BCT Editorial – 2/23/06

This page was last updated on February 23, 2006.

A warning; Editorial; Beaver County Times; February 23, 2006.

This is another example of what the Times refers to as a “true lie.” You’ll see what I mean below.

In summary, the author tries to turn a “dog bites man” story into a story like “jackbooted brown shirts are on their way.”

Below is a detailed critique of the subject editorial.

“The following comes courtesy of Miami Herald columnist Leonard Pitts (based on a Washington Post article):”

[RWC] You’ll read below why the Times didn’t quote the original Washington Post article.

“‘The scene is the Little Falls branch of the Montgomery County Public Library in Bethesda, Md. Business is going on as usual when two men in uniform stride into the main reading room and call for attention. Then they make an announcement: It is forbidden to use the library’s computers to view Internet pornography.

“‘As people are absorbing this, one of the men challenges a patron about a Web site he is visiting and asks the man to step outside. At this point, a librarian intervenes and calls the uniformed men aside. A police officer is summoned. The men leave. It turns out they are employees of the country’s department of Homeland Security and were operating outside their authority.’”

[RWC] I don’t know if this was a simple typographical error or intentional deception by the Times, but the men are NOT “employees of the country’s [i.e., federal] department of Homeland Security.” They are members of the Montgomery County Homeland Security Department.

This is where the Pitts op-ed column stops quoting the Post article. As you will read below, the full article tells a somewhat different story than you take away from the Pitts abbreviated version and this editorial. I believe this is why the author cited the Pitts column instead of the Post article. The author didn’t want us to know the full story.

According to the Washington Post article, this department is “an unarmed force that patrols about 300 county buildings -- but is not responsible for enforcing obscenity laws.”

The article went onto report “the officers believed they were enforcing the county’s sexual harassment policy” that “forbids the ‘display of offensive or obscene printed or visual material.’” The officers apparently didn’t know that “in a library, which is both a public arena and a county workplace, the U.S. Constitution trumps Montgomery’s rules.”

The county chief administrative officer said the officers “overstepped their authority” and reassigned the officers to other duties.

Maybe it’s just me, but I believe the story changes quite a bit when you read the entire article.

“It can happen here.

“It did happen here on Feb. 9 in Bethesda, Md.

“You’ve been warned.”

[RWC] Here’s the real story. Two law enforcement officers misunderstood the rules regarding enforcement of the county sexual harassment policy and overstepped their authority. Inadvertent overstepping of authority has been going on since the world first had law enforcement officers and will likely continue forever. The author would like us to believe this incident was the result of increased security after 9/11.

I wonder if the Times issued a warning after it learned Democrat icons JFK, LBJ, and RFK directed the FBI to wiretap Martin Luther King’s communications in an effort to obtain blackmail material? Whereas the Bethesda incident was an error, the actions of JFK et al were deliberate.