Posted on 01/24/2002 10:59:51 PM PST by JohnHuang2
Did I hear correctly? Did so-called "civil libertarian" legal eagle Alan Dershowitz suggest last Sunday that U.S. law should be changed to allow authorities to torture suspects in "certain" criminal cases, like terrorism?
"We can’t just close our eyes and pretend we live in a pure world," Dershowitz told CBS's "60 Minutes." "If anybody has any doubt that our CIA, over time, has taught people to torture, has encouraged torture, has probably itself tortured in extreme cases, I have a bridge to sell you in Brooklyn."
I guess you don't actually have to be a constitutional expert to be considered one by Harvard Law School – where Dershowitz teaches – these days.
Now I don't doubt that certain "agencies" or agents in the employ of the United States government have tortured suspects in the past. Hell, maybe they're torturing terrorist suspects even now, as I write this. I don't know.
But that's not really the point, is it?
The point is, this suggestion – if we can realistically call it that – will never come to fruition in the first place. Congress would never approve it, the American people would never stand for it, and no Supreme Court would ever sanction it.
In short, this "idea" has no chance of becoming reality. So why did CBS put this clown on TV and let him inject such lunacy into the public policy arena? For ratings? To stir controversy?
Maybe. After all, Dershowitz did help defend one of the most guilty men ever acquitted of murder in American history – O.J. Simpson.
But should such trivial justifications allow networks to get away with this kind of nonsense? I think not – not, at least, if Americans are serious about debating the serious issues of our day.
When such big time media players pay such big time attention to such small-minded ideas (and the equally small-minded people espousing them), it gives those ideas legs and legitimacy.
Then, before you know it, some other doorknob is out there making the same suggestion on some other program because some other news show producer decided to try to inch up his ratings too. Yet the audience doesn't see "ratings"; it sees a news show attempting to treat a stupid idea as if it were legitimate.
In the end, we waste valuable public policy debate time discussing an "issue" that was never an "issue" at all.
Guys like Dershowitz don't deserve the spotlight when they so obviously have nothing of value to contribute to public policy debate. Americans should show their displeasure at the poor and selfish judgment demonstrated by the networks by turning the channel when they pay any attention to publicity seeking buffoons.
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