Double standards
Bookworm on Mar 07 2007 at 8:45 pm | Filed under: Crime and punishment, Democrats, Republicans
This kind of writing is why I’m not going to turn my back entirely on Ann Coulter, even when she makes inept (and, yes, offensive) jokes, not so much about John Edwards and gays (although they were caught in her misfire), but about a type of political correctness that has Hollywood stars going into rehabilitation for using the wrong words. (By the way, one could argue that Mel Gibson went into rehab for saying anti-Semitic things, but I actually think he did go into rehab for a drinking problem, whereas Isaiah Washington was definitely whisked away for thought crimes.)
Here’s just a little bit of Ann’s riff about the different punishments meted out for crimes on either side of the political aisle (and a weak Bush administration is often complicit in the variation between witch hunts and passivity):
Conservative radio personality Rush Limbaugh was subjected to a three-year criminal investigation for allegedly buying prescription drugs illegally to treat chronic back pain. Despite the witch-hunt, Democrat prosecutor Barry E. Krischer never turned up a crime.
Even if he had, to quote liberal Harvard Law professor Alan Dershowitz: “Generally, people who illegally buy prescription drugs are not prosecuted.” Unless they’re Republicans.
The vindictive prosecution of Limbaugh finally ended last year with a plea bargain in which Limbaugh did not admit guilt. Gosh, don’t you feel safer now? I know I do.
In another prescription drug case with a different result, last year, Rep. Patrick Kennedy (Democrat), apparently high as a kite on prescription drugs, crashed a car on Capitol Hill at 3 a.m. That’s abuse of prescription drugs plus a DUI offense. Result: no charges whatsoever and one day of press on Fox News Channel.
I suppose one could argue those were different jurisdictions. How about the same jurisdiction?
In 2006, Democrat and major Clinton contributor Jeffrey Epstein was nabbed in Palm Beach in a massive police investigation into his hiring of local underage schoolgirls for sex, which I’m told used to be a violation of some kind of statute in the Palm Beach area.
The police presented Limbaugh prosecutor Krischer with boatloads of evidence, including the videotaped statements of five of Epstein’s alleged victims, the procurer of the girls for Epstein and 16 other witnesses.
But the same prosecutor who spent three years maniacally investigating Limbaugh’s alleged misuse of back-pain pills refused to bring statutory rape charges against a Clinton contributor. Enraging the police, who had spent months on the investigation, Krischer let Epstein off after a few hours on a single count of solicitation of prostitution. The Clinton supporter walked, and his victims were branded as whores.
There’s more, of course, which you can read here.
Hat tip: Paragraph Farmer
del.icio.us
digg it
Email This Post To A Friend
21 Responses to “Double standards”
Leave a Reply
You must be logged in to post a comment.
Down the rabbit hole we go. If the terrorists hadn’t been intent on destroying the US, we would probably be a long way on the road to destroying ourselves by now.
I posted comments critical of Coulter and good negative feedback from some folks I respect. I just feel that Conservatives have to set a high standard, and there’s no refuting the fact that “faggot” is no longer a word that should be used publicly, and it hasn’t been for some time.
As for the overzealous prosecutors, Patrick Fitzgerald just upped the ante. Talk about being on the road to the destruction of our wonderful country.
I agree with you, Laer, that Coulter lowered standards by resorting to a slur. I never speak that way myself, and am disturbed when others do so. Nevertheless, separating wheat from chaff, many of her analyses, when she gets away from trying to be offensive, are well-informed and well-organized. So, I’m not yet ready to throw away her intellectual baby along with her insulting bath water. (Oooh, now there’s a strained piece of writing!)
Well, it took a week, but now I know which “F” word Ann Coulter used last week. No one would repeat it on the air. I am sorry, but I strongly disagree with the removal of any word from general, accepted use purely because one group or another would be offended. If Coulter wants to remind us she has a potty mouth, that is her problem with all the criticism it deserves. But further pruning of the English language for benefit of weak egos kept that way by an inadequate education system and burgeoning entitlement political system gives even more power to the politicians (now THAT can be a dirty word) who would enslave those weak egos for their own agrandisement. (sorry, BW, it’s a run-on sentence) And of course, a black can use the word nigger without any criticism. That behavior of tolerating one groups’ use of a word and and crucifying said word’s use by the member of another group is not properly called a double standard. It is properly called tyranny. Sticks and stones may break my bones, but words can never hurt me. If someone does feel pain from an epithet, or even a comment, then that individual needs to strengthen his mind with further education, and his ego with success.
Al
Just more evidence to support the contention that the Democrat/Left is the Totalitarian Party. Ann Coulter may be a verbal bomb thrower, but she is also a brilliant constitutional lawyer that can structure a good argument well-documented with facts. She’ll be among the first to be sent to the Gulag should the Democrat/Left ever attain total power.
nn Coulter may be a verbal bomb thrower, but she is also a brilliant constitutional lawyer that can structure a good argument well-documented with facts. - Danny
She has a bit of a problem when it comes to double standards, however. From Andrew Sullivan:
“The Rest Of Us”
07 Mar 2007 07:44 pm
“‘Liberals’ think they can live in a world of only Malibu and East Hampton — with no Trentons or Detroits. It does not occur to them that someone has to manufacture the tiles and steel and glass and solar panels that go into those “eco-friendly” mansions, and someone has to truck it all to their beachfront properties, and someone else has to transport all the workers there to build it. (And then someone has to drive the fleets of trucks delivering the pachysandra and bottled water every day.)
Liberals are already comfortably ensconced in their beachfront estates, which they expect to be unaffected by their negative growth prescriptions for the rest of us,” - Ann Coulter, Townhall.com.
As for the “rest of us?”
Coulter has an estate in Palm Beach a block from the beach, with a current market value of $1.7 million. - Sullivan
Good for her
Al
Good for her — Al
Maybe so, but to me, the situation is much like Rush Limbaugh saying that all drug addicts should be punished — until he became a drug addict.
People who are troubled by “double standards” are usually concerned with honesty, integrity and fair-mindedness, no?
Maybe I’m just silly, but somehow, I don’t think that’s the case with Rush and/or Ann.
No, the breach front property doesn’t show a double standard at all, because Coulter doesn’t make hypocritical pronouncements. That is, she hopes that others can live as she does (so do I), whereas people like Gore and Edwards have a very elitist “do as I say, not as I do” attitude.
I get the sense that there’s a kind of schism. People like Bookworm when they talk about hypocrisy, base it upon non-mercurial principles which don’t change based upon the political winds or allegiances. Others, talk about hypocrisy simply for domestic political consumption, and that is just wrong in so many different ways.
When we have a story like this that Sala brought to my attention
http://cdrsalamander.blogspot.com/2007/03/when-congress-over-reaches.html
what matters isn’t the game of gotcha, but the loss of lives and human dignity. Principles and values that classical liberals have always put at a very high priority. Some people actually believe that bad people must be punished and the good people rewarded and protected, regardless of any personal benefit to themselves.
Human selfishness has always gotten in the path of progress, not because people should not accrue benefit to their individual lives, but that all too often people are under the mistaken impression that the only people that matters is themselves and those they give a damn about. It is called clannishness. Factionalism. Parochialism.
I do not limit this post to this thread, but to all the others in which people have spitefully accused Bookworm and Neo-Neocon of the dark things in the accuser’s own heart. Justice is not something to be trusted to the ignorant and feckless.
This part of the human condition will never go away. Regardless of our technological progress.
Just for the record, a $1.7 million beachfront property alone would put Ann Coulter in the upper-middle class, not the “wealthy” classes. After all, we don’t really know how much she paid and continues to pay for it. That being said: sure, she has money. She has been very successful at what she does but I have never read about preaching to the rest of us riff-raff on how we should lead our lives.
As for Rush Limbaugh, I don’t recall ever hearing him say that prescription drug addicts should be prosecuted and I have been listening to his program for years and years. Nor was he ever convicted of of being a prescription drug abuser, except in the Left Wing media. I have noticed, though, that Leftists ascribe all kinds of smears to Limbaugh that can never be recorded - I remember Billy Clinton blaming Rush Limbaugh for the Oklahoma City bombing, for example.
As for Rush Limbaugh, I don’t recall ever hearing him say that prescription drug addicts should be prosecuted and I have been listening to his program for years and year. Nor was he ever convicted of of being a prescription drug abuser, except in the Left Wing media.” - Danny
So Rush went to Sierra Tucson, a rehab that costs upwards of $40,000 a month, for shits and giggles?
But anyway, this Rush Limbaugh quote is from Oct 5, 1995:
“There’s nothing good about drug use. We know it. It destroys individuals. It destroys families. Drug use destroys societies. Drug use, some might say, is destroying this country. And we have laws against selling drugs, pushing drugs, using drugs, importing drugs. And the laws are good because we know what happens to people in societies and neighborhoods, which become consumed by them. And so if people are violating the law by doing drugs, they ought to be accused and they ought to be convicted and they ought to be sent up.”
Another interesting look at double standards. Via Andrew Sullivan, this morning:
Donald Shields and John Cragan, two professors of communication, have compiled a database of investigations and/or indictments of candidates and elected officials by U.S. attorneys since the Bush administration came to power. Of the 375 cases they identified, 10 involved independents, 67 involved Republicans, and 298 involved Democrats. The main source of this partisan tilt was a huge disparity in investigations of local politicians, in which Democrats were seven times as likely as Republicans to face Justice Department scrutiny.
How can this have been happening without a national uproar? The authors explain: “We believe that this tremendous disparity is politically motivated and it occurs because the local (non-statewide and non-Congressional) investigations occur under the radar of a diligent national press. Each instance is treated by a local beat reporter as an isolated case that is only of local interest.”
And let’s not forget that Karl Rove’s candidates have a history of benefiting from conveniently timed federal investigations. Last year Molly Ivins reminded her readers of a curious pattern during Mr. Rove’s time in Texas: ‘In election years, there always seemed to be an F.B.I. investigation of some sitting Democrat either announced or leaked to the press. After the election was over, the allegations often vanished.’
Or perhaps Democrats are simply more likely to be involved in activities worthy of investigation.
The disparity occurs because the Democrats have been spoiled by their ability to cover things up. It would be even higher and more psychologically damaging, without such a defense net.
Or perhaps Democrats are simply more likely to be involved in activities worthy of investigation. –Plastic Yank
Perhaps. But then again, I’ve noticed that when Democrats commit purjury, it’s very very serious. But when Republicans do it, it’s “Poor Scooter” time.
Read what I write carefully, T.S. - Limbaugh openly admitted on air to being addicted to prescription drugs. He was never convicted of illegally using prescription drugs. He has long spoken about his back pain problems, probably a result of long hours spent at the microphone. What happened to him happens to many elderly people on prescription drugs. This is not a demographic that goes abusing their kids or gang banging to get their prescription meds. The comments that you quote are about illegal drug abuse and the ills to society that illegal drugs cause, not legal prescription drugs. Did you disagree with his comments?
Perjury isn’t serious to the Democrats. Except when there’s a political advantage in it.
Scooter didn’t perjure himself, twisting the law like twisting the positions of people like Limbaugh, is transparently easy to see through.
Perhaps. But then again, I’ve noticed that when Democrats commit purjury, it’s very very serious. But when Republicans do it, it’s “Poor Scooter” time.
I’m reminded of something. Do people here remember the Left keep saying that the US shouldn’t become like terrorists and therefore avoid doing to terrorists anything that might hint of the things terrorists have done to us?
And yet at the same time, this very same group of people on the Left, starts talking about how it is okay for them to do things they always believed they could do, simply by the magnificent accussation and presumption that the Right does it too. If two wrongs don’t make a right, why do people, here at Bookworm, think the Left always likes to make that fallacious argument that two wrongs make them right at least? While at the same time saying the greater US (or Bush) should always do the morally pristine thing regardless of what else is going on?
Jy and Hy never had anything on the Left.
Oh btw, this would actually apply to TS’s future justifications of the Democrat’s excusing of perjury. So it is at least one step ahead in the debate in terms of what I am referencing.
In a sense, this is like figuring out what started the clan wars. Sure, we can go back and look over why the Left is in the wrong, but they just keep going back into history like with Saddam and what not. But they never do go back to the Civil War, for very good reasons. The Democrats were not on the right side. They weren’t even on the winning side.
TS is trying to attack people for being hypocrites. But he does not have the initiative to pull it off. He’s one step behind.
Because both in general and specifically, Republicans, conservatives, and neo-cons don’t justify their stances and positions based upon a distorted mirror image of their opponent’s flaws. That has always been a specialty of the Left and their allies. And they got a lot of allies, I can tell you that.
TS is trying to attack people for being hypocrites - ymar
I’m just trying to point out that “double standards” are not solely the province of the so-called left or the so-called right, but belong to anyone with a myopic view of the way the world works.
People blinded by partisanship cannot see the fact that they, too, are guilty of applying the same double standards they criticize others for.
The only people who are blind are those who accuse of Bookworm of being partisan.
Besides, I’ve always wondered at what place and time Scooter perjured himself. With all the proclamations to that effect, are you telling me you do not recall the time and place?
I prefer to reverse engineer arguments down to their basic assumptions and components. Since the people that you think are partisan in their discussion of Scooter, really aren’t, TS, it sort of undermines your arguments. Especially since those arguments have unnaturally tied together Scooter’s presumed guilt with people’s presumed partisanship. You should really try to keep down the things assumed, especially if those assumptions are the conclusions.
For example. The thing you use to prop up your proposition that people are blinded by partisanship, is that Scooter and the media illusionary show trial is the actually real. Because if Scooter wasn’t what he was portrayed to be, that would make your blinded partisans, the ones with an eye in the land of the blind. And yet ostensibly, you are also at the same time defending the Scooter illusion by attacking the argument that Scooter is a mirage for the Left, by focusing in on the double standard (Bookworm’s title-topic).
That house of cards might fall down if something wobbles.
I’m just trying to point out that “double standards” are not solely the province of the so-called left or the so-called right, but belong to anyone with a myopic view of the way the world works.
You believe the right has one standard for Bush, Delay, and Scooter, and another one for fake liberals. You base this belief on things that aren’t true.
I think things get simpler when you get down to fundamentals.