If liberals are good for anything, it is being outraged about all the wrong things. If one were to measure the amount of media debate in the past week, the conclusion might be that a law student being called a slut was the worst thing happening in the nation and the world. Liberals can’t be bothered to protest against war, even if they did so during the Bush administration, or indefinite detention, or targeted killings, or drone strikes, or the destruction of Libya or Somalia.
Rush Limbaugh, a man who would have to have been invented if he didn’t exist, called law student Sandra Fluke, a “slut” and a “whore” after she testified in favor of religious institutions being required to include contraception in their health care plans.
The liberals then lost their collective minds. There was no limit to their ire. One would have thought that Rush Limbaugh was killing Afghan children with drones, or torturing black Libyans, or planning to attack Iran. Of course, Limbaugh has absolutely no power to do any of those things. He is a celebrity, a media personality who advocates the right wing point of view. He is a sexist and a racist, but he has no power to take anyone’s life. That is Barack Obama‘s job.
Obama, like all American presidents, is among the slickest politicians of all time, but he is certainly no fool. He knew that Limbaugh handed him a political gift and he ran with it. Obama personally telephoned the aggrieved young woman while his liberal sycophants demanded that advertisers drop Limbaugh’s program. Republicans joined in the beat down and admonished the erstwhile standard bearer for his offensive language. Limbaugh was political toast, and Obama was king.
What could happen if these same people used as much energy opposing policies that literally kill thousands of people around the world? Quite a lot would change, but they don’t take actions against people in power because they don’t really care about what they do.
At the same time that these angry and outraged citizens were claiming victory against a radio personality they ought to be ignoring, the attorney general of the United States publicly claimed that the president of the United States has the right to kill at will whenever he feels like it.
Eric Holder traveled to an august educational institution, Northwestern University, and told a group of law students that they should get any crazy ideas about civil liberties out of their little heads. Holder asserts that the president can in fact decide to kill anyone he wants, as long as he claims that person is a terrorist. He doesn’t have to bother with indictments, charges, court rooms and other such old fashioned notions. Anwar al-Awlaki and his teenage son were both American citizens and were both killed by their president because he and a secret panel said they should die.
In making the case against the constitutional requirement for due process, the chief law enforcement officer in the country says that, “Due process and judicial process are not one in the same.” If that statement seems strange, it is because it is a bold faced lie. Never before, not even in the Bush administration, did lawyers make such bizarre arguments.
Despite being the attorney general, Holder is like middle level managers everywhere, saying that black is white or up is down if his boss says so. If his boss says that a person is a terrorist, then that person is dead and the rules will be changed to make it all very legal.
It is too bad that no one leapt to the defense of the Northwestern University law students who were forced to hear Holder’s offensive statements. There was no Sandra Fluke treatment for them. No one will call them and sympathize because they were exposed to vile language. In this case the offensive language came straight from the top, so if anyone was offended, well it is just too bad.
Perhaps liberals are sluts and whores. They are people of easy virtue, they don’t really have any principles and they sell themselves pretty cheaply. If Eric Holder isn’t a whore, then who is?
The same can be said for his boss too. No one becomes president without making the rounds on many a casting couch, the rich people’s casting couch. If they give the thumbs up, then the presidency is within reach. No one should be called a whore merely because they are sexually active. Selling oneself in order to be the head killer in chief on the planet is another matter. That is slut work of the very highest order.
Margaret Kimberley's Freedom Rider column appears weekly in BAR, and is widely reprinted elsewhere. She maintains a frequently updated blog as well as at http://freedomrider.blogspot.com. Ms. Kimberley lives in New York City, and can be reached via e-Mail at Margaret.Kimberley(at)BlackAgendaReport.com.
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