves every opportunity to do so.

My friend Raven, a medical professional who works with the profoundly disabled, is someone I always turn to on issues like this. Raven’s practical experience in dealing with all the end-of-life issues raised by Charlotte’s case as well as others gives her a special kind of authority that demands our attention. Commenting on remarks written by Charlotte’s mother (she has a website here) about what she’s been told by the doctors, Raven cuts to the heart of the matter:

Have to be allowed to die”- what a statement. Is this humane? Has this child asked to be “allowed” to die? Disabled children get sick more often than non-disabled, but that is not an excuse for state sanctioned murder. I have to wonder, as I always do, is this more about the costs associated with “maintaining” a life that so many deem not worthy of living.

[...]

Society should be ashamed. Ashamed that this barbaric policy is considered progressive.

I challenge everyone to go visit a child who has disabilites. Visit for awhile and tell me: Does this human being need to die? Is this human being’s life SO bad, so awful, that we must end this life? Are we so sure we KNOW what a quality life is that we can determine that another human has to die? Or should die? I’ve worked with thousands of these kids and I can say, without any hesitation, that every single child had a life worth living; they laugh, they smile, they cry, they touch, they communicate (not always with a voice, but they communicate). They learn to compensate for their disabilities and it’s amazing to watch how they manage. Often these kids grow up to be so much stronger, emotionally, than any of us could ever hope to be. And they don’t live with horrid pain and discomfort. THAT is such a LIE. And every doctor knows it. Charlotte deserves to live.

Read Raven’s entire article. She has, without a doubt, the most unique perspective on these issues I’ve seen.

How have we reached the point where a case like Charlotte’s is possible? Here are some thoughts I had on the Groningen Protocols and how it is only going to get easier to throw away human beings as if they were worthless bags of bones:

If the purpose of these protocols is mainly to keep doctors who practice euthanasia out of jail, who then speaks for the little ones? Who would stand up to a parent and say “There’s no reason to euthanize your child, the condition is treatable. Yes, it will cause problems and inconvenience in your life but this is what you signed on for when you decided to become a parent.”

But don’t worry, it’ll be easier next time. And the next. Until there are so many “special cases” and “unique situations” that it will be difficult to differentiate between killing for mercy and killing for convenience. In the end, it doesn’t matter much does it? The people affected are just as dead.

I am open to opposing views on this case. I really would like someone to tell me that I’m being hysterical by talking about “slippery slopes.” I really hope someone can explain why what is happening to Charlotte is a good and necessary thing.

Maybe after telling me, you could look Charlotte’s mother in the eye and tell her the same thing.

IMPORTANT UPDATE AT THE BOTTOM OF THIS POST

It’s enough to tax the patience of Job. I swear that being a Republican and a Bush supporter is getting harder almost by the day. Unless one is a blind, robotic partisan, this has got to trouble you:

The more than 18-hour delay in news emerging that the Vice President of the United States had shot a man, sending him to an intensive care unit with his wounds, grew even more curious late Sunday. E&P has learned that the official confirmation of the shooting came about only after a local reporter in Corpus Christi, Texas, received a tip from the owner of the property where the shooting occurred and called Vice President Cheney’s office for confirmation.

The confirmation was made but there was no indication whether the Vice President’s office, the White House, or anyone else intended to announce the shooting if the reporter, Jaime Powell of the Corpus Christ Caller-Times, had not received word from the ranch owner.

One of Powell’s colleagues at paper, Beth Francesco, told E&P that Powell had built up a strong source relationship with the prominent ranch owner, Katharine Armstrong, which led to the tip. Powell is chief political reporter for the paper and also covers the area where the ranch is located south of Sarita.

Armstrong called the paper Sunday morning looking for Powell, who was not at work. When they did talk, Armstrong revealed the shooting of prominent Austin attorney Harry Whittington, who is now in stable condition in a hospital. Powell then called Cheney’s office for the confirmation around midday. The newspaper broke the story at mid-afternoon–not a word about it had appeared before then.

Secrecy about the NSA intercept program? Understandable. Secrecy about the Vice President of the United States accidentally shooting someone and putting them into intensive care? Un.Conscienable.

And please don’t insult my intelligence by trying to make any other excuse than it was politically expedient to withhold the information. In fact, one wonders if the fortuitous set of circumstances had not unfolded as above whether or not the public would ever have found out about the incident.

This Administration’s mania for secrecy is getting on my nerves. There’s just no other way to describe it. I’m not talking about secrecy relating to national security matters. I’m talking about things like holding back documents requested by Congress looking into the Katrina mess. I’m talking about withholding corrected census information from Congress, forcing the legislators to go to court in order to do the people’s business. And these are but two examples. There are some - liberals to be sure - who believe the very concept of “open government” is at risk under this Administration.

Secrecy is corrosive. There is a reason why we have “sunshine laws” and the “Freedom of Information Act.” As recently as 30 years ago, many Congressional hearings were held in camera with no press, no public, and thus no accountability. And the Executive Branch of government was shrouded in secrecy with many of its deliberations completely off limits to Congress.

Now clearly there is a both a body of law and tradition that argues for some kind of executive privilege. But reforms that were instituted following the Watergate affair designed to open government and shine a light on its workings have steadily eroded in the intervening quarter century by both Republicans and Bill Clinton. The fact is, open government is a nuisance, an inconvenience to lawmakers and Presidents alike. But with this Administration, their efforts seem to have gone beyond eating at the edges of the law and have in fact, been directed at gutting the very concept of open government.

But hadn’t the pendulum toward “open government” swung too far in one direction and is the Bush Administration now simply bringing it back into line?

This is certainly true as it relates to national security matters. You simply cannot have the same culture of open government in a time of war than you can or should have during a time of peace. Anyone who argues differently probably doesn’t think we’re at war in the first place.

But there is absolutely no denying the fact that this Administration’s penchant for secrecy has gone far beyond the national security arena and has entered areas where the only excuse for maintaining control of information is domestic political concerns.

One can understand the Administration’s political concerns where a hostile press and maniacal political opposition is concerned. But there are times when the only honorable recourse is to take your political lumps and move on. Political calculations that inhibit the public’s legitimate right to know interfere with the people’s business and engender a feeling of distrust that is unhealthy in a democracy.

Back in 2002, Democrat Henry Waxman was joined by several Republicans on the Committee on Government Reform in asking that the President’s Executive Order that placed Presidential documents off limits to historians and others be rescinded.To this day, that Executive Order stands. If someone could tell me how this contributes to preserving the national security of the United States, I’m all ears. Instead, it is just one more example of needless - some would say reckless - disregard by this Administration for the very idea of “open government.”

Perhaps this Cheney incident will start a debate about secrecy in government and this Administration in general. I would welcome such a debate - if the tin foil hat crowd would stay out of it. Unfortunately, as with most political back and forth these days, the left will make sure to pile on for their own political reasons, blind and oblivious to the damage they do to civil discourse and our republic.

UPDATE

The virulence with which my readers have taken me to task over this post requires a response.

First, there is no “conspiracy” at work here. There isn’t even a “cover-up” although if the story had never come out I’m sure the Administration would have been pleased as punch. This is a simple matter of the Administration withholding bad news to lessen political damage, a stupid, clumsy move given the reaction in the press that any intern in the press office could have told them would occur.

I am amazed that many of you do not see why this was not only idiotic, but wrong. To allow political calculation (the probability of negative press) to override the need to to be absolutely transparent on something like this where, if the Vice President was any other American, would have necessitated an investigation by the police is not in keeping with the idea of open government, something that most of my post was on and that none of my worst critics bothered to mention.

I understand that we are at war. I understand the need for secrecy in national security matters. I even can understand and sympathize with the Administration in not allowing the loony left and the media in their unreasoning hatred of all things Bush to take information and turn it into political hand grenades to toss into the Oval Office in an attempt to “get” the President.

But you must understand the cost of this secrecy - less accountability, less openness, and in the end, less democratic government.

Because what is democratic government in the end but free people making decisions that are best for themselves, their communities and their nation? And doesn’t it just seem logical that in order to make those decisions that we have as much information as humanly possible?

This was the idea behind the open government reforms of the 1970’s. As conservatives we should welcome the opportunity to have transparency in government. Simply put, without it, we are less free.

I could have done without the name calling and insults. I’ve come to expect better than that from most of the commenters on this site.

RM

The scene is becoming painfully familiar. At what used to be considered the most inappropriate times imaginable, the left has chosen solemn public occasions to vent their hatred and disgust at Republicans, conservatives, and even the President himself. And while there is something to be said for freedom of speech on any and all occasions, one can certainly question whether or not funerals and national tragedies like Hurricane Katrina are fit circumstances to engage in the kind of rancorous, partisan speechifying that have marked the funerals of Minnesota Senator Paul Wellstone, Corretta Scott King, and the immediate aftermath of the destruction of the Gulf Coast.

The way in which one determines appropriate and inappropriate behavior in society has been evolving for more than 500 years. In a very large way, democratic society cannot function without an agreed upon set of manners and behaviors that grease the wheels of discourse and allow for differences of opinion that, in earlier times, would have led to physical combat. Good manners and civility then are not just artificial social constructs which dictate suitable public conduct, but necessary components that make up the nuts and bolts of democratic government, as important as a written constitution to the smooth functioning of our republic.

In order for these constructs to have meaning, all must accept them. But judging by what we have seen from the left in recent years, it appears that this necessary compact regarding civil discourse has been broken and behaviors that previously were considered out of bounds have now become a staple of their unreasoning and pathological hatred of their political opponents.

Just a few days prior to the 2002 midterm elections, a memorial service was held for Senator Paul Wellstone, tragically killed in a plane crash. The service was attended by 15,000 people including nearly half of the United States Senate, several House members, and other local Republican dignitaries. One who was not there was Vice President Dick Cheney who had announced that he would participate but had been rudely disinvited. This sign of extraordinary disrespect to the office of Vice President was an omen for what followed. For what should have been an event that commemorated the life of someone who by all accounts was a good and decent man turned into a partisan slugfest by Democratic speakers who brought the cheering crowd to its feet several times with partisan attacks on Republicans.

It was a shocking display of inappropriate behavior. In addition to cheering wildly at the speeches, the crowd booed lustily when recognizable Republicans like Senator Trent Lott (then the Majority Leader) were introduced. CNN and other TV outlets later explained that they felt they couldn’t cut away from what had become a campaign rally because it was a “memorial service.”

One could make the argument that since the election was literally hours away, such a display was inevitable. I totally reject that notion based on the idea of simple, common decency. Republicans who were also friends of the late Senator had come to pay their respects and were instead used as props in a political passion play, targets to be struck again and again by partisan attacks by Democratic speakers . How can anyone claim that using someone - even a political opponent - in this way was fitting behavior during a funeral?

For the left, good manners and deporting oneself with a minimum of courtesy and respect has no meaning in a political context. Since the 1960’s, it has become more important to “speak truth to power” than maintain even a semblance of decency in conducting political discourse. This has allowed the left to justify shouting down political opponents while claiming to be exercising free speech, an ironic contrivance that seems to have escaped their understanding.

It has also allowed liberals to claim the moral high ground where none exists. Witness the funeral on Tuesday of civil rights icon Corretta Scott King. The Reverend Joseph Lowery, who took over the leadership of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference following the death of Martin Luther King, gave a speech that in content and tone could only be considered “political.” It was given solely to embarrass the President of the United States (whose own speech was a model of restraint and decorum). The Reverend Lowery accused the President of lying about weapons of mass destruction in Iraq as well as making a barely concealed charge of racism:

“She deplored the terror inflicted by our smart bombs on missions way afar,” Lowery said. “We know now there were no weapons of mass destruction over there. But Coretta knew, and we knew, that there are weapons of misdirection right down here. Millions without health insurance. Poverty abounds. For war, billions more, but no more for the poor.”

He was followed by President Carter who didn’t even bother to conceal his belief that the President is a racist and used the occasion to criticize the NSA intercept program:

“This commemorative ceremony this morning and this afternoon is not only to acknowledge the great contributions of Coretta and Martin, but to remind us that the struggle for equal rights is not over,” former Democratic President Carter said to applause. “We only have to recall the color of the faces of those in Louisiana, Alabama and Mississippi, those who were most devastated by Katrina, to know that there are not yet equal opportunities for all Americans.”

Carter, who has had a strained relationship with Bush, drew cheers when he used the Kings’ struggle as a reminder of the recent debate over whether Bush violated civil liberties protections by ordering warrantless surveillance of some domestic phone calls and e-mails.

Noting that the Kings’ work was “not appreciated even at the highest level of the government,” Carter said: “It was difficult for them personally — with the civil liberties of both husband and wife violated as they became the target of secret government wiretapping, other surveillance, and as you know, harassment from the FBI.” Bush has said his own program of warrantless wiretapping is aimed at stopping terrorists.

Certainly both Lowery and Carter have a perfect right to make any accusation they think they can get away with at any time. I am not denying their right to do so. What I’m saying is that there is a time and place for everything - and a funeral is not a place for partisan hackery. To use the President of the United States as a punching bag at an event to commemorate the passing of a great American does not contribute to the national dialog nor does it bring honor to the dead. It is a simple exercise in tastelessness.

In a pre-emptive attack on the right who are blasting away at this breakdown in civility, leftists have offered the novel idea that it was entirely appropriate to use the President as a punching bag despite the fact that his presence - not of the man but of the office itself - does an enormous honor to the King family. Jeralyn Merritt:

The tributes were appropriate. They were on topics not only relevant, but central to the lives and work of Coretta Scott King and Martin Luther King, Jr. I’m wondering why Bush was granted speaking privileges to begin with? Their lives have nothing in common and I doubt they were close friends.

If, as we are constantly reminded by the left, that we are a nation of laws and not of men, why is so difficult for Ms. Merritt and other liberals to see that respecting the office of President is so much more important than hating the man who occupies it? Are they that small minded? Are they so consumed with rage that they cannot see the insult done to the office does not damage Bush half as much as it injures the dignity of the Presidency?

John Aravosis goes even further. He accuses the right of “Samboing” the funeral:

How dare a black man not know his place at a funeral, they’ll say. As if the Republican party and its surrogates have any right whatsoever to speak on behalf of Mrs. King, to tell black America what they can and cannot do to honor one of their most revered leaders.

How we got from the right criticizing Democrats for a lack of common decency to the left accusing Republicans of racism is beyond me. As if manners and modes of behavior weren’t the same for all, regardless of race? I guess if you throw enough crap at the wall some of it is bound to stick.

The obvious answer as to why use the funeral of a prominent person as a vehicle for political diatribes is the ubiquitous presence of television. And therein lies the real transgression. For in addition to using their political opponents who are present, the speakers at the Wellstone and King funerals tarred millions of the President’s supporters with the same racist coat of feathers. It is unthinking. It is unworthy. And if we weren’t used to it by now it would be shocking.

That’s because if anyone had any illusions about the left’s claim to moral superiority one need only look at the aftermath of the Katrina tragedy. Almost before the hurricane winds that ravaged the city of New Orleans stopped blowing, the left was blaming the Bush Administration for the plight of the victims. Not only that, there were charges that the government “didn’t care about black people” which is why aid to the nearly destroyed city was so slow in coming.

Arguments about the competence of the federal government’s response have been raging since the tragedy and it is not my intent to add anything to them. The point is one of common decency; while thousands of their fellow citizens were still in need of rescue in a life and death situation and with hundreds of bodies floating in the flood waters, the left deliberately chose that moment to initiate a partisan political attack the likes of which have rarely been seen in this country.

Accusing the government of incompetence is one thing. Accusing them of murder is another. And the thinly veiled charges that the Bush Administration deliberately withheld aid to the nearly destroyed city of New Orleans because it is made up of mostly black people while the rest of the country was riveted by the efforts to save lives would be unbelievable in any other age, any other time.

If there was any doubt that we have entered a new era in American politics where nothing is sacred, no occasion too solemn for partisan attack, the King funeral should disabuse one and all of that idea. With the blanket TV coverage that such events afford and with the need to feed the ideological frenzy of their base, don’t expect any change in the left’s behavior anytime soon. Only the disapprobation of the public will cause them to think before acting in such a disgusting manner.

And as long as that behavior is seen by the media as acceptable, that is not going to happen.

UPDATE

The Anchoress weighed in first on this topic. And said it much better than I did. Read the whole thing

Betsy Newmark mourns a “lost opportunity” to honor the memory of the Kings. Very true.

UPDATE II 2/10

Tom Bevan is on pretty much the same wavelength that I am.
 

I was surprised by the mild reaction to my post yesterday about what I see as the unnecessary infliction of pain on devout Muslims by republishing the cartoons.

Just goes to show I’m an idiot to underestimate the intelligence of my readers.

The comments were almost all thoughtful, insightful, and made me think. I can certainly understand why some would take my forbearance as a sign of weakness and the point is well taken. However, there are aspects to this war against radical Islamists - and by their silent assent to the tactics of the terrorists, the rest of the Muslim world - where we are still feeling our way. And I think it important to make a couple of points before I leave the subject for a while:

* There is an extraordinary amount of ignorance on the part of Muslims about how we in the West live our lives. The concepts of freedom and liberty as we understand them are so far outside their ability to comprehend that they may as well originate on another planet. I am not talking about the demonstrators in the streets and the evil men egging them on and who have probably carefully planned this “uprising” for months. I am talking about the hundreds of millions of ordinary people who are in Islam’s thrall, mindlessly following the diktats of their holy men who keep their flocks mired in the distant past. There is a school of thought that Muslims seek the accoutrements of the modern world - flush toilets and electric lights - without the concomitant ideological imperative of having to absorb modern ideas. If true, the imams and the mullahs, like the Soviets before them, are in for a big surprise.

* There is an almost equal ignorance on our part in how Muslims actually view the world around them. The fear and suspicion with which we look upon Muslims is not healthy and actually makes the radicals job easier. Until we can see beyond the bloodcurdling rhetoric of the terrorists and their enablers and try and understand ordinary Muslims, we will be unable to enlist them in any meaningful way in this fight. Before it’s over, they are going to have to choose sides. Will they join us if we continue to condemn an entire religion for the actions of a few? By engaging in such sweeping condemnations, it only becomes easier for the terrorists to show which side the bulk of Muslims in the world should be on. And I’ve got news for those of us who persist in such folly - there are 1.3 billion Muslims in the world. We can’t kill them all.

* We absolutely must continue to stand up for freedom of speech. In fact, I am convinced that the only way to reach the majority of Muslims in the world who should be our natural allies in this war is by showcasing our “secular religion” of liberty. If Muslims are willing to die for Allah what do you think the effect on ordinary people will be if they realize we are willing to die for an abstract idea like freedom? I think if we can ever penetrate the propaganda, the lies, and the hate generated by Islam’s leaders against the West and prove by example that our beliefs are as powerful as theirs, the tide will begin to turn. The President sees this in his belief that by bringing at least the outward manifestations of democracy - free elections, free speech, and the free exchange of ideas - the rest will follow. History will prove him right or wrong in this approach. But at the moment, it looks like the best bet we have.