IP: Note to Boston Globe

[Dave Farber <farber () cis upenn edu>]

Jock is a long time friend of the President and thus he MAY have a bias but
in this case I think he hit it right on the button. Our democracy is in
danger of becoming a soap opera.


Dave


Date: Tue, 27 Jan 1998 08:52:03 -0500
From: jgill <jgill () penfield-gill com>




Friends,


Here is the text of a note I sent this morning to two friends in the
Washington bureau of the Boston Globe: David Shribman & Michael
Kranish.


Please let me know what you think.


Regards,


Jock


---------  note to Globe --------------


David,


I enjoyed the lead editorial in today's paper -- but it did not go
far enough.  The Globe writes in 'What Next': If Clinton is telling
the truth ... then the nation ... owes itself a stern examination of
the roles of the special prosecutor, the press, and public opinion
generally.  While this is all true, I urge you to write on why this
would be important.  What is at stake for the nation?  The Globe
needs to take the next step and lead the harder discussion.


There is the perspective that we have currently degenerated to
government by  soap opera and justice by a revolutionary tribunal
lead by Ken Starr.  Not a pretty picture.  The leaks coming from
Starr's organization are a scandal.  The press rushes to publish them
for profit but not to challenge their legitimacy or the ethics of
Starr for allowing it.


The President is entitled to due process like any citizen.  If the
President is not entitled to due process, then any politician, and
thus every American, is vulnerable to terrorist media tactics -
whether they be intentional or the result of manipulation.  Imagine
the threat to liberty.


The press today looks as if it is being used as a terroristic
weapon.  Their process creates a de facto attack on due process as
well as a enflamed lynch mob. The source of this abuse is worthy of
investigation as it attacks the heart of American democracy.


There are interesting questions to be asked concerning the coercion
of witnesses/participants, entrapment, subversion of friendship, and
the doctrine of the fruit of the poisoned tree.  All of these relate
to the corrosive attack on due process.


Does the press have any responsibility to moderate the howlings of
the lynch mob in their feeding frenzy?  Or is the only proper free
market  role of the press to throw rotten chum from dubious sources
into the bloody waters?  What if the press were fanning the flames of
a mob eager to lynch a member of a minority?  Do we honor the press
that backed the depravations of the  KKK or the excesses of the
Nazis?


My view is that the press has a higher duty which transcends the
values of the financial market place.  The press must assume, in our
instant hypermedia world, the role of the graphite rods in a nuclear
reactor: moderators of the destructive nuclear process to prevent
melt down and explosion.  The press has the power to put time back
into the process and save us from the tyranny of the majority mob as
well as from the evils of government by plebiscite.  After all, who
has historically elected to govern by plebiscite?  Dictators who wish
the mantle of legitimacy via an easily manipulates populace.  Is this
the future we wish for America?




What sort of country do we want?  This is the key question today's
editorial did not ask.  Do we want a society where liberty, trust,
friendship and due process flourish?  Or do we want to demolish due
process, destroy trust and lead friends to rat on friends and parents
to turn in their children?  We have only to look at countries such as
the former Evil Empire, Nazi Germany, Pol Pot's Cambodia,  and
China's Red Guards, to name but a few of the worst offenders, to see
what life is like where trust is dead, due process is forgotten and
friends are dangerous.  Is this what the current set of attackers
wish for America?


I look forward to hearing from you.


Regards,




Jock







--
____________________________________________________________________
Jock Gill
jgill () penfield-gill com


www.penfield-gill.com
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