Wall Street Journal Criticizes BCLS Opposition to Mukasey
Mar 24, 2008
5 Comments
In the Friday edition of the Wall Street Journal, a senior editorial writer harshly criticized the Boston College Law School faculty for their letter asking Attorney General Mukasey to not speak at commencement. The op-ed calls the letter a “discourteous bit of political theater” and references professors by name for the subsequent posting of individual letters on Eagleionline as evidence of hypocrisy.
Boston College professors don’t like conservatives. They’re not the only academics to feel this way. But to cloak their opposition to Mr. Mukasey in the language of religious mission is the real disservice to the school and its Jesuit tradition.
Dean Garvey is also criticized as being “unable to withstand the pressure” for his decision to not give the Founder’s Medal to Mukasey, while the student body is described as “acting like students” and containing “few” members who “subscribe to the religious beliefs that undergird the [BCLS] mission.”
Who posted this article?
I want to note a few things about the WSJ article discussed in this post. First, the article was written by Collin Levy, who spent two years as a speechwriter for President Bush. This should give people a sense of her general ideology and what informs her perspective on the situation regarding General Mukasey. It is no surprise that she is going to lambaste a movement that seeks to disinvite the Attorney General that her boss recommended to the post. Second, Levy tries to minimize Mukasey’s non-committal stance on torture by stating that Mr. Mukasey "may be personally opposed to it." As if the fact that someone might, in theory, one day, potentially have a small objection to torture is something that we should take comfort in and be proud of. It is deplorable that Ms. Levy would suggest such a thing. Most troubling, however, is that Ms. Levy then gives an implicit defense of waterboarding and torture in general by stating that waterboarding was applied exactly three times to top al Qaeda officials at a time, in essence, when the US was in hysterics. This is nonsense, an affront to international law, and an apologist’s view of waterboarding. Indeed, Ms. Levy is suggesting that torture in some circumstances is justified. The truth is that torture is never justified, legal, or moral, regardless of the circumstances.
I hope everyone now recognizes how ridiculous this whole situation makes BC look.
I disagree, Dmoe. Torture is absolutely justified in certain circumstances. Just like war is.Imagine they’ve hauled a good ol’ registered sex offender into the station b/c he’s confessed to kidnapping a little girl. And he says he’s got her buried, alive, in a nice little pine box, somewhere nearby, but he wont give the location, and she’s got an hour, tops, of air left in that box before she suffocates.Hand me the towel and the garden hose, I’m waterboarding this punk. There’s not much I wouldn’t do to get the location of that girl outta this guy. And you know what? There’s not a jury in the land that would convict me of whatever crime you think I committed in getting that location (ok, unless the jury was composed of you and your bcls friends…but besides you guys).
error.
Dmoe, agree completely, Levy is one of the original smear merchants to push the Swift Boat Veterans line (see http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/opinion/2001996876_collin05.html). Here are a few quick critiques.First, Levy characterizes opposition as "cloak[ed]…in the language of religous mission". In fact, the letter states three grounds for the opposition, First, "basic principles of international and domestic law", Second, the "ideals of Boston College Law School", and finally the "Jesuit principles that underlie Boston College’s educational mission".Second, Levy suggests that in order for opposition to the enablers of torture to be rooted in Jesuit Catholic principles, one must embrace all Catholic doctrine. As a Catholic who embraces sensus fidelium with respect to many of the Church’s teachings on sexuality and reproduction, I think it is offensive of Levy, who makes no indication that she is either Catholic herself or has any education or knowledge with respect to Catholicism to lecture on what grounds Catholics may legitimately root their beliefs. Third, Levy further demonstrates her vapidness by suggesting that Catholics at BC should accept consequentialist or situationalist ethics (I’m not sure which she’s getting at), with this statement, "This, of course, assumes that waterboarding should be deemed an "unjust" technique regardless of circumstances." Were Levy to have any understanding of Catholic thought, she would understand that the notion that the rejection of those schools of ethics are in fact central to Catholic thinking about ethics. Fourth, Levy conflates the reasoning of professor Greenfield, who notably does not base his opposition on religious beliefs, with those of professor Bloom, who does, albeit likely not on Catholic tradition as Levy suggests.Finally, to address the above post, the only embarassing aspect of this controversy is the quality of reasoning among BCLS conservatives above.