Of "switched allegiances" and forgiveness

Last week, the morning after President Obama's speech which we're not supposed to call a State of the Union though I'm really not sure why, CSPAN did not have its usual "Washington Journal" on at 7 am but instead Bill Bennett's morning radio show. I don't know why they did this other than perhaps to innoculate themselves for the fact that for some reason CSPAN did not run the Bobby Jindal Republican response to the speech the night before. Bennett, the guardian of American "moral values" - i.e., the chain-smoker while he was the Drug Czar and the one who might not have to parrot GOP talking points on the airwaves today were it not for a gambling addiction - was his usual tiresome though not altogether offensive self. What did stand my remaining two hairs up was some guest he had on (name escapes me), who is one of those people who claims he used to be a "liberal" but had an epiphany. I really hate those folks - and it really doesn't matter whether they say they've gone from left to right or vice versa (I knew plenty of the latter type in college). And the reason why is that when they say their views have changed, they are usually lying...but somehow by saying that they've "evolved" we're supposed to believe that they are somehow more thoughtful and credible. And it this instance, it's not hard to conclude the Bennett guest was lying.

The trigger of his "conversion" wasn't the fall of the Berlin Wall, the random Ayn Rand read, or a mugging at gunpoint by a black lesbian transgender illegal alien. He claimed it was the Clarence Thomas hearings. And his failure to accurately record the history speaks volumes as to his deceit.

First, he claimed that going into the hearings, all of the left wing including its usual media "pawns" were "lining up to exploit (Thomas) as a serial sexual harasser." Now lets throw some fresh spring water on the Wicked Witch: What were supposed to be the full Thomas hearings were OVER AND DONE WITH when the existence of Anita Hill came out. There was no discussion of sexual harassment either at the time Thomas was nominated or throughout the substantive hearings (as I have long argued, I thought he did not warrant confirmation for reasons completely unrelated to sex and entirely due to his command of the law or lack thereof - to say that an adult college graduate has never had a conversation on the subject of Roe v. Wade is imo perjurious, as much as anything). If Thomas' alleged misconduct were in any way on the table prior to the original hearings concluding, his nomination probably would have failed - if it had come out before the original hearings, it may have been pulled. But there was no orchestrated "drumbeat" to nail Thomas on his sexual conduct until way past 11 pm on the nomination's 24 hour clock.

Then the person through out the name of "Ted Kennedy" as "leader" of the "lynch mob." How convenient it is for someone who claims to have been a reasoned convert to one side of the fence from another by invoking the particular name of all those on Senate Judiciary which is most the scourge. Of course, Kennedy hardly participated at all in the Anita Hill portion of the hearings - a fact not at all subtly picked up by people like Arlen Specter. I recall Howard Metzenbaum being somewhat vigorous, and it was Paul Simon's office (not Kennedy's) most consistently linked to the leak of the Hill story to the press - which again, came after the hearings were presumed to be concluded with nary a mention of sex. Indeed, Kennedy's, er..."impotence" at the hearings (which wound up saving the nomination) helped create a groundswell of disdain for the fact that the Judiciary Committee considering these allegations was, without exception, all male.

Really, Mr. Bennett guest - stick to Ayn Rand or the Berlin Wall if you want to make the embodiment of your "seeing the light" somehow more solid than the Laffer Curve.

I saw "Medea Goes to Jail" last night. I had thought it would be more one of the those mindless "Big Momma" gag-promoters than a rather strange hybrid of inanity and (not lightly Christian-seasoned) morality. Of the latter (and those who know me are aware that, perhaps to a fault, I take religious-based lectures with more than a grain of salt), I nevertheless liked the point being driven home by the supporting role Minister-heroine type: "Forgiveness isn't for the person who wronged you. Forgiveness is for yourself." And I don't need a Biblical annotation to stand for that.

The Brahmin