Posted 1:17 PM by steve

A lot of conservatives oppose hate crimes laws, where the perpetrator faces higher criminal penalties if the motivation for committing the crime was bias against the 'class' of the victim. One argument against such laws is that intent is too hard to determine. Another is that intent shouldn't matter, that someone murdered for economic reasons is just as dead as someone who is killed because of, for example, the color of their skin. And a third is that such laws place a higher 'value' on members of the designated class, creating situations where a white who kills a black can face a heavier penalty than if they had killed another white person - a murder victim is a murder victim and society should not designate on the basis of race, sex, etc.

So, why then are conservatives in such a snit about proving Rather and Mapes' were motivated by partisanship? All of the above arguments can be applied here: why should it be OK to peek into Mapes' mind to infer bias if we shouldn't do it elsewhere? Why should it matter what their motivation was? A poorly produced story is a poorly produced story, a hatchet job is a hatchet job, whether or the journalist is driven political bias. And, as far as the story having the potential of impacting the election, is it supposed to matter that the person whose reputation is being ruined is the President than if it was some person very people had ever heard of?

I agree with the arguments in the first paragraph. I also think it matters that CBS was driven by bias, and not journalistic 'zeal'. What was that saying about consistency being the .....?