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About TheCenterLane.com
TheCenterLane.com offers opinion, news and commentary on politics, the economy, finance and other random events that either find their way into the news or are ignored by the news reporting business. As the name suggests, our focus will be on what seems to be happening in The Center Lane of American politics and what the view from the Center reveals about the events in the left and right lanes. Your Host, John T. Burke, Jr., earned his Bachelor of Arts degree from Boston College with a double major in Speech Communications and Philosophy. He earned his law degree (Juris Doctor) from the Illinois Institute of Technology / Chicago-Kent College of Law.
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Just Keep Walking
April 23, 2009
Peggy Noonan had an esteemed career as speechwriter to former Presidents Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush. She now writes a weekly column for The Wall Street Journal and she frequently appears as a panelist on many television news programs. She has been on the blogroll of this website since its inception.
On Sunday, April 19, she appeared as a panelist on ABC’s This Week with George Stephanopoulos. During that program’s Roundtable discussion, the subject eventually turned to President Obama’s decision not to prosecute the CIA operatives involved in the torture of detainees in the “War on Terror” as well as the decision to release the so-called “torture memos”. Those memos were prepared by the Office of Legal Counsel during the Bush administration. They described the permissible use of such techniques as waterboarding, sleep deprivation, confinement in a box with insects and other sadistic acts, intended to get detainees to provide valuable information. Roundtable panelist Sam Donaldson expressed his opinion that the operatives who administered these interrogation techniques were not “just following orders”; they believed they were following the law because they were relying on the legal opinions expressed in those memos. However, as Donaldson explained, if the people who devised those methods and wrote the legal memos condoning their use were “just trying to find cover” and just trying to find a way to get around American law and the Constitution, they should be held accountable in a court of law. Donaldson added that if the President wanted to pardon those people, he should do so, although it would be important for those individuals to be held accountable before a court.
Peggy Noonan then remarked:
Sam Donaldson then interrupted with the question as to whether it was right “to let people walk who may have committed a crime”. Noonan then replied: “Some of life has to be mysterious”.
Noonan’s remarks drew immediate outrage from Senator Russ Feingold of Wisconsin. As Sam Stein reported for The Huffington Post, Feingold was harshly critical of the rationalizations for avoiding prosecution of these people, as expressed by government officials as well as those in the news media. Stein quoted the Senator’s expressed indignation:
Noonan’s opinion is emblematic of the mainstream media’s all-too-frequent response to scandalous events and it demonstrates why so many people have turned to the Internet to get the news. If you overhear someone in a restaurant arranging a bribe with a politician: Just keep walking. If you discover information about illegal toxic dumping by one of your publication’s sponsors: Just keep walking. If Harry Markopolos approaches you and tries to explain how Bernie Madoff is running a Ponzi scheme: Just keep walking.
Peggy Noonan’s statement wasn’t just a situation where she “misspoke”. It was the expression of an arrogant attitude held by too many in the media who decide it is up to them to determine when the public deserves to know something and when it doesn’t. After all: “Some of life has to be mysterious”.
Shame on you, Peggy Noonan! Shame on you!