Padilla vs. Anna Nicole: The U.S. of Entertainment

By Jeralyn, Section Media
Posted on Mon Feb 26, 2007 at 11:18:34 AM EST
Tags: Jose Padilla, Anna Nicole Smith (all tags)

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Great editorial today in the Miami Herald on how we've turned into the United States of Entertainment. It begins:

Jose Padilla is not a dead buxom blonde, which may help explain why a hearing to determine his fitness to stand trial was no contest for the animated proceedings taking place one county to the north.

Anna Nicole Smith, dead two weeks, drew the cameras, the curious and the commentators. Thursday, a weepy Broward judge ruled on the fate of Smith's corpse as thousands followed the show on national television.

Down in Miami, the still-living Jose Padilla attracted just a couple of earnest reporters, some legal geeks and two cameramen who were stranded outside the federal courthouse because filming was banned inside. So it goes in these United States of Entertainment. Four years into the war in Iraq, torture has become the stuff of TV dramas while justice serves the cause of celebrity.

After a discussion of Padilla's case, it concludes:

Padilla, a former gang member, is not a particularly sympathetic figure. He is decidedly unsexy. And his case is complicated, the facts obscure.

But history will note that during one of the most important trials of our time, in a case that will test fundamental notions of American fairness and justice, the nation was transfixed instead by a tawdry story. Five years ago, an American citizen was arrested, held without charges and possibly tortured. What a downer. Bring on the bimbos and the hunky boyfriends; everything's going to be all right.

< Fast Forward: 2008, What Have Dems Done To End the Iraq Debacle? | Lieberman on Iraq: We Have A Good Plan >

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Padilla vs. Anna Nicole: The U.S. of Entertainment | 22 comments (22 topical)

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We must (5.00 / 1) (#2)
by Che's Lounge on Mon Feb 26, 2007 at 11:36:29 AM EST

eat the poisoned grain to survive. Yet, if we eat it we will go insane. So there must be those of us who remember that we are insane.

Torture on trial vs. Anna Nicole (none / 0) (#1)
by profmarcus on Mon Feb 26, 2007 at 11:25:15 AM EST

to further reinforce the importance of the padilla case, this is taken from naomi klein in the guardian via alternet...

Something remarkable is going on in a Miami courtroom. The cruel methods US interrogators have used since September 11 to "break" prisoners are finally being put on trial. This was not supposed to happen. The Bush administration's plan was to put José Padilla on trial for allegedly being part of a network linked to international terrorists. But Padilla's lawyers are arguing that he is not fit to stand trial because he has been driven insane by the government.
[...]
If these techniques drove Padilla insane, that means the US government has been deliberately driving hundreds, possibly thousands, of prisoners insane around the world. What is on trial in Florida is not one man's mental state. It is the whole system of US psychological torture.

somehow, anna nicole smith pales in comparison...

And, yes, I DO take it personally

Good heavens! (1.00 / 1) (#7)
by jimakaPPJ on Mon Feb 26, 2007 at 12:22:20 PM EST

But Padilla's lawyers are arguing that he is not fit to stand trial because he has been driven insane by the government.

So, if he is insane let's lock him up until he is sane enough to defend himself.

And if his jailers have broken the law, have at'em.

But he doesn't get cut loose just because he claims to be abused/tortured, etc.

The Bush administration's plan was to put José Padilla on trial

Now what does that mean? Trial? Plan? Why do you imply a conspiracy? He was investigated,indicted and arrested. There's no "Bush administration's plan,"Prof.


A good start (none / 0) (#9)
by glanton on Mon Feb 26, 2007 at 12:34:40 PM EST

Now, the next step is saying "if the jailors were authorized to break the law, then have at those who authorized it."


I have this tendancy (none / 0) (#14)
by jimakaPPJ on Mon Feb 26, 2007 at 07:01:29 PM EST

to let such things work themselves out. My worry button is fully engaged thinking about how the Left is all concerned about cutting some guy loose who tried to join a terrorist organization.

Do you agree that Padilla should be tried or placed in custody until the shrinks say he is okay??

No letting off, etc????


You ignored (none / 0) (#18)
by glanton on Mon Feb 26, 2007 at 10:44:38 PM EST

what I wrote while responding to me at the same time. Vintage debate style, Jim. Feel free some time to discuss, to take into account what others are saying.

In the meantime, stay alert, and stay with Fox.


Thanks for your non-response. (none / 0) (#19)
by jimakaPPJ on Tue Feb 27, 2007 at 09:05:14 AM EST

Got anything else you don't say??


Same (none / 0) (#21)
by glanton on Tue Feb 27, 2007 at 10:35:26 AM EST

Same as before:

Now, the next step is saying "if the jailors were authorized to break the law, then have at those who authorized it."

But then maybe your glib comment "I tend to let such things work themselves out" was meant as a response. If so, it's a strange one. Whatever does it mean?

You seem happy to go after underlings who torture. Fine, good. Let's get em. But the right thing to do would be to conduct the most aggressive possible pursuit and punishment of the hands that sign the papers that authorize such behavior in the first place (as opposed to the Wonderland fantasy that all these incidents are isolated--i.e., the "bad apple" lie).

Go after em no matter how high up they are, none are above the law, none exempt. Let us send a message that distance, authority, and elegant state dinners don't make you unaccountable.


: glanton (none / 0) (#22)
by jimakaPPJ on Tue Feb 27, 2007 at 09:08:54 PM EST

What don't you understand about my answer??
Normally you seem fairly well versed in the english language.

Really, he doesn't get cut loose? (none / 0) (#10)
by Dadler on Mon Feb 26, 2007 at 12:48:02 PM EST

The government doesn't free Padilla because he claims something? Wow, I had no idea.

What kind of point is that?

You're a de-facto dungeon supporter on this issue. But you don't want to accept the responsibility for the effects of that dungeon on actual human beings.

That's disturbing, to say the very least.

Your pathological belief in the right of such wrong here is something to behold -- thoroughly, depressingly, predictably inhumane.


You want to let him go free. (none / 0) (#15)
by jimakaPPJ on Mon Feb 26, 2007 at 07:08:39 PM EST

Tell us again how you agree with me that demonstrations help the enemy before you start making rank accuastions...

Let me frame this for you as one rational person trying to talk to one he is unsure of...

Padilla has been arrested, indicted and charged with a very serious crime.
He is claiming that he was mistreated as a prisioner.
If that is true those who broke the law should be arrested, indicted and tried.
If he cannot stand trial because of his claimed treatment, then just put him in custody, treat him until he is well, and then try him.

Watch my lips. You don't let him go without trying him. It's a BS defense and it shouldn't save this guy from being tried.

And that is what you want.


Correct (none / 0) (#17)
by Repack Rider on Mon Feb 26, 2007 at 08:43:38 PM EST

he doesn't get cut loose just because he claims to be abused/tortured, etc.

No, but he does if the judge believes his claims.


Don't forget Britney!!! (none / 0) (#3)
by kdog on Mon Feb 26, 2007 at 11:51:44 AM EST

Marx said that religion was the opiate of the masses in the 19th century...in the 21st century, television might be the new opiate of choice.

Television, the drug of a nation

that's odd (none / 0) (#4)
by cpinva on Mon Feb 26, 2007 at 11:54:48 AM EST

if memory serves (and it does), somebody was opining, just a couple of weeks ago, that ms.smith's death, etc. was newsworthy. now, who could that have been?

think, think, think. oh, the thinks i can think! let me see now, it's right on the tip of my tongue (and you know that's going to leave a mark!), almost there...............

WAIT! I KNOW WHO IT WAS! it was (drumroll please).........jeralyn!

yeppers, it was. same person who said an astronaut going nuts, and trying to kill a fellow astronaut, wasn't newsworthy, but anna nicole smith was.

boy, you are really confusing me now! :)

Newsworthy? Sure! (none / 0) (#5)
by Jim Strain on Mon Feb 26, 2007 at 12:14:23 PM EST

Something can be newsworthy and still not be page-one-banner-headlines-24/7-cable-coverage worthy. There are important legal issues in the bimbo case, but the media's (and the public's) obsession with the case have little to do with the legal issues, and everything to do with the soap opera aspects. In the meantime, events that really are crucial to our fundamental law and the principles we've always been told we should stand for...well, they're on page 28.
. . . jim strain in san diego.


Cultural Criticism (none / 0) (#6)
by squeaky on Mon Feb 26, 2007 at 12:21:53 PM EST

cpinva- Discussions about culture and the media are not like accounting. Sometimes 2+2 does not equal 4.


: I bet you can also square the circle!! (1.00 / 1) (#8)
by jimakaPPJ on Mon Feb 26, 2007 at 12:24:37 PM EST

actually squeaky (none / 0) (#11)
by cpinva on Mon Feb 26, 2007 at 03:20:20 PM EST

if you knew anything about accounting, and specifically auditing, you would know that the correct answer to 2+2=?, is: what do you want it to be? a little accounting/auditing humor. :)

jim, the legal issues involved in the current contratempts, with respect to ms. smith, were very straightforward: who got to decide the disposal of her body? according to law, absent a will, it is her next of kin. that is her daughter, since she and mr. stern never married.

the judge, after wangling some free publicity out of a no-brainer case, did as the law required: appointed a guardian ad litem for the child.

with regards to her USSC case, i expect it will impact very few people, since most of us don't stand to get half a billion dollars, for boinking a 90 year-old. don't get me wrong, if she did boink him, as far as i'm concerned, she earned every penny of it. :)

but don't delude yourself into thinking it has any major impact on any significant segment of society at large.

this was why i ragged on jeralyn: she placed the anna nicole smith story at a higher news value level, than the story of a NASA astronaut going bonkers. the world is full of anna nicole smiths, there are only a very few astronauts.

here, she rightly derides the press for its failure to give much play to the jose padilla story, concentrating instead on a dead "celebrity", and a singer who shaved her head.

There you go... (none / 0) (#12)
by Deconstructionist on Mon Feb 26, 2007 at 03:40:36 PM EST

...throwing cold water on another one of my dreams.

"i expect it will impact very few people, since most of us don't stand to get half a billion dollars, for boinking a 90 year-old"


I'm thinking of claiming (none / 0) (#16)
by jimakaPPJ on Mon Feb 26, 2007 at 07:11:49 PM EST

I'm the dad.... I believe the odds of my DNA matching is better than the lottery...


: Well if you actually had sex with her (none / 0) (#20)
by Deconstructionist on Tue Feb 27, 2007 at 09:56:15 AM EST

at around the time the baby must have been conceived your odds would be much better than with the lottery, probably at least a little better than 1 out of a hundred.

My Bad (none / 0) (#13)
by squeaky on Mon Feb 26, 2007 at 03:43:29 PM EST

Sorry....there is no accounting for my confusing simple math and creative number crunching. I forget that my accountant is both honest and able to make numbers dance....a very creative profession indeed.