Lying the Virginian Pilot Way

There are ways of telling lies while every word you say it true. Take this as an example:
“John Hinckley shot Ronald Reagan. Reagan later died.” Every word is true but the two sentences in combination are designed to mislead … to lie.

This “cute” way of misleading was brought to mind while killing time in a restaurant reading September 30th Hampton Roads section of the Pilot (motto: "True to the Democratic Party in victory or defeat.")

On page B3 they had a section on “How They voted” listing how Virginia’s members of congress voted on various issues.

Under the heading “Habeas corpus” this is what they wrote:

Voting 48-51 the Senate on Thursday refused to establish the right of habeas corpus for terrorism prisoners. Established in the Magna Carta in 1215 and written into Article 1 of the Constitution, habeas corpus gives prisoners the right to be brought into court to be formally charged.

Reading that description of habeas corpus one would be inclined to think that an historic right has been denied. In fact, it reinforces the meme that we are becoming a dictatorship while our historic rights are being denied. And that is, indeed, the way the Left is portraying this issue. For a definition of Habeas corpus go here.

But let’s see if this formulation is true. The issue is whether prisoners of war, or worse, captured foreign terrorists, are to have the right of habeas corpus and be tried in a court of law. One may argue that they should have that right, but no one should be able to imply, as the Pilot does, that they have historically had that right unless they can prove it.

So let’s go back to history and see whether prisoners of war or captured foreign terrorists were ever granted habeas corpus or were ever tried by civilian courts. Let’s see (in reverse chronological order):

Gulf War 1 – nope
Viet Nam War – nope
Korean War – nope
World War 2 – nope (Even non-combatant American citizens of Japanese descent were denied habeas corpus)
World War 1 – nope
Civil War – nope (in fact Abraham Lincoln suspended habeas corpus for everybody, not just war prisoners)
Mexican War – nope
War of 1812 – nope
American Revolution – nope

In fact, I invite the editors of the Pilot to cite examples war prisoners who were granted a writ and tried in civilian courts. There may be examples, but I have been unable to find any.

But the formulation used by the editors of the Pilot exposes the difference between those of us who believe that we are in a war and those who believe that 9/11 and its aftermath are the acts of criminals. It’s the difference between those who take the Islamofascists at their word when they declared war on us, and those who don’t.

And those who don’t take them seriously are, in my estimation, guilty of a kind of arrogance that assumes that those who are not as learned, as sophisticated, as “civilized” as themselves are to be treated as children. As George Bush put it in another context, it’s the “soft bigotry of low expectations.”