With apologies to Art Linkletter, we’re co-opting his trademark phrase, with a twist: “People who should know better say the darndest things.”
Read on and see whether these comments leave you as bewildered, befuddled or just plain bemused as they did us.
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“Where there is enough evidence to charge someone with a crime, we vigorously prosecute. But not every wrong, or even every violation of the law, is a crime.”
We can thank Attorney General Michael B. Mukasey for that hair-splitting clarification on why he won’t bring charges against the former Justice Department employees who used political litmus tests in hiring decisions. Such tests violate civil service laws, but the worst offenders have left the building and Mukasey believes they are beyond reasonable efforts to prosecute.
Perhaps, as he said, there’s no ground for criminal prosecution against people who have already been publicly rebuked, but it still sticks in the craw that this smelly piece of corruption will go unpunished. The culprits walk away. The hand-picked minions who passed the litmus tests can keep their jobs ó at taxpayer expense. And those who were rejected because they didn’t kowtow to conservative orthodoxy on abortion, guns or gays? Sorry about that. Better luck next time.
This is justice?
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“Can I explain to you what happened? First of all, it happened during a period after she was in remission from cancer. That’s no excuse in any possible way for what happened.”
You’re right, Senator Edwards. That’s no excuse in any possible way for your affair ó so why on earth bring up the calendar during your “Nightline” confession? Was it a lame attempt to suggest that we should look more kindly on the betrayal of a healthy spouse than infidelity behind the back of a sick one? To put it in lawyerly terms, it sounds like you were suggesting a “mitigating circumstance” might apply here.
The marital vows are wonderfully plain-spoken and free of legalese in this regard. In sickness or in health ó it makes no difference.
So why even bring it up?
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“We think that it is unfortunate. But it’s between this government and Joey as a private citizen.”
Spoken like a bloodless bureaucrat. Perhaps that’s a bit harsh, but we’d hoped for something bolder from Jim Scherr, chief executive officer of the U.S. Olympic Committee, after China rescinded the visa of 2006 Olympic speedskating gold medalist Joey Cheek.
Cheek, a Greensboro native, is the co-founder of Team Darfur, a group of athletes that seeks to raise awareness about the conflict in Sudan and has implored China to do more to help end the fighting and genocide there.
Cheek isn’t just another private citizen. He’s an Olympian who has used his fame and winnings to help ease the suffering in a brutalized land. He wasn’t planning a protest; he just wanted to attend the Games and support Team USA.
China’s shoddy treatment of him is more than “unfortunate.” It’s a travesty of freedom of expression and the Olympic ideal, and the USOC should have responded with more than a whimper and a shrug.