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Mark Steyn comments on over zealous prosecutors for the OC Register.
Do you know Cory Mashburn and Ryan Cornelison?
If you do, don’t approach them. Call 911 and order up a SWAT team. They’re believed to be in the vicinity of
McMinnville, Ore., where they’re a clear and present danger to the community. Mashburn and Cornelison were recently charged with five counts of felony sexual abuse, and District Attorney Bradley Berry has pledged to have them registered for life as sex offenders.Oh, by the way, the defendants are in the seventh grade.
Messrs Mashburn and Cornelison are pupils at
Patton
Middle School. They were arrested in February after being observed in the vestibule, swatting girls on the butt. Butt-swatting had apparently become a form of greeting at the school – like “a handshake we do,” as one female student put it. …
… District Attorney
Berry told reporter Susan Goldsmith of the Oregonian that his department “aggressively” pursues sex crimes. “These cases are devastating to children,” he said. “They are life-altering cases.”No, sir. The only one devastating children’s lives is you. If you “win,” and these “criminals” are convicted, 20, 30 years from now – applying for a job, volunteering for a community program, heading north for a weekend in Vancouver and watching the Customs guard swipe the driver’s license through the computer – there’ll be a blip, something will come up on the screen, and for the umpteenth time two middle-age men will realize they bear a mark that can never be expunged. Because decades ago they patted their pals on the rear in a middle-school corridor.
A world that requires handcuffs and judges and district attorneys for what took place that Friday in February is not just a failed education system but an entire society that’s losing any sense of proportion. Without which, civilized life becomes impossible. So we legalize more and more aspects of life and demand that district attorneys prosecute ever more aggressively what were once routine areas of social interaction.
A society that looses the state to criminalize schoolroom horseplay is guilty not only of punishing children as grown-ups but of the infantilization of the entire citizenry.
Right Coast reviews Steyn’s suggestions for our legal system.
Marty Peretz comments on one prosecutor who got what he deserved – Mike Nifong.
… Chastened by the prospect of going to jail, the already disbarred DA said he was “sorry.” And went on to the usual psycho-babble tropes: “We all need to heal. It is my hope that we start this process today.”
Alas, “healing” is one of the great bullshit phrases of our culture.
Charles Krauthammer says it’s increasingly obvious Obama’s not ready for prime time.
… During our 1990s holiday from history, being a national security amateur was not an issue. Between the 1991 death of the Soviet Union and the terrorist attacks of 2001, foreign policy played almost no part in our presidential campaigns. But post-Sept. 11, as during the Cold War, the country demands a serious commander in chief. It is hard to imagine that with all the electoral tides running in their favor, the Democrats would risk it all by nominating a novice for a wartime presidency.
Do the Democrats want to risk strike three, another national security question blown, but this time perhaps in a final presidential debate before the ’08 election, rather than a midseason intraparty cattle call? The country might decide that it prefers, yes, a Republican — say, Sept. 11 veteran Rudy Giuliani– to a freshman senator who does not instinctively understand why an American president does not share the honor of his office with a malevolent clown like Hugo Chávez.
The Captain reacts to the Krauthammer column.
… Barack Obama doesn’t have the mindset of an executive. Like Tom Hagen in The Godfather, he doesn’t have the cunning instinct necessary for success in understanding the layers of communication and symbolism that goes into becoming a good Commander in Chief. He doesn’t even have enough of those skills to present a credible threat to Hillary Clinton for the nomination.
Initially, though, Hillary’s response wasn’t all that much better. She didn’t really rule out meeting with the same people. She said, “I will use a lot of high-level presidential envoys to test the waters, to feel the way. But certainly, we’re not going to just have our president meet with Fidel Castro and Hugo Chavez and, you know, the president of North Korea, Iran and
Syria until we know better what the way forward would be.” Only after the debate, while Obama’s people tried to convince people that Obama didn’t say what he said, did Hillary realize the opening she had and drove her rhetorical Mack truck straight through it. …
Another Corner post on the comparison of Giuliani and Nixon. This time from someone who worked in Rudy’s administration.
… From my on-the-ground view as a line manager in NYC government, Rudy governed as a liberating force applying conservative governing principles designed to help individual New Yorkers and private business flourish. …
IBD says, “speaking of Nixon.” They have a nice segue to Spitzer’s troubles with an editorial – Richard Milhous Spitzer.
New York Gov. Eliot Spitzer and the one president ever forced to resign seem to have a lot in common. But at least Nixon waited a little while before using the tools of state against his political enemies. …
Professor Bainbridge weighs in with Eliot Spitzer is a Thug.
Financial Times from
London with a Spitzer report.
… Mr Spitzer seemed to thrive on confrontation with lawmakers, employing tough talk and hardball tactics even against members of his own political party. He allegedly described himself to one lawmaker as a steamroller who would roll over anyone who got in his way.
Mr Bruno, in particular, was unimpressed, telling
New York magazine this month that Mr Spitzer “has an attitude about him … like he’s above it all. He thinks I’m a street kid that doesn’t know night from day. I’ve survived 31 years. I don’t pretend to be a genius. I have common sense.”Mr Spitzer has failed to master the art of politics, relying instead on the tactics that made him successful as a prosecutor, says Fred Siegel, a history professor at the Cooper Union in
New York.“He was not prepared to govern,” Mr Siegel says. “When he was attorney-general he had extensive subpoena powers that allowed him to embarrass private companies with reputations to protect. That gave him tremendous leverage.” …
The Captain and Power Line post on Chuck Schumer’s promise to reject any Bush nominees to the Supreme Court.
Power Line – It’s hard to say how seriously anyone takes Chuck S., who is more arrogant than the average Democratic Senator, but not any smarter. Should a Supreme Court justice die or retire, and should Senate Democrats reject a series of highly-qualified Bush nominees, the Democrats will no doubt pay a price in 2008. So, as they say: bring it on!
IBD has great piece on socialized medicine by a Canadian doctor.