Proud Member of the "Vile Beyond Words" Community
In a ceremony utterly unaware its own self-consuming ironies, Mata Whori yesterday presented an award to Mark Felt on behalf of the First Amendment Coalition. Joining her on the panel was her long-time apologist Floyd Abrams:
Both Abrams and Miller attempted to equate her with Woodward, Bernstein and Felt as a courageous defender of the First Amendment.Hey, Floyd: Didn't you get the boot? If you're not still on the clock, why are you peddling this shit?
(snip)
In his keynote address, Floyd Abrams delivered a combination of tight legal argument and sweeping generalizations. In addition to accusing unnamed blogs of being "vile beyond words" during his speech, Abrams concluded the question and answer session lamenting "the level of bile... the level of personal cruelty... the level of near madness" directed against Miller. Yet, he never seriously addressed the reasons why many hold Miller in contempt, simply waving them off as having to do with her earlier work. In effect, Abrams pretended there were no connection between Miller's false, propagandistic reporting on Iraq's non-existent weapons of mass destruction, and her involvement-however tangential or stillborn-in the counter-attack on Joseph Wilson for exposing part of that lie.
Is it because your client made you look like a fool and you're too embarrassed to admit it? Or because a lifetime committed to defense of the First Amendment has now been washed away in the wake of the only thing anyone is ever going to remember you for -- prostituting both your reputation and the First Amendment itself in defense of a woman who tarted herself up in raiments you had to know only too well she did not deserve to wear?
Floyd's irrational anger would indicate that he is still in the throes of a wee bit of denial. He's probably spent the past twenty-four hours hugging the porcelain throne after reading Judy's self-serving justifications and obfuscations in the Times and getting a glimpse into how this is all going to play out for him.
Stay tuned, Floyd. We will continue to comb over ever detail, sort through every bit of information as we search for some kind of truth your client seems incapable of telling. We will probably make a lot of mistakes, but five Americans died yesterday on behalf of the lies your client peddled on the front page of the New York Times. We think it is worth the effort.
I recognize it is standard operating procedure for those of the ruling class to despise the prols when they have the unmitigated gall to question why they are being asked to die. I have no doubt that to your eyes it is indeed "vile." How wonderful that you and your client have the opportunity, at any moment, to step forward and end all the speculation by telling the truth.
We're waiting....
posted by Jane Hamsher @ 10/16/2005 04:21:00 PM
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