Iceberg wrote:And? Hypocrisy is the primary defining trait of electoral politics. Fuck "playing fair."
Actually, that's what I said.
"Brian, if I parked a supertanker in Central Park, painted it neon orange, and set it on fire, it would be less obvious than your stupidity." --RedImperator
Here's what Orin Kerr of The Volokh Conspiracy has to say about Maureen Dowd's histrionics on the incident.
Of course, this doesn't mean that Niederer should be prosecuted. I have tremendous sympathy for her situation; she has suffered a tragic loss. But at least on the facts that we know, Maureen Dowd's statement that Niederer was "handcuffed, arrested and charged with a crime for daring to challenge the Bush policy in Iraq" seems a bit hard to square with reality.
Like I said earlier, I feel sorry for the woman but that doesn't give her or anyone else the right to exercise a 'heckler's veto'.
"You say that it is your custom to burn widows. Very well. We also have a custom: when men burn a woman alive, we tie a rope around their necks and we hang them. Build your funeral pyre; beside it, my carpenters will build a gallows. You may follow your custom. And then we will follow ours."- General Sir Charles Napier
Glocksman wrote:Here's what Orin Kerr of The Volokh Conspiracy has to say about Maureen Dowd's histrionics on the incident.
Of course, this doesn't mean that Niederer should be prosecuted. I have tremendous sympathy for her situation; she has suffered a tragic loss. But at least on the facts that we know, Maureen Dowd's statement that Niederer was "handcuffed, arrested and charged with a crime for daring to challenge the Bush policy in Iraq" seems a bit hard to square with reality.
Like I said earlier, I feel sorry for the woman but that doesn't give her or anyone else the right to exercise a 'heckler's veto'.
Hurumph..And what pray tell is wrong with arguing with a politician at any time? If a Bush cannot defend their policies in a public place then what good are they?
More to the point, since when did a politician in any democratic country get so high and mighty that they need not be held to account in public?
Via money Europe could become political in five years" "... the current communities should be completed by a Finance Common Market which would lead us to European economic unity. Only then would ... the mutual commitments make it fairly easy to produce the political union which is the goal"
There's no problem with arguing with a politician in the proper forum.
If it'd been a 'Town Hall' type forum with a Q&A session, that woman would have perfectly been within her rights to ask any question she wanted.
The problem occurs when the people who come to hear the speech cannot do so because a heckler chooses to interrupt. You don't have a right to prevent others from hearing a person speak with heckling, no matter what your motivation.
Despite the attempts of people such as Maureen Dowd to portray this as a free speech issue, there was no violation of that woman's rights.
"You say that it is your custom to burn widows. Very well. We also have a custom: when men burn a woman alive, we tie a rope around their necks and we hang them. Build your funeral pyre; beside it, my carpenters will build a gallows. You may follow your custom. And then we will follow ours."- General Sir Charles Napier
