Monday, July 11, 2005
Sticklers for the Law
Atrios comments here about the media's obsession with the technical parsing of the law as it may apply to the Bush White House in the Plame case.
I would just add that this sudden attention to the letter of the law would be more inspiring if it had been applied half as rigorously to Paula Jones' claim of sexual harassment against then-Governor Clinton. Anyone familiar with sexual harassment law could tell right out of the box that she had no claim, no matter which one of her increasingly lurid, self-contradictory tales one chose to believe. And indeed, when the case did come to trial, it immediately ran aground on these issues. But throughout the obsessive coverage of the case in print and on TV, I don't recall once hearing anyone point this out.
Instead, the press temporarily embraced a concept of sexual harassment that resembled something the Khmer Rouge (or at least Andrea Dworkin) might come up with: any sexual contact between a nominal superior and a subordinate was ipso facto a quasi-criminal offense.
But this time only issues of national security are involved, not sex, so it's not like we need to get too bent out of shape about the larger picture.
I would just add that this sudden attention to the letter of the law would be more inspiring if it had been applied half as rigorously to Paula Jones' claim of sexual harassment against then-Governor Clinton. Anyone familiar with sexual harassment law could tell right out of the box that she had no claim, no matter which one of her increasingly lurid, self-contradictory tales one chose to believe. And indeed, when the case did come to trial, it immediately ran aground on these issues. But throughout the obsessive coverage of the case in print and on TV, I don't recall once hearing anyone point this out.
Instead, the press temporarily embraced a concept of sexual harassment that resembled something the Khmer Rouge (or at least Andrea Dworkin) might come up with: any sexual contact between a nominal superior and a subordinate was ipso facto a quasi-criminal offense.
But this time only issues of national security are involved, not sex, so it's not like we need to get too bent out of shape about the larger picture.
