Obams's Garbage Can Memos II (GCM I)
My friend Ex-Seattle Lefty called me this morning. Had I seen this Larry King Video on the Fort Hood Massacre?
Former POW Shoshana Johnson Destroys Tom Kenniff for 'Dangerous' Assumptions on Ft. Hood Shootings
How the Left Was Won. Dr. Phil and former POW Shoshana Johnson both say JAG officer Tom Kenniff's questions about whether Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan was motivated by ideology is "a terrible innuendo" and "irresponsible" (Dr. Phil) and "dangerous" (Shoshana). Note how Kenniff, the lawyer, is attempting to engage in genuine argument; Shoshona goes Warm Fuzzy Liberal by shouting down questions; and Dr. Phil is a snob who doesn't accept unacceptable questions. In sum, as my friend DAS points out, more evidence that the West has gone AWOL intellectually. We are not able to freely discuss things. It is, in fact, "dangerous" to suggest Hasan was perhaps a Jihadist, as I found out yesterday: one of my prosecutor friends at their regular office meeting was asked to not put this incident in those terms. He was silenced.
By the Deadly Curse.
Secondhand PTSD Contagion Kills American Journalism
Had I read "Wretchard's brilliant posts" on political correctness, das asked? To wit, Fort Hood:
Can there be such a thing as treason in a multicultural society or is that so yesterday? If so, Lincoln was wrong: a house divided against itself can stand. In a heap about an inch high perhaps, but maybe that’s cool. And cool in the end may best describe a house with no walls. Maybe Cole Porter got it right after all. Anything goes.
The US News report says “Hasan came to the attention of law enforcement officials six months ago because of Internet postings about suicide bombings and other threats, including posts that equated suicide bombers to soldiers who throw themselves on a grenade to save the lives of their comrades. Investigators had not determined for certain whether Hasan was the author of the posting, and a formal investigation had not been opened before the shooting, law enforcement officials who spoke on condition of anonymity told the Associated Press.” The Army refused to rule out the possibility that Hasan was not acting alone.
"A Natural Leader." As das points out, the recent slaying of Seattle PD Officer Timothy Brenton was in fact motivated by a form of toxic political correctness -- the kind you pick up from college professors:
Monfort received a bachelor's degree from the UW in March 2008, according to the university's degree-validation Web site. His major was in Law, Societies and Justice.
Last year, Monfort belonged to the McNair Scholars Program, part of the university's office of Minority Affairs and Diversity. The program aims to steep undergraduate students in sophisticated research, preparing them for graduate work.
Monfort provided this title for his project with the McNair program: "The Power of Citizenship Your Government Doesn't Want You to Know About: How to Change the Inequity of the Criminal Justice System Immediately, Through Active Citizen Nullification of Laws, As a Juror."
In an abstract of his project, Monfort said he planned to "illuminate and further" the scholarship of Paul Butler, a law professor at George Washington University.
Butler is a proponent of jury nullification, a controversial principle whereby jurors feel free to disregard a judge's instructions and acquit a defendant no matter the strength of the evidence. Butler has argued that such nullification may be particularly appropriate in cases where black defendants are charged with nonviolent crimes.
"It is the moral responsibility of black jurors to emancipate some guilty black outlaws," Butler wrote in a 1995 Yale Law Journal article, adding: "My goal is the subversion of American criminal justice, at least as it now exists."
In a McNair program newsletter, Monfort said he had previously been a student at Highline Community College, where he was "inspired" by Garry Wegner, who was the school's program coordinator for the Administration of Justice program.
Wegner said Friday that Monfort fared poorly the first time he attended the college. But he later returned to the Des Moines school and "caught fire academically."
"He did very, very well interacting with the other students in my class," said Wegner, who spent 20 years as the deputy director of the Washington State Criminal Justice Training Commission, the organization that trains many of the state's law enforcement officers.
"He always seemed to be a natural leader, and people would gravitate to him. He put in a lot of work and did well academically. He said it was because he finally found something that interested him — the field of criminal justice." Two American Flags Led Law Enforcement to Track Down Monfort
Here is a clear-cut case of PC college Lefty teachers encouraging just the opposite of thinking. Monfort's "education" led to the sort of "justice" frequently defended by the American Left:
Officer Brenton and student officer Britt Sweeney, 33, were parked on 29th Avenue, north of East Yesler Way in the Leschi neighborhood just after 10 p.m. last Saturday when someone pulled up next to their patrol car and opened fire. Brenton was killed instantly and Sweeney suffered minor wounds. She was able to get out of the car and fire at the vehicle, which backed up and sped away. Timothy Brenton Mourned
Das and I have known each other since 1993, and we always come to the same question: why, for instance, when a Fatwa was issued against Salman Rushdie for Satanic Verses, didn't every newspaper in the West publish excerpts on the front page?
Because the press, academia, and law enforcement -- not to mention government generally -- have succombed to PC . . . .
Which is why I'm a Pessimist.
The Closing of the American Psyche. We could overcome a decade of this mind-numbing claptrap, but we're now into our third generation, and good minds, like yours truly sports, are laughed at, shunned, and feared because we walk outside the accepted catechism. Folks like me on our way out, and folks like me were why this country was created.
See?
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