Bad 'News' from Dallas
Sun Mar 06, 2005 at 03:05:18 PM PDT
On the same day as it gushes breathlessly that the GWB Presidential Library will be built in Dallas, the Dallas Morning News has announced something that should make any north Texan progressive (and, yeah, there are a few of us) either sick, furious, or a combination of both: a man who may well be the paper's most far-right editor -- and, considering that this is the Dallas Morning News, that's saying something -- is now in charge of its revamped Sunday op-ed section. More below the fold.
Rod Dreher has been part of the
News since 2003, and is now the paper's Assistant Editorial Page Editor. As of today (3/6), he now runs its most significant op-ed section -- the one for the Sunday edition -- now revamped to attempt to appeal to younger readers, and renamed "Points" (with an up-front section called
Talking Points -- hmm, sound like a familiar part of the opening moments of a certain Faux News personality's nightly program?).
In case you're curious why I'm so down on this and why my initial words upon seeing this today were "Oh, shit," be aware that Dreher:
- Is a former Senior Editor for the National Review.
- Is fervently, and vocally anti-choice.
- Currently is writing a book for Random House/Crown about "crunchy conservatism," whatever the hell that is.
- Lists among his "areas of professional interest" "religion, national politics (especially conservative), urban planning/quality of life, abortion, affirmative action, media, cultural conflict, Israel."
Also, during the '04 campaign, he was consistently the most anti-Kerry voice among the Dallas News editors contributing to the paper's own blog [may require registration; I suggest you try BugMeNot instead]. Just so you'll have a better picture, here are two of his most recent contributions to that blog. First, a little background: To be fair (and balanced?), let's note that the same fervent Catholicism that makes him so firmly against Roe v. Wade also makes him an opponent of the death penalty. In two separate Dallas News entries excerpted below, Dreher dealt with last week's Supreme Court decision regarding the death penalty for juveniles, taking plenty of care to praise one of his heroes, Antonin Scalia (added emphasis mine):
So we are to conclude that "science" tells us that the brains of juveniles aren't mature enough to be held fully responsible under the constitution for murder, but are mature enough to have the right to end the life of their unborn child without involving their parents. Where's the sense in that? I'm still working my way through the decision, but it seems to me that Scalia, as usual, is onto something, especially when he notes in his dissent that "all the Court has done today, to borrow from another context, is to look over the heads of the crowd and pick out its friends."
Well, I've got to say, as a death penalty opponent, I think the
Wall Street Journal's editorial blasting the SCOTUS decision was terrific. Since when does "social consensus" -- as defined by five Supreme Court justices -- decide constitutional law? And
since when do the judicial opinions of foreign countries count?
President Bush and the Republican majority have simply got to get more conservative judges on the federal bench. The Journal is right to condemn SCOTUS for legislating "blue-state morality" from the bench, finding any reason it likes to impose its own morality on the country. I would like it if all states repealed laws allowing for the execution of juveniles. I do not understand why those laws are unconstitutional, though.
In his scathing dissent in the Lawrence decision in 2003, Justice Scalia spoke exactly to what is wrong with the high-and-mighty court:
But persuading one's fellow citizens is one thing, and imposing one's views in absence of democratic majority will is something else. I would no more require a State to criminalize homosexual acts -- or, for that matter, display any moral disapprobation of them -- than I would forbid it to do so. What Texas has chosen to do is well within the range of traditional democratic action, and its hand should not be stayed through the invention of a brand-new "constitutional right" by a Court that is impatient of democratic change. It is indeed true that "later generations can see that laws once thought necessary and proper in fact serve only to oppress," ante, at 18; and when that happens, later generations can repeal those laws. But it is the premise of our system that those judgments are to be made by the people, and not imposed by a governing caste that knows best.
I opposed the Texas sodomy law too. But
I do not see why it was unconstitutional.
Anyway, just wanted to let you Kossacks know what went down, and I do mean down, with Dallas's only daily today. More cheery news from Red-State America.
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