Inaugural hypocrisy

Matt Drudge reminds us that before both George W. Bush’s inaugurals, there was much criticism and discussion in the media about the cost of the celebrations and whether it was appropriate, even though mostly privately funded.

Where, he asks, are these same critics today as Barack Obama’s inaugural shapes up to be the most expensive in history in the midst of a severe economic crisis? Strangely silent.

In 2005, the Washington Post commissioned a poll which showed that 66 percent of Americans thought the inaugural should be a smaller affair. Has any such poll been commissioned this year? I’m betting the answer is no, because the media is no longer interested in asking the question. (And if a poll is taken, and the answer turns out to be the same, they’ll try to make sure you don’t hear about it.)

I am not troubled by Obama’s inaugural plans, but then again I took the same view with Bush. For our friends in the liberal media, however, the rules of the game are apparently different depending on who the contestant is.

Rich Noyes has the embarrassing details here:

http://newsbusters.org/blogs/rich-noyes/2009/01/14/ap-slammed-bush-s-extravagant-inaugural-05-now-it-s-spend-baby-spend

Blaming the victims?

Maybe a reader can explain this one to me. In Pennsylvania, three teenage girls are being charged with manufacturing, disseminating or possessing child pornography because they took nude photos of themselves with their cell phones and sent them to other students. The recipients are also being charged with possession:

http://www.wpxi.com/news/18469160/detail.html

Am I missing something here? The whole point of the law is to protect minors from being sexually exploited by adults, or even other minors. These girls are effectively being charged with sexually exploiting themselves, making them perpetrators and victims of the exact same crime. Now if you want to argue that the girls were pressured into taking and sending the photos by their peers, I suppose you could charge the peers, but what’s the basis for charging the girls? It would be like arresting someone for stealing money out of their own wallet.

It’s important to note that manufacture and dissemination of child pornography is a much more serious charge than simple possession. These girls, if convicted, would be registered sex offenders for the rest of their lives.

There also may be an issue about the propriety of the discovery of the images, which occurred when a boy’s cell phone was confiscated during the school day. It’s not clear whether one of the images was being displayed on the phone when school authorities obtained the phone, but if not, one wonders why they would be searching through the phone’s contents.

We should certainly be concerned that teenage girls in our society feel that they have to resort to nudity in order to gain attention and approval from fellow teens. This represents a basic failure both on the part of parents and our popular culture. However, I do not see how treating 14- and 15-year-old girls as if they were rapists and molesters is a constructive way to address the problem.

January’s Paglia Injection

Camille Paglia’s latest column is devoted to answering reader e-mails. Most of the time when columnists do this, it’s a boring ego trip. Not so here, as the quality of the letters Paglia quotes and her responses set the standard for others to follow.

This month’s column includes discussion of President-elect Obama, Democrat leaders in Congress, Sarah Palin, 60s radicalism, the Fairness Doctrine, climate change, Jesus Christ, the causes of homosexuality, and pop music, among others. That’s one column, people. Go forth and read.

http://www.salon.com/opinion/paglia/2009/01/14/obama/