If only actions didn’t eventually have consequences then you could laugh everything off, just like Bill Maher. But now Nir Rosen, a journalist who lost his job at an academic center after gloating over Lara Logan’s assault in Cairo, may have started something with even more dire results. He’s been accused of ratting on fellow journalists to ingratiate himself with the Opthamologist of Damascus, President Bashar al-Assad. The Telegraph writes:
Correspondence between Nir Rosen and Bashar al-Assad’s advisers emerged after the Syrian president’s personal email account was broken into by opposition groups and his messages handed to media organisations including the Daily Telegraph. …
In one message from November, Mr Rosen forwarded a BBC story from Homs by the journalist Paul Wood as evidence that Western media groups were evading the regime’s attempts to keep them out of the war zone. His email was eventually forwarded to Mr Assad himself, with one adviser writing “Paul wood was smuggled to Homs!!!”, an indication that they were unaware of his presence until Mr Rosen drew attention to it.
In a second message, one of Mr Assad’s aides reports that Mr Rosen had “personally informed” him that Western reporters were entering Syria from the Lebanese border and other prohibited routes.
Rosen has denied providing any more information than was already known to the Syrian security services. Maybe Rosen could could add that he’s just a comedian, like Bill Maher. But if the allegations prove true, it is doubtful that excuse will fly. More likely, the Left is about to rediscover one of life’s most enduring truths: that a snake, even called something else in the interests of political correctness and “solidarity”, is still a snake.
The reason why Stanley Fish’s argument that the liberals should always be exempted from the consequences of bad behavior is fallacious is that the world doesn’t agree. If you lower your standards then you’ll be sorrrrry. That’s just the way it is. Consider Bill Maher again. Bristol Palin writes:
Mr. President, When Should I Expect Your Call? … But here’s why I’m a little surprised my phone hasn’t rung. Your $1,000,000 donor Bill Maher has said reprehensible things about my family. He’s made fun of my brother because of his Down’s Syndrome. He’s said I was “f—-d so hard a baby fell out.”
Quite apart from the rights and wrongs of it, how many would like to share a foxhole with Bill Maher on the strength of his high moral character? Because that’s what you’d want of someone to whom you would entrust your life.
But if he’ll say that about a young girl for laughs, what won’t he do? Similarly Nir Rosen’s delight at Lara Logan’s misfortune should have indicated that whatever Stanley Fish thinks, a creep doesn’t get any better with any amount of liberal varnish. If you define deviancy downward for long enough in the name of ideology, guess what you eventually get? You get what’s coming.
There is breaking news from France that a gunman, possibly of neo-Nazi persuasion, has gunned down Jewish schoolchildren in France. And while this incident was not triggered by a known specific event, it is fair to ask whether the endless shouting of Death to Israel! has not ultimately borne fruit in diseased minds. Groucho Marx once quipped that he would never want to be a member of a club that would accept him as a member. Of the Left you might say that you would never want to join an association of people who’d actually believe that rot. Look at whom you’re attracting. Great ain’t it?
It is not correct to argue that ideology excuses everything; and provided that you mean well all is permissible. It doesn’t work that way. The Universe has an uncanny way of keeping score. You can run from consequences, but ultimately you can never hide.
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