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So, they are going to indict Dave Petraeus, the General who arguably won the Afghan war before we decided to lose it, and whose dalliance with an Army reservist who was writing an adoring biography of him was revealed by the FBI poking around in his email accounts.<\/p>\n
I certainly would resent anyone from the Government messing around with my personal email accounts, and I am not sure that anyone\u2019s dalliances are the business of the Federal Bureau of Investigation. But the G-men allegedly found classified information on the computer of the General\u2019s lover, and there could be a felony trial in store for the former Director of the CIA.<\/p>\n
I remember another DCI who was found to be processing all sorts of classified information on his home computer, accessible by his spouse and kids, and all that happened to him was the embarrassment of losing his security clearance.<\/p>\n
I am not privy to all the details in the alleged case against the General, but it certainly seems like there is something more in play here, perhaps political. I shouldn\u2019t say \u2018perhaps.\u2019 We are all politics all the time these days, and I have found it all curious since the lurid details of the affair first circulated in 2012.<\/p>\n
There are a lot of other things these days that don\u2019t appear to be what they seem. The television yesterday was spewing the amazing events from France as I tried to figure out exactly what was what about some of them.<\/p>\n
Like most of the Western world, I stand with Free Speech, which is what the jihadis attempted to murder along with the staff of the Charlie Hebdo. Some are arguing they succeeded, when the New York Times, and others, would not run the cartoons that incited the bloody rampage.<\/p>\n
I would have pointed out that the same newspaper that pronounced it was only good taste and an unwillingness to offend \u201ca Muslim family in Brooklyn,\u201d as to why they didn\u2019t.<\/p>\n
Executive Editor Dean Baquet explained his decision not to display the images to let people make up their own minds about their relevancy to the story in this prim statement:<\/p>\n
\u201cWe have a standard that is pretty simple. We don\u2019t run things that are designed to gratuitously offend. That\u2019s what the French cartoons were actually designed to do. That was their purpose, and for that publication it is a fine purpose. But it isn\u2019t ours. So I had to decide whether it was so important to the story to show the drawings, important enough to drop the standard. And the answer was they were not. We could describe them. And anyone who wanted to see them could easily do so.\u201d<\/p>\n
True enough, but I think that is bullshit. The scandalous images of the desecration of the symbols of other religions the Times has published in the name of Free Speech and Artistic License seem to support the contention that there is something else going on here.<\/p>\n
Like cowardice.<\/p>\n
I think it is unlikely that Christians objecting to an image of a crucifix dipped in urine are unlikely to burst into the editorial suite of the Times with rocket propelled grenades.<\/p>\n
The Times apparently like to punch people who won\u2019t punch back. But that is the Gray Lady for you, along with several fellow travelers in the media circus.<\/p>\n
Dean\u2019s feathers were apparently ruffled when a lot of other people told him exactly that. Apparently the Times decided not to look like milquetoasts this morning, since they posted a 2006 film interview with the staff of Charlie that showed them drawing images of the Prophet, praised be his name. But it comes down to the basic issue of Freedom of Speech, you know?<\/p>\n
In the Bill of Rights, there are several of them that the Founders considered to pre-date the founding of this Republic. To keep and bear arms, to not have foreign troops billeted in your house. Have the ability to worship- or not worship- the god of your choice. That sort of thing. You know, like saying what you think without worrying about someone is going to lock you up.<\/p>\n
Which I think is the basic problem with the Dean\u2019s decision about the cartoons. I believe in being civil and polite. That is just good manners. But Freedom of speech is an absolute right, and that right is under assault along with all the other ones that pre-date the Republic, and which were termed inalienable.<\/p>\n
Wait, you say. Isn\u2019t this Charlie business poking fun at Islam more like \u201cyelling \u2018Fire!\u2019 in a crowded theater?\u201d<\/p>\n
Yeah, I remember the paraphrasing of the Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes opinion in Schenk v. United States. In that 1919 case, the good judge held that the defendant\u2019s speech in opposition to the WW1 Draft was not protected free speech under the First Amendment. The shorthand version of the phrase does not normally include the word “falsely,\u201d which was the original wording contained in the opinion.<\/p>\n
Speech that is dangerous and false is not protected, as opposed to speech that is truthful but also dangerous. So, on its face, Dean\u2019s decision is certainly his own, and protected, but running the cartoons would also be protected speech by any measure.<\/p>\n
But that brings us around to some really weird ideas that seem to have a lot of currency these days. Micro-aggression is one I find fascinating, as is the concept of \u201cTriggers.\u201d Hate speech is another one of them. That is what had me going yesterday morning on a search for truth.<\/p>\n