Slate Gabfest comment

Below is a letter I sent to Slate after listening to one of their podcasts:

I just listened to the Gabfest for March 30. I believe it was Emily that stated that the General Attorney Alberto Gonzales Attorney Firings scandal was over.

The gist of the comment was that Democrats got as much mileage out of it as they can and that they should quit while they are ahead. There is a common thread on some of the "scandals" that drives me nuts. People are brought in for testimonies and then later they get into trouble for lying. At that point, there seems to be no real outrage or attention paid to the original cause for the attention.

I find the attorney firings to be VERY troubling. Why? Because if the judiciary is not truly independent, if their very careers survive at the whim of the executive, this is a huge separation of powers issue. Are we to expect that whatever party has the presidency can pick and choose corruption prosecutions based on party? If the opposition may have done something wrong, turn up the efforts full force, but if your own party does something wrong, looking into it will get you fired. Does this not fulfill the definition of corruption to a tee?

I had the same problem with 2 other "scandals". Scooter Libby is not being punished for outing a CIA agent. That's the real crime here. I'm not saying that it's completely inconsequential that he lied, but on a scale of 1 to 10, the CIA outing is a 9.5 and the lying is a 1 or a 2. I would have to say that I draw the same conclusion in reverse for the impeachment of Bill Clinton. I was seriously disappointed that he lied, because up until then, they had nothing on him. Then when he lied, they had something to stick to him. He should never have given them the satisfaction. That was a cover-up of an affair? Ever see anyone thrown out of office or arrested for an affair? No. So in that case, there wasn't a crime until he lied. In the CIA and attorney cases, the crime isn't even being investigated once we've got someone lying.

So I find myself arguing that this "gotcha" game is a distraction from what should be our real concerns. While lying is not a good thing, you have to keep your focus on what is important.

One more story that is a strange corollary to this. Look at the Kerry questioning of Fox testimony for the Belgian ambassador position. Here Kerry is saying that Fox says that 527s are bad, that truth is important, and yet he funded the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth that attacked Kerry - attacks that were later found to be erroneous. Yet Fox's position is that he just gives money to people and doesn't even think about it. I guess if they will take that money and attack Fox's political opponents, he wants to be able to have his political way but not get his hands dirty. Well, his hands are dirty. Is this the kind of person we want to represent our country? If he was the Sudanese ambassador, would he continue to fund the government to fight terrorism even if they used the money to kill their own people? Relative moralism is not a Christian Core Value. How did we get to this point where what really happened is not important as long as it gets the job done?

Heck of a job Bushie.

Imus' Firing

So Imus got fired. I'm actually quite surprised. I'm surprised how much charity and good stuff the guy does, too. Never paid any attention to him before this "crisis". Seems like nobody is fully angel or fully villain when you learn about them.

On the Imus crisis: some people say, hey, he's just exercising his free speech! This political correctness has run amok!

Tell that to the Dixie Chicks after their careers were torpedoed for criticizing Bush, they even got death threats.

Tell that to John Kerry after he said that if you don't go to school and pay attention, you get stuck in Iraq. His later claim that he was bashing Bush directly didn't do anything to lessen the maelstrom.

Tell that to Bill Maher after he was canned for saying that the 911 terrorists were courageous, although who could argue that from their point of view, what they did took a lot of balls.

And yet there's a whole bunch of people out there that make outrageous comments and never have any consequences.

Rush Limbaugh says that it's disgusting that Michael J. Fox fakes his disease for political reasons. Yet he still has all the dittoheads out there lapping up his every word and parroting his bogus arguments.

Ann Coulter says that the 911 widows love their status and are glad their husbands are dead. She later calls John Edwards a faggot a couple of days before his wife finds out her cancer came back. Yet she still gets asked to go to all the GOP fundraisers.
Sharpton and others call for the punishment of the Duke Lacrosse players before any evidence comes out and they find that the accusation was without merit.

The same people out there that think that doing a cross burning should be protected speech probably don't feel the same way about the "ragheads" chanting "Death to America" in front of an embassy.

Freedom of speech means you get to say any damned foolish shit you want. But it's society's duty to point out what a load of crap they are dishing out and to stop buying their books, listening to their shows, and electing them to office. But some people's crap is other people's gospel.

It's sad when someone with a mouthpiece spews out a wacky conspiracy theory, like O'Reilly's "war on Christmas" and Rosie's "the government blew up WTC building number 7". It's also sad when someone provides legitimate evidence and tells the truth and they are instantly ignored, vilified, or attacked (see scientists on global warming and evolution). Why do we get it wrong so often?

It's the Wikipedia effect. You can say or publish any damned fool thing you want and you don't have to prove it. Sites like snopes are great for debunking chain email urban legends, but we need the equivalent for people in the spotlight. They started doing it with politicians, but those sites quickly became politicized, and you tend to only visit the site that already supports your way of thinking. The news can no longer be relied on, with major networks no longer even trying to hide their bias and emotional ranting replacing straight facts reporting and reasoned and researched methods are a thing of the past.