You know, the incidents cited in this article simply are not equivalent. It is reasonable to argue, for example, that publishing the travel schedules of the president and cabinet would now constitute an actual security risk. (Debatable, but reasonable.) The rest of it is simply war hysteria. Should Maher and Sontag have said what they did? Well, they certainly had the right to; the value of the content was in the eyes of the reader. Was Ari Fleischer's response to Maher's remarks reasonable? It's certainly understandable that the administration would have objected to the military being called "cowards" at any time. It's understandable that people would object to terrorist actions against thousands of civilians not being considered cowardly. Beyond that ... no, requests for unquestioning support by the administration are NOT reasonable.
Frankly, I don't think Maher should have apologized. He fully intended to provoke and give offense. (Also, I think Fleischer is a yutz, but that's another issue.) I certainly don't think the Administration is within its rights to call for the sorts of curbs it's generally been asking for. (Where on earth does Dan Rather pull a figure of 13,000 dead, missing and injured from?)
It will be fascinating to see what happens in the long term with all of this.
Copyright © 2001, Iain Jackson, after-words.org
[Archives: 2001 and after]
Archives before February 5, 2001
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12/19/2001: vive la france
12/19/2001: princess, redux
12/19/2001: yemen and rumsfeld
12/18/2001: you're NOT in the army now
12/18/2001: interesting donation
12/18/2001: shame on winn dixie, indeed
12/18/2001: saudi princess
12/17/2001: new resolve
12/17/2001: a victim of the attack ... yeah, right
12/17/2001: polluters ho!