JLowe enters the fray
Now, in his blogging debut, meet JLowe!
And, over at BlueOregon, a discussion of the merits of the marketplace of ideas and civil discourse, starring your's truly!
And, if my opinion on the O'Reilly topic means anything, here it is:
It is reprehensible for any person (whether in a position of authority or not) to make unwelcome sexual advances or explicit sexual statements toward another person. Well, I guess (context important) an initial unwelcome advance isn't reprehensible (it may be in incredibly poor taste), but again context is very important to consider. Back to the point, I've seen the accusations regarding O'Reilly. If true, he should be held to account. However, the key is to consider whether or not they are true. Our opinion that they are, or aren't, true doesn't make them one or the other. Only the people involved know for sure, and as there is a disagreement on the facts, I guess I'll have to refrain from judgment until the matter is settled.
So, my opinion: if true, deal with O'Reilly in the harshest appropriate manner. As he will no doubt use his program to further claim innocense, to cast aspersions upon the other party, etc, it would be appropriate to deprive him of his bully pulpit. But I wouldn't support doing that until matters are settled.
As I consider my opinion (and, as others may end up considering it) I guess I have to think about how it squares with my job. My job, as a prosecutor, is to take accusations against a person and to run with them.
I guess the difference is that my job relies upon investigation of those accusations by a neutral third party, known as law enforcement. While many doubt whether law enforcement is trustworthy, I can think of few, if any, instances where I had a problem with how police did their job or presented their facts to me. In fact, I've come across many instances where police presented a case to me and I didn't have enough information to do anything in terms of prosecution, and in talking to the police it was clear that they had done their best to prepare a good case, but they also knew there just wasn't enough there and understood my inability to go any further. Fact is, I end up rejecting alot of cases where there is enough to convince me of a person's guilt, but I know there's not enough to convince a judge or jury, and in our packed court system it is important to focus our resources.
In the O'Reilly case we have a he-said/she-said, and in those cases I always hold off on making a determination until a third party can investigate and make some determination on who's telling the truth using evidence other than the verbal claims being made.
If there were tapes in this case, that would be ideal. Or phone bill statements showing the alleged calls took place. Or a third-party witness. But none of that is present (or I haven't heard that it is) and so I'm holding off on coming to any conclusions that I'll post at this point.
That's all for now. Make sure to check out JLowe's blog.
Catch ya later.
And, over at BlueOregon, a discussion of the merits of the marketplace of ideas and civil discourse, starring your's truly!
And, if my opinion on the O'Reilly topic means anything, here it is:
It is reprehensible for any person (whether in a position of authority or not) to make unwelcome sexual advances or explicit sexual statements toward another person. Well, I guess (context important) an initial unwelcome advance isn't reprehensible (it may be in incredibly poor taste), but again context is very important to consider. Back to the point, I've seen the accusations regarding O'Reilly. If true, he should be held to account. However, the key is to consider whether or not they are true. Our opinion that they are, or aren't, true doesn't make them one or the other. Only the people involved know for sure, and as there is a disagreement on the facts, I guess I'll have to refrain from judgment until the matter is settled.
So, my opinion: if true, deal with O'Reilly in the harshest appropriate manner. As he will no doubt use his program to further claim innocense, to cast aspersions upon the other party, etc, it would be appropriate to deprive him of his bully pulpit. But I wouldn't support doing that until matters are settled.
As I consider my opinion (and, as others may end up considering it) I guess I have to think about how it squares with my job. My job, as a prosecutor, is to take accusations against a person and to run with them.
I guess the difference is that my job relies upon investigation of those accusations by a neutral third party, known as law enforcement. While many doubt whether law enforcement is trustworthy, I can think of few, if any, instances where I had a problem with how police did their job or presented their facts to me. In fact, I've come across many instances where police presented a case to me and I didn't have enough information to do anything in terms of prosecution, and in talking to the police it was clear that they had done their best to prepare a good case, but they also knew there just wasn't enough there and understood my inability to go any further. Fact is, I end up rejecting alot of cases where there is enough to convince me of a person's guilt, but I know there's not enough to convince a judge or jury, and in our packed court system it is important to focus our resources.
In the O'Reilly case we have a he-said/she-said, and in those cases I always hold off on making a determination until a third party can investigate and make some determination on who's telling the truth using evidence other than the verbal claims being made.
If there were tapes in this case, that would be ideal. Or phone bill statements showing the alleged calls took place. Or a third-party witness. But none of that is present (or I haven't heard that it is) and so I'm holding off on coming to any conclusions that I'll post at this point.
That's all for now. Make sure to check out JLowe's blog.
Catch ya later.
posted by Rusty at 2:51 PM
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