Wednesday, December 03, 2008
"Suspicion" in the face of facts
Charles Lipson looks at the captions of some of the news photographs from the Mumbai attacks, and asks a very reasonable question: If a man holding a gun is only a "suspected gunman," are these just "alleged kamikaze attacks"?
To label gun-toting terrorists-seen with weapons in hand, fingers on the trigger-as "suspected gunmen" is a reductio ad absurdum of political correctness. But it worse than misplaced legalism, journalist error, or exquisite sensibility run amok. It is, at bottom, moral cowardice. It reveals a chattering class bereft of its ethical compass, so fretful about offending that it is no longer willing to assert and defend the core values of civilized life.
Either that, or an in-house lawyer with less courage than the Cowardly Lion and worse judgment than these guys.
7 Comments:
By 
Escort81, at
Wed Dec 03, 10:26:00 PM:
Heh. That's a funny and classic SNL skit.
The only thing I can think of as a plausible or reasonable excuse for using the term "suspected" in the caption is that the publisher didn't control the provenance of the actual photo, and doesn't know for sure that it was one of the bad guys, and that there is some chance the person holding the gun was a member of the reaction force. But I suppose in a literal sense, whether the person pictured is a good guy or a bad guy, he is still a "gunman" inasmuchas he is holding a gun! (Hey, maybe it's a toy gun!)
Follow TH's Lipson link through to the Mark Steyn piece and his reference to John Hinderaker at Powerline.
By Christopher Chambers, at
Wed Dec 03, 10:33:00 PM:
What is this new info that this group is, though allied with al Qaida, more concerned with the disposition of Kashmir than global "Islamofascism?" Something about info adduced from the surviving attacker.
By 
, at
Thu Dec 04, 03:50:00 AM:
I'm sure they're concerned about Kashmir, but there's a solid dose of good old-fashioned Islamofascistic Jew hatred in there too - witness the horrific attacks on the Jewish center in Mumbai.
By Dawnfire82, at
Thu Dec 04, 08:22:00 AM:
Their instructions to target specifically foreigners (especially Brits, Americans, and Israelis) implies international objectives rather than regional. We have nothing to do with Kashmir, and neither do the Israelis or British.
By SR, at
Thu Dec 04, 09:00:00 AM:
Ah Chrissie's just got that liberal tunnel vision.
By Georg Felis, at
Thu Dec 04, 01:56:00 PM:
Does this mean we need to refer to anybody who writes for the Times as a "Suspected Journalist"?
By Gary Rosen, at
Fri Dec 05, 03:38:00 AM:
"more concerned with the disposition of Kashmir"
Right, Chrissy, that's why they tortured and murdered a Jewish couple in front of their two-year-old son, Chrissy. Leave it to Chrissy to make a dishonest groveling excuse for murderous antisemitic savages.
