"So sorry, but they SHOULD be locked up . There is no guarantee of protection for 'sources'. Unfortunately, journalists have proven themselves to be every bit as deceiving and manipulating as anyone else. The old days of trusting you folks is over. Is there really a source? Did the reporter actually report ONLY the truth? What, in view of the disgraceful conduct of the media outlets during the Presidential election, and the hysterical babblings since, (NYT, LAT, and others) we're supposed to get all worked up in outrage over the jailing of possible Jayson Blairs? Hah! Your days of credibility are over, face it."
"You are more than willing to blame judges for an assault on YOUR 'professional' freedoms, but are unwilling to recognize the even greater assault by activists judges on the cultural freedoms the bulk of Americans revere"
Under normal circumstances I'd recommend ignoring this kind of frothing-at-the-mouth babble. I'd advocate a high road approach, write such comments off as the ravings of delusional O'Reilly/Limbaugh brownshirts or else raging psychopaths on a breather between serial homicides. (And speaking of the rabid right-wing's two favorite sons: when the moral values are scored, where do sexual harrassment — sorry; alleged sexual harrassment; have you read the complaint? it's available online at thesmokinggun.com; pay particular attention to the, uh, attention devoted to loofah — and self-confessed addiction to prescription narcotics, with attendant socializing with dealers and other upstanding citizens, come in? I just want to know when I'm trying to reserve a seat on the train to paradise: who sits where?)
But these days we can't ignore it. It's the party line. And they sound exactly like little Bolsheviks as they deliver it, reading (or typing) from the cards. Fox News good, New York Times bad. Christian rights assaulted by libertine freaks who won't let them tell everyone else what to do. Liberals trying to force America to have sex with goats!
Just for the record, livestock had no place on the Democratic platform. Unless you're reading something I'm not in the donkey. (But then, the GOP sports an elephant; that's a brand of math I steer clear of.)
Of the first writer, one wants to ask: If reporters (and op-ed columnists) at the NYT suffer such severe credibility deficits, why the hell are you bothering to read them? Are you unemployed? (If so, I'm sure Bush is on it.) Are you employed but underchallenged, and therefore bored? I don't have time to take in the media I admire, let alone that I'm convinced is shit. Seeking a different point of view may be one thing, and a respectable one. Engaging in what you yourself have deemed a total waste of time is something else. Get a life.
It's the second of these two that's more profoundly disturbing, and probably the more emblematic of the fractured state our state is in. This writer feels put upon. She feels assaulted. Her freedoms, she's convinced, are under attack. She doesn't specify which activist judges, or which freedoms they've taken aim at, so the best we can do is speculate. Maybe she's a practicing Christian, for example, and she lives — unlike me — in a place where they've outlawed the practice of Christianity. She's forbidden to go to church, forbidden to associate with fellow Christians; if she's caught praying she'll be remanded to jail. It's unlawful for her to donate money to representatives of her chosen faith. Christian schools are outlawed, as is reading the Bible to your kids.
Or perhaps she's a heterosexual, and she lives in a place — unlike me — where heterosexuals are not allowed to openly practice their, uh, lifestyle. She's not permitted to date members of the opposite sex. She's certainly not permitted to have sex with members of the opposite sex. And needless to say, the penalties for cohabitation with, let alone marriage to, a member of the opposite sex are severe. Maybe, where she lives, they're even forcing her to spend time with members of the same sex — special time, if you see what I mean. They come to her house and extract her, maybe with weapons, and they take her way out in the woods to a grim cabin with bad plumbing. They make her wear flannel. They threaten to cut her hair.
If these are the kinds of things writer #2 is complaining about, then she's absolutely correct: her "cultural freedoms" are under assault. We ought to find out where she lives and head down there with the pickaxes and shovels. If not, I'm going to need more information. Because I'm inclined to think the "cultural freedom" she'd like to see less curtailed is the freedom to dictate to her fellow citizens how they're to conduct their own affairs.
Tell me I'm wrong. Please: tell me I'm wrong, and convince me.
And last, a note to those of you who climbed into the George Bush boat only to find yourself, less than two weeks later, a little queasy at the prospect of spending serious time with some of your fellow passengers. The note is this: we told you so. And this: you didn't just hand them the oars, you passed along the tiller as well. And finally this: when you've had enough and you miss the country you grew up in, make the leap. There's a bunch of us treading down here in the waters of sanity; we can always use a new pair of hands. One of these days we'll accumulate the wherewithal to build ourselves a raft.
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