About Lyndie England . . .

My husband was on an airplane a week or two ago carrying Lyndie England from Fort Hood to Dallas/Fort Worth, presumably to begin her sentence. He said that she looks exactly the same as the photos we've seen of her walking to and from the courtroom. She was traveling alone, which surprised me.

I have my opinion of her, gleaned no doubt from the same sources that you've been exposed to. Before I talk about mine, I'd be interested in hearing what you think of her role in the Abu Ghraib scandal, and about her sentence.

Tell me again: what is the job of a Supreme Court Justice?

This post isn't about war, but it is about rhetoric. Headline from today's Dallas Morning News: "Business leaders say Miers would add new perspective" (15A).

Quote from Sidney Stahl, a "lawyer friend of hers and a former council member . . . 'She had a good understanding of the business community in terms of the kinds of things that cities should do to attract business and industry.'"

Steve Taylor, president of a local Chamber of Commerce, "called her 'smart as hell'" and Donna Halstead, president of "an organization made up of leaders from Dallas' largest businesses" insisted that "'She would give other justices with no real world experience an opportunity to view issues from the private sector position.'"

I am not weighing in on Miers. But if conservatives take as a tenet that there should be no "legislating from the bench," then why is her "good understanding . . . of the kinds of things that cities should do to attract business" being raised? Are Supreme Court justices supposed to interpret the Constitution, or are they supposed to bring pro-business, pro-environment, pro-evolution, distinctly pro-anything perspectives to the Court?

I'm trying to get worked up over this, but it's hard.

Regular readers know that I consider myself a centrist, although to my dear conservative friends that makes me a MSM-loving liberal. And I do tend to get my dander up about what I perceive as abuses of power or the mistreatment of the disenfranchised. So I feel as though I ought to be outraged about our servicemen burning the corpses of insurgents killed in fighting . . . but I'm not. They were dead. Gone. No feeling, no reaction. Already meeting their Maker and receiving their just reward.

Now I realize that the outrage being expressed is primarily because of the insult to Islam, and I am sympathetic to people's devotion to their faith, whether it's one I hold or not. But I just cannot manage a lot of sympathy for those who claim that God has been insulted by the desecration of the dead while at the same time piling on the body count of men, women, and children who are not combatants, but just ordinary people trying to live their lives.

I'm also troubled by the attitude of the journalist who shot the video. I heard him speak on NPR today, and he seemed quite sure that he had produced an artifact that would stir the world just as strongly as the photos from Abu Ghraib did. His disdain for the U.S. and the U.S. military was palpable, and while he is entitled to feel anything that he wants, he came across as just a little too smug that he had captured damning evidence that the world was waiting to see.

I may change my mind after I see the video, but right now I simply can't make myself feel righteously indignant.

Of course they needed bonuses! People were crying!

Proof that we live in a disjointed world: some state employees (not fire, police, or emergency workers) got bonuses after 9-11 because Robert Ryan, who was Pataki's campaign manager, "saw an employee crying over the traumatic assignment" at the WTC. Ryan, already paid six figures, took bonuses, too, because, as he says, "I know what I saw, it changed me forever, I carried body bags . . . . " I am not dismissing the emotional pain of anyone who worked at the WTC after the attacks, but did any emergency workers get bonuses? And, more germane to my interests, has Mr. Ryan considered what our soldiers in Iraq are going through? And for what sum of money? Does he think that perhaps any of them have "carried body bags" or "been changed forever"? Maybe he might feel led to share some of his bonus with them.


N.Y. Official: Sept. 11 'Bonuses' Paid
October 17, 2005 8:44 PM EDT
NEW YORK - Some state employees reaped thousands of dollars worth of "bonuses" for their work after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attack on the World Trade Center, a state official testified Monday.
Robert Ryan, who headed a state agency after being Gov. George Pataki's campaign manager, said at an Assembly committee hearing that he increased his six-figure salary and the pay of all 14 of his employees with bonuses.
The extra compensation, in cash or extra days off, wasn't approved by the agency as required. Ryan said he got approval from his chief financial officer to compensate staff working at the World Trade Center site after he saw an employee crying over the traumatic assignment.
The Assembly committee is investigating reports of abuse, political hiring and lack of oversight at hundreds of state authorities. The authorities were created by the Legislature to be independent of the governor and politics to run specific services such as highways, mass transit and economic development.
"We have evidence of compensation to top management when, as far as I know, firemen and police of the city got no extra bonuses for doing worse, more grotesque work," Assemblyman Richard Brodsky said after the hearing of his authorities committee.
Ryan said he received 234 hours of bonus time - worth $13,859 according to a 2003 internal report - of "World Trade Center Appreciation Bonuses." His base salary then was $121,143, according to the report, which Brodsky released Monday.
Ryan, who headed the Roosevelt Island Operating Corp., offered no apologies for taking the bonuses, which he said he only accepted after his employees insisted.
"I know what I saw, it changed me forever, I carried body bags. It was a horrific scene," the 49-year-old Ryan said.
The Pataki administration responded with a statement saying the issues raised had been addressed two years ago.
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AP Staff Writer Michael Gormley contributed to this report from Albany, N.Y.