The American criminal justice system targets African-Americans for the crime of being African-American, whether they’ve broken any law or not. Media elites believe that elites should be able to engage in all sorts of criminal behavior (Hastert, Safeway Cap, FIFA officials) without being prosecuted.
The message is simple: you don’t get prosecuted for breaking the law, you get prosecuted for being the wrong sort of person.
If you want to see a truly remarkable example of media elites slobbering all over elites who have broken the law, and insisting these elites not be prosecuted, I recommend this amazing letter by David Bradley, owner of the National Journal and Atlantic (via).
shawn
poor as well, perhaps the simply poor are not targeted like African Americans sometimes are, but poor is also the wrong kind of person to be
different-church-lady
No, you missed the mark a bit. The message is more subtle, and more evil: The right sort of people don’t break laws. The wrong sort of people break them all the time. It not a question of unequal treatement by the justice system, it’s complete denial that any infraction occurred in the first place.
I'mNotSureWhoIWantToBeYet
(It’s good to see you posting things like this again, Doug. I hope we’ll see more of it.)
Amazing distillation of the thought process of too many on the Right. They need to study a certain sermon a little more until they really understand it…
Cheers,
Scott.
different-church-lady
@shawn: Huge overlap on that Venn diagram. And for the same systemic reasons as unequal treatment in the justice system: systemic racism.
low-tech cyclist
Maybe they should petition to remove the words “Equal Justice Under Law” from the front of the Supreme Court building.
Hunter Gathers
I steadfastly refuse to consider The Man Called Petraeus as anything other than a typical white male idiot. Only a fucking moron would trade classified information for a chance to Tap That Ass. I fucking hate the demographic slot I inhabit. 90% of us are too stupid to live.
DougJ
@I’mNotSureWhoIWantToBeYet:
They didn’t hand out tickets to the Sermon on the Mount. People just turned up, they knew it was a good gig.
OzarkHillbilly
One should not look for justice in a court of law, for in that place reside Just Us.
Betty Cracker
@shawn: This.
Cacti
If one views the criminal justice system as being in place to protect the powerful and ride herd on the plebes, it isn’t broken. It’s working exactly as intended.
Peale
Look. Petraeus is a public figure and public figures need press, preferably good press, so sexing your hagiographer part of the job. I don’t know why you don’t see that?
MattF
I only wonder that a judge would take a letter like that seriously, considering the specifics of the accusation against Petraeus. It’s okey-dokey for the CIA Director to breach security because… Just give me a break.
Immanentized
As Dylan said:
They say that patriotism is the last refuge
To which a scoundrel clings
Steal a little and they throw you in jail
Steal a lot and they make you king
Cacti
My favorite example of how egregiously the criminal court system protects the powerful is when the DuPont family scion was convicted of raping his 3-year old daughter, and the superior court judge gave him no prison time on the rationale that he “would not fare well” behind bars.
On the other hand, prison is like a paid stay at a resort for a poor person.
smh
bystander
@I’mNotSureWhoIWantToBeYet:
I’m consistently amazed by the brazen self promotion by the rwn Christians. I guess denying that the elites ever commit a crime is of whole cloth with the wholesale violation of the few actual admonitions of Christ.
Valdivia
That letter is really something else.
Marley influenced title for the win.
OzarkHillbilly
@Cacti:
More and more states are charging ex-cons for their stays.
goblue72
Who knew that the neon-bedecked dystopian futures of 1980s Schwarzenegger scifi flicks would turn out to be documentaries….
Ghost of Joe Liebling's Dog
Much like losing everything in Hurricane Katrina worked out so well for the evacuees huddled in the Astrodome, and why should we worry our beautiful minds about that?
It explains a great deal if we simply assume that the 1%ers hate us and want us to die.
Quicksand
Oh wow. Those letters — not just the Bradley one — fill me with white-hot rage. I really need to step away from the computer now.
misterpuff
Let’s be clear, the Police protect Institutions (The Government, The Property Owners, The Press, The Universities) – If you inhabit those institutions (The Pols, The CEOs, The Publishers, The Regents), you are protected. If you disrupt those institutions, you are beaten down. Its Us vs Them with a patina of Patriotic Elitism. The Middle Class gets a pass because they rarely are disrupters. But make no mistake about this, if any class crosses the Elite Class, the hobnailed boots will come crashing down on them.
Mandalay
Even more egregious than Petraeus was the case of this piece of shitslime.
If you are rich and powerful and get caught just keep a low profile for a year or two, and then get back to business.
jl
I read the stupid Marcus piece. What is Marcus’ purpose in writing such drivel? Is she jealous of David Brooks or what?
What indeed is the US interest if international criminals decide to do all of their money changing in the US? How is the US the only country interested if the Swiss are doing investigations, raids, and frog marches too? I mean, jeez, if the Swiss get spooked by financial corruption, that seems a pretty high (or low) bar to me.
And, I guess the feds should have laid off hinky cash transfers as soon as they saw it was the great and good Hastert. Those laws are just to catch drug cartels and terrorists, bad (and brown?) people not like us, right. I mean, what interest do the feds have in uncovering large cash transactions that might be connected to ordinary white collar crime, like tax evasion or payoffs that might be connected to the crooked real estate deals Hastert is alleged to have done? Why, it is outrageous.
Is Marcus the NYT opinion page pooh-bah that does those precious little dialogues with Brooks? If so, they are well paired..
Perhaps unintentionally, Marcus reveals the very bright color and class lines that determine who suffers from ‘broken windows’ policing. The poor can be rousted on flimsy pretexts, bankrupted through what is effectively tax farming to the police and courts, and beaten and killed on a daily basis. Boy, that is real tough problem a dilemma, a real situation of hard choices (for OTHER people, not people like you and me or our betters). Because there is a nub of a point to broken windows policing policies, and if it SEEMS to go out of control, well, we can’t judge it all too hastily, since a lot of THOSE people are thugs anyway.
But much clearer situations, as applied to Hastert or FIFA, well, let’s be very doubtful about the justice of it all.
Ruth Marcus, ignorant bigot, writing for the NYT opinion page. Glad I don’t waste my time on her. At least, Brooks is more amusing.
CONGRATULATIONS!
@Mandalay: The Standard? Really?
You could have walked into my office and shit on the floor and I’d be less offended.
Mandalay
@different-church-lady:
This. Not only do the rich and powerful escape prosecution, but our compliant media stays silent about it.
Remember all the brouhaha that erupted when the DOJ recommeded felony charges against the traitorous Petraeus, but he only ended up with a single misdemeanor charge? Me neither.
Mandalay
@CONGRATULATIONS!:
You ignore factual information if your sensibilities are offended by the messenger? Grow the fuck up.
Valdivia
@jl: Marcus also took to the pages of the WaPo to rail against the persecution of Roman Polanski for rape charges.
This argument that the FIFA people should not be touched, which I keep seeing, makes absolutely no sense to me. They are so corrupt that we shouldn’t even bother? Wha?
JPL
Hastert appears in court today in a little over 30 minutes. What’s the over/under on a not guilty plea. I assume he wants this to stay out of court and will come to some type of deal.
gogol's wife
That letter is Village in its purest essence. The rhetoric, the smarminess, just — blecch!
slag
Jesus fucking christ that Ruth Marcus article. What the hell went wrong with that mind?
bemused
It’s not just the elites who turn a blind eye to elites engaging in all sorts of criminal behavior. I constantly hear and read comments from local average Joe Republicans giving corporations and other businesses plus legislators on their team free passes for screwing them over or staying uncharacteristically silent. Average Joe can easily do this because they find a ludicrous excuse to blame Democrats and liberals every single time.
Belafon
You’re not truly free unless laws do not apply to you. Wait until they demand the ability to violate the laws of physics.
maurinsky
I always argue the opposite – the higher the rank, the more well-placed the offender is, the more harsh the sentence should be. The way it is now, you know that each offender who is caught is just one of many practitioners, and the village gathers to protect those in their social circle. Disgusting.
agorabum
@Hunter Gathers: The thing about ‘classified’ information is that there is a vast over classification of our military and intelligence bureaucracy, so it is possible to give out something that is classified but actually not special / poses no risks to anyone. In ww2, it was loose lips sink ships. Now it doesn’t much matter…
However, I don’t actually know what he disclosed, and on the flip side, whistle blowers seem to get hammered. I’d rather see the WB penalties reduced rather then Petreus enhanced
OzarkHillbilly
@misterpuff: You mean like this?
Keystone protesters tracked at border after FBI spied on ‘extremists’
More than 18 months after federal investigation violated internal rules, activists say they were still watchlisted at the airport, visited at home by a terrorism task force and detained for hours because they ‘seemed like protesters’
Their great sin? Protesting against the Keystone XL pipeline.
blueskies
Did anyone read down to the DiFi letter? I think it’s the worst of the lot. Given her stance on whistleblowers (hang ’em high!) who might be serving the public good on some level, and certainly at least THINK that they are, how hypocritical is it that she wants Betray-Us to get a slap on the wrist for blabbing national secrets just to get some bed time?!
JPL
@slag: I finally clicked to the article and wish that I hadn’t. ugh
Brachiator
Yeah, these letters say a lot, but DougJ, you are being a little sloppy here.
These letters are not about anyone insisting that Petraeus not be prosecuted. They are letters requesting leniency in sentencing.
To focus on a letter from the media elite is misleading. Suck-ups include former UK prime minister Tony Blair, and Senators Dianne Feinstein and Lindsey Graham. And I’m not sure how elite a retired Command Sgt Major might be.
@Hunter Gathers:
Actually, this is one of the best of reasons. And you don’t have to be a moron, just horny.
Valdivia
@slag: Too much time in the hothouse climes of the Village.
OzarkHillbilly
For the animal lovers:
Service Dog Throws Self In Front Of Bus To Save Blind Owner’s Life
Quicksand
@blueskies:
Yeah. But TBQH it’s pretty hard to pick a “worst” — certainly the recurring hasn’t-he-suffered-enough bits are all gross.
I particularly “enjoyed” Jane Harman’s contribution: “incarceration would make it awkward for him to continue to render advice to the Administration.”
Yes, awkward indeed.
Just Some Fuckhead
Black people need to incorporate so they have a fighting chance.
Just Some Fuckhead
Follow the lead of LLC Ool J.
Elizabelle
Ridiculous press conference. WH press room was evacuated; the press corpses are asking kind of overheated questions, now that they’re back.
(Found out about this via WaPost website; now watching CNN. The news is them, the journalists, apparently.)
The reporters are security experts in addition to being stellar journalists. They’re greatly concerned about the president’s whereabouts, since their bods were evacuated.
Elizabelle
Josh Earnest trying to refer questions to Secret Service.
C’mon jerkalists: did you have no other questions? Is this how you want to spend the presser? (Apparently so.)
Cacti
@Just Some Fuckhead:
Women should also register their uterus as a corporation sole, and state in the articles that reproductive choice is a “sincerely held religious belief” of the corporate entity.
Gin & Tonic
Since we’re sorta talking about (sorta) journalists, the Google informs me that the “Headless Body In Topless Bar” author has shuffled off this mortal coil.
Valdivia
@Elizabelle: Jerkalists! Love love this coinage.
OzarkHillbilly
@Cacti:
There is a nugget of a good idea in there. Turn all abortion clinics into churches. Watch Scalia’s head explode.
Elizabelle
@Gin & Tonic:
From the NY Times (and the Headless Body header was from NY Post in 1983):
Elizabelle
@Valdivia: Jerkalists might have legs.
srv
I think our masters would do well to just pick one of their kind and have a little tazing/knightstick party by the local gendarmes.
I’m not sure who I would pick, the choices are so vast. Perhaps it could be one of those Change voting things and we could nominate someone every year.
Tone in DC
@Hunter Gathers:
LULz.
Neither you nor the rest of us guys here could inhabit the tenth circle of Dante’s Inferno of St00pidity. Just Betrayus, Dubya, Carly Fiorina and John Yoo (okay, maybe a few others).
Emerald
Barbara Tuchman:
We have completed that process.
Valdivia
@Elizabelle: I think you should copyright it. I am happy to lobby for its inclusion in our BJ Lexicon.
slag
@Valdivia: Creepy. Creepy and gross.
WereBear
@OzarkHillbilly: Thank you. A stark contrast to the thread about Republican candidates, it is.
raven
@Emerald: My name is Emilano Zapata!
Elizabelle
@Valdivia: I see Jonathan Karl and Mark Knoller.
And many more.
nastybrutishntall
Not such a good feel for the written word, though. Good thing he’s not responsible for anything involving good writing.
Tree With Water
How does today’s shit sandwich taste?
“..For his part, it was Rumsfeld’s understanding all along that Iraq was meant to be invaded by the U.S. but not rebuilt by the U.S. Former commander of the Army Transportation Corps, Brig. Gen. Mark Scheid claimed that Rumsfeld threatened to fire any Pentagon officials planning for the rebuilding phase of the war..”.
Bush-Cheney-Rumsfeld make no bones about it. They plotted for war, not peace. They have ever since taunted the democratic rank and file about that plot, as if daring them to insist their party’s leadership publicly acknowledge their infamy. Which as most here know is a dare I believe should be met. I mean, WTF not?
Gin & Tonic
@Elizabelle: What I love about the story is the quaint old nature of “reporting.” They didn’t want to run with the headline because they weren’t sure the bar was really a topless bar, so they sent a reporter out to Queens to make sure it really was. How old-fashioned.
boatboy_srq
@different-church-lady: I think I understand Objectivist Libertarians a bit better now that I’ve read your comment. Naturally they trust (well, ok, trust-but-verify) the entities they contract with because, being the Right Sort of People, they wouldn’t do anything inappropriate like pollute or scr3w their employees or sell toxic products or anything. Libertarian dudebros think they are, if not the Right Sort of People themselves, at least included in the RSoP’s preferred customers.
different-church-lady
@Gin & Tonic: What was old-fashioned? That they sent a reporter to the bar instead of calling, or that they did any fact checking at all?
Gin & Tonic
@different-church-lady: That they bothered checking it at all. This ran, remember, in the NY Post.
Elizabelle
@Gin & Tonic: Yeah. Feet on the ground fact-checking. Refreshing.
OT: Does baby granddaughter have a name? How are she and her parents doing?
smintheus
There are lots of insipid letters in that bunch. Maybe the worst of them is by Brookings hack Michael O’Hanlon at pages 55 ff. It begins weirdly (“Greetings, Judge Keesler”) and includes a detailed account of how long O’Hanlon has “considered him one of my very good friends” (“the last 5 to 8 years”). O’Hanlon even includes a copy of a Politico article he wrote, “Dave Petraeus, national hero”. Just sad.
Elizabelle
Watching To Kill a Mockingbird on TCM.
Jem and Scout the Ham are walking home through the woods.
Mike in NC
No letter for leniency from Dubya? After all, Petraeus gave him “The Surge” and he and the Villagers thought Petraeus was the greatest military genius since Alexander the Great.
Origuy
Scott Herhold of the San Jose Mercury News is an old time reporter who still remembers when papers did fact checking. This column about a WWII veteran who embellished his story is enlightening.
Gin & Tonic
@Elizabelle: Baby and parents are adjusting to each other. Right now she’s been sleeping much more during the day than at night, so either they turn that around soon or move to Australia. Dad is, of course, completely smitten. Girls will do that.
trollhattan
Jesus, those letters. “Who among us hasn’t leaked State secrets in exchange for ess ee exx? Or at least hoped to? Other than that the experts agree: National Treasure! [Memo to self: work up screenplay, STAT, contact Chris Cooper’s agent.]”
But, the Real Crimes are two-fold: Double-spacing AND indenting; two spaces after a period with a proportional typeface. Throw those fvckers into style convention jail until they repent.
ifthethunderdontgetya™³²®©
@smintheus: Hanlon licks the hands that feed him.
~
Valdivia (The Terrible)
@Elizabelle: Also, too. Chuck Todd.
Kay
@smintheus:
Why doesn’t he know how long? Does he remember the day they went from good friends to very good friends? I bet the 3 year lag is because it wasn’t reciprocal, at first. First, he really liked the general and then 3 years later and after this:
the general finally, finally liked him back.
catclub
@Emerald: That is very true. The US is taking on the madness of King George.
catclub
@Tone in DC: Bremer. General Orders #1 and #2. Creator of Al Qaeda in Iraq and ISIS.
Fully backed by Dubya.
Tree With Water
@Origuy: Four Purple Hearts, three Silver Stars and Navy Cross? I only wonder why he didn’t claim to be a medal of honor winner while he was at it.
Kay
Four dead, a $99,000 fine. That seems fair, right?
It’s cheaper for DuPont to just kill 4 workers a year, really.
http://www.dol.gov/opa/media/press/osha/OSHA20150912.htm
Tree With Water
@OzarkHillbilly:
“Women should be obscene and not heard”. That’s a pre-Yoko remark made by John Lennon. She had quite a reclamation project on her hands with that hysterically funny, talented, and formidable guy. The fact he was grateful for it spoke well of him.
Kay
Here’s the new point man in the battle against Fight For Fifteen:
Gross.
http://www.politico.com/blogs/media/2015/06/robert-gibbs-joins-mcdonalds-208504.html
Jebediah, RBG
@OzarkHillbilly:
So that is reason number what, 2,772? that most dogs are better then most people…
Cervantes
@smintheus:
Yes, but there’s Moralist Laureate Joe Lieberman seeking understanding and forgiveness on behalf of Petraeus.
Imagine my surprise.
Bloix
What do you mean “you don’t get prosecuted”? Petraeus is being prosecuted. He’s already pled guilty. He and the prosecutors have already agreed on the sentence that the prosecution will recommend. All that’s left is for the judge to impose sentence.
This letter and all the others are for the purpose of urging that the judge accept the prosecutor’s recommendation and not impose a harsher sentence. Such letters are standard. Every drug dealer and wife abuser gets his minister or employer to write a letter saying what a great guy he is.
Heliopause
@Elizabelle:
I usually avoid this sort of thing but my TV just happened to be on it at that time. Your WH press corps at work.
1st Reporter: Why did X happen!!!!!
JE: I don’t know, you’ll have to ask the Secret Service.
2nd Reporter: Repeats slight variant of first question.
JE: Same answer.
Then a few more reporters ask slight variants of the same question.
I assume there must be some kind of intelligence test to gain entry into the WH briefing room, and if you score over a certain level you are disqualified.
Charles
Considering that this is the owner of one of the great magazines of the greatest nation on earth, what shabby writing.
fnook
Bloix, your point is valid, but its mostly semantic. The point DougJ appears to be making is that elites like Petraeus do not get prosecuted to the full extent of the law. In today’s world, that means the gov’t does not go out of its way to make him into the devil incarnate, forcing him to face trial, and then vociferously arguing for the longest possible jail sentence. That didn’t happen here based on his status. On the good side, Snowden should get the Petraeus treatment, in which case, all will be forgiven. Imagine the outpouring of support for Snowden and how it will not make a bit of difference to the asshole prosecutor assigned to this case.
DAS
@different-church-lady: yep. Essentially it’s a corruption of the doctrines of total depravity (the wrong kinds of people always break laws) and perseverance of the saints (the right kind of people never break laws)
Rubber Crutch
Mark my words. Petraeus will find religion and become the white-horse alternative to all other conventional-wisdom Republican candidates. He will be easy to rehabilitate because how dare you question the qualifications of The Man Who Surged.
Big Jim Slade
I think you may be referencing this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LfEvIivLSQA
Daulnay
The people who wrote letters in support of Petraeus should be shamed, with a week in the stocks.
As @maurinsky: said,
“the higher the rank, the more well-placed the offender is, the more harsh the sentence should be.”
Our leaders should be held to the highest standard of law-abiding behavior. Anything else makes a mockery of law and
justice.
smintheus
@Kay: You’re probably right about that, I hadn’t pondered the question in such detail! I was however struck by the precise imprecision of “5 to 8 years”. Sounds like a typically phony letter of recommendation: “He is one of the best 5 or 10 grad students we’ve had in the last 7 or 8 years.”
skeptonomist
@different-church-lady: No, it is admitted that the right people sometimes do bad things. But because they’re good people, it would hurt them to be punished. It doesn’t hurt bad people to be punished – it does them good. Good people only have to ask God for forgiveness and then they are back in business.