One of the things that is true of the Left is that it is generally guilty of great selectivity when applying those things it claims are absolute.
I could note their selective absolutism on discrimination (except for affirmative action), the right to keep medical care between patient and doctor (but only for abortion -- ObamaCare will bring government into every other medical decision), free speech (except for speech the Left dislikes) and freedom of religion (you WILL buy birth control for your employees and do gay marriages or lose your tax exemption!).
And apparently that selective application of absolute principles applies to the parents of public servants who are killed in the line of duty.
Back in 2005, Maureen Dowd declared, regarding Cindy Sheehan, that "the moral authority of parents who bury children killed in Iraq is absolute." Of course, the mere fact that Ms. Sheehan did not speak for the overwhelming majority of mothers and fathers, wives and husbands, or sisters and brothers of those who have died fighting the various terrorist groups seeking to impose radical Islam on the rest of the world didn't detract from Sheehan's "absolute moral authority" -- the White House was obliged to accommodate her and tailor policy to her demands.
Of course, Sheehan's "absolute moral authority" was conceded by the Left only until the Democrats took control of Congress and Sheehan began applying the same standards to emocrats that she did to Republicans -- and she was dismissed as a crazy old auntie in the attic once she began to criticize Barack Obama. After all, "absolute" is a relative term to the Left.
Jump forward seven years, to 2012. Barack Obama and Eric Holder are stonewalling on the release of documents related to the Operation Fast & Furious gunrunning scheme. The media is doing its best to avoid covering the story of what is going on -- and when they do cover it, the present it as a political witch hunt. Who is not being heard? The parents of slain Border Patrol Agent Brian Terry, who was killed using the guns that the Obama Department of Justice allowed into the hands of criminals.
The parents of slain U.S. Border Patrol Agent Brian Terry accused the Obama administration of “lying” and “hiding something” about the Fast and Furious gun-walking operation, which was linked to the 2010 killing of their son.“I think they are hiding something. I think they are lying and they are hiding… big time. Passing the buck,” Ken Terry said on Fox’s “Hannity” on Thursday evening. “I got a gut feeling on that. I just know that they are hiding something big. Something happened out there, and worse than what we know.”
“Eric Holder has been before Congress so many times. And [from] the first couple times you can tell there’s something being hid, and there’s something not being said. After a while you feel like throwing the TV through the front window because you get tired of hearing the constant lies,” said Josephine Terry.
Brian Terry’s December 2010 death – linked to firearms traced to the ATF’s Fast and Furious program – was the incident that brought the operation into public scrutiny.
Unlike Sheehan, who actually had a meeting with President Bush within weeks of her son's death in Iraq, Ken and Josephine Terry have never been granted a meeting with President Obama or Attorney General Holder. Holder sent the couple a flaccid condolence letter, and Obama placed a phone call to them shortly before their son's funeral -- but failed to mention Fast & Furious or explain that the gun used to kill their son came from a botched operation of the Justice Department.
The parents of this slain law enforcement officer have supported the investigation into the program that resulted in their son's death. They have publicly urged Obama and Holder to release the documents that will shed light on their son's death and those responsible for it. Now they are outraged at the stonewalling and cover up that is going on as Obama has tried to shield Holder by invoking executive privilege.
And the news media? They have virtually ignored the Terrys -- just like they ignored Brian Terry's death and the connection to a law enforcement operation gone sour.
After all, supporting these parents of a slain law enforcement officer who just want the truth about their son's death and proper punishment meted out to those who are responsible for it could reflect badly on an administration that so many in the press are invested in seeing succeed -- unlike what we saw in 2005, when the media was more than willing to use a grief-stricken mother to tear down a president they opposed.
And we certainly haven't heard the liberal media establishment arguing that Ken and Josephine Terry have "absolute moral authority" that needs to be deferred to by an administration that is arguably responsible for their son's murder -- because once again, that which the Left declares to be an absolute principle must fall by the wayside when it becomes inconvenient to the accomplishment of what they have decided is a higher goal (like reelecting Obama).
Update -- Welcome to the sudden influx of readers from Instapundit! Feel free to stay a while and look around. And thank you, Glenn Reynolds, for the link. Thanks as well to the guys from PowerLine for their top-of-the-page link as one of their picks from around the blogosphere.
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Comments on Don't Ken And Josephine Terry Have "Absolute Moral Authority"?
The operation was not "botched".
It worked exactly as planned.
THAT is the entire point of the outrage about this.
Agent Terry is dead and SOMEONE has to pay for that.
|| Posted by Lincoln Hask, June 22, 2012 09:26 PM ||And doesn't this administration have absolute moral obligation to respond to the parents - in this life and death matter?
|| Posted by Patricia, June 22, 2012 09:37 PM ||"The operation was not "botched"."
+1 It was an ill conceived operation that resulted in the murder of at least one American and many Mexicans. After 15 months, we still can't find out who is responsible for it and nobody has been held to account for it. Eric Holder and Barack Hussein Obama do not want you to find out who the responsible individuals are or why they did it.
If I were president, I'd be down at the DOJ clunking heads together and having the answers this week.
|| Posted by George, June 22, 2012 09:44 PM ||"Ill-conceived"?!?
I think this is the point. The Obama Administration was trafficking hundreds of weapons to a Mexican drug cartel, and still refuses to say why.
|| Posted by asdf, June 22, 2012 10:09 PM ||"Fast and Furious" is a very hot potato because it was a felonious operation from the very beginning under a law called the "King Pin Act" which was written for gun running to the narcotic cartels of Mexico. The law is specific, anyone who knowingly sells guns to the narcotics cartels are guilty, anyone who knows about about the selling of those guns are guilty if they do not inform the proper authorities, under those provisions anyone in the Justice Department who knew about this is guilty and any one who authorized it is guilty. Someone had to have signed the authorization and Holder is to smart to have done that and that is why everyone is hoping this goes away because its thought that Obama signed off on this. Can you imagine how guilty you are if your complicit in the murder of over 250 Police Officers in Mexico and the United States? The money came from 'Stimulus Funds' and all the people involved were Democrats, Holder is a Democrat and who ever signed that authorization is a Democrat most likely, they are all complicit in a conspiracy that ended in many murders. This is not just a scam like Solyandra Solar, which was a scheme of Obama's money packagers and $550 million dollars was stolen in a quid pro quo, this crime has jail sentences of hundreds of year and even a death penalty involved. PJMedia has a lot of information on this that has been researched very well and has the "King Pin Act" as a reference by it author.
|| Posted by Ron Nord, June 22, 2012 10:09 PM ||Frankly, folks, I used "botched" as a synonym for "f*cked up". I'm not implying that it was an "oops, it didn't go as planned" situation -- I'm saying it was cock-eyed from its inception.
|| Posted by Rhymes With Right, June 22, 2012 10:14 PM ||My skin crawls every time I see F&F described as 'botched', which implies good intentions gone wrong. It's a total distortion of language to call it that and plays into those on the left who want to minimize its importance.
|| Posted by Gord, June 23, 2012 12:00 AM ||What do you expect from an adminstration concieved in the cesspool of Chicago politics?
|| Posted by John Calomiris, June 23, 2012 01:28 AM ||And how many hundreds of innocent Mexicans were killed using these same weapons? I feel for Brian Terry but the US (not us; I refuse to any longer associate myself with this sort of lunacy) is making a bloodbath over their own imposed sense of morality.
The world is watching and BHO et al are taking our reps down with him.
|| Posted by Pi Guy, June 23, 2012 04:36 AM ||Hi Rhymes with Right - I found your site thru the aforementioned Instapundit. I think it's important to correctly characterize "Fast and Furious". It was NOT a law enforcement operation. The Mexican Police were not informed. The weapons were not traced. No one was arrested. No court case was prepared.
OK, if not a law enforcement operation, what the heck was it? "Fast and Furious" was a political operation. The goal was to re-institute the assault weapons ban, restrict the Second Amendment, crack down on and hopefully close many gun stores.
The scheme was to work like this:
1. Assert that violence in Mexico was caused by gun-smuggling of weapons into Mexico bought at gun stores and gun shows in the US. 90% of weapons traced in Mexico came from the US. President Calderon was down for the struggle on this part and would support the story.
2. Problem: Gun-smuggling to Mexico from the US was NOT a problem. Solution: Walk guns to Mexico under the aegis of "Fast and Furious". If US guns weren't in Mexico, we'd change that.
3. Result: Lots and lots of dead Mexicans, growing violence along the border.
4. Action: The messiah Obama and his disciple Holder would step out and condemn the horrific violence and demand action, ie gun ban, restrictions and hollowing out of the 2nd Amendment. They expected and planned for an outraged American Public, which would then support their "reasonable" gun control efforts.
No law enforcement effort, but a law subversion effort. The Obama Administration's goal was to subvert the Constitution and Bill of Rights.
If this isn't 'high crimes and misdemeanors', nothing is.
|| Posted by JabbaTheTutt, June 23, 2012 05:44 AM ||It's an absolute violation of their oaths of office.
|| Posted by SDN, June 23, 2012 01:01 PM ||Excellent points. Sheehan's son volunteered to go into harm's way and was killed by an enemy of the United States. Brian Terry was on duty and killed by a gun deliberately placed into his murder's hands by his own government. If Sheehan had absolute moral authority, the Terry's have far more.
|| Posted by JWnTX, June 23, 2012 10:32 PM ||I used "botched" as a synonym for "f*cked up". Rymes with right.
I sympathise with your dilemma, since it is difficult to describe this operation without using potentially forum banning language.
I use the word "horrendous", or "horrendously bad". It avoids profanity, but does not have the potentially innocent mistake connotations of "botched".
I agree with the others here that this is another example of the left applying standards to others that they never use on themselves.
Another example. In Watergate, while I remember some repubs tried to defend Nixon and make sure the case against him was solid, they were also by and large sincerely interested in finding the truth, and never tried to cover for WH stonewalling, or allow the WH to overide legidimate congressional perogatives. In fact one of the best questions of the Watergate hearing was asked by a repub, Howard Baker, "what did the president know and when did he know it". By contrast, in F&F, all of the dems I have heard on the committee may as well be Obama press agents. To the dems credit, their attitude in the leaking scandal has been much better, but on F&F they have been completely in the bag for Obama, with no desire at all to find the truth, or defend the princile of congressional oversight, or stand up for the Terry family.
|| Posted by richard40, June 24, 2012 09:16 AM ||Post a comment