For the lamestream media today, the top legal story is that NFL Hall of Famer and all around moral idiot Lawrence Taylor has been arrested for rape. At ABC News, a story that all-time bad movie Troll 2 has a devoted fan base makes their news home page. On MSNBC, mother/daughter plastic surgery recipients are a big story; while at CBS, among their top legal stories is the fact that owners of noisy dogs can face $100 fines.
But if you want to hear the great news that Matthew McCabe, the last of three Navy SEALs court-martialed for giving a terrorist leader a "fat lip" was acquitted, well, you'll get nothing more than the standard AP report.
Why? Because Americans who hear the story do not think well of a Commander-in-Chief who let this go forward.
At Fox, Brett Baier bumped several stories in order to secure a live interview with McCabe, who was fresh from the trial, and interrupted the broadcast as the verdict came out, as Breaking News. (click Newsreal link above for video)
McCabe, without a trace of bitterness, described himself as "Ridiculously happy right now.
Once again, the prosecution made the disgusting argument that convicting Navy SEALs over an alleged fat lip – an accusation based solely on a mass murderer's testimony – would be the sign that "we are better than the terrorists." Right, a slap in the face that apparently never occurred is the same thing as ambushing people, dragging their bodies through the street, burning the corpses and hanging them from a bridge. Or, as we saw only a few days ago, as setting car bombs to kill innocent civilians. Right.
McCabe, for his part, refused to be anything but upbeat about both the process and the verdict, saying that "it was in the best interest of everyone," that things happened as they did.
Perhaps. And while it's refreshing to hear this young hero say that he and his mates are "getting on" with their careers, and he "never wants to think about it again," this should give us pause.
In his book, Lone Survivor, Marcus Luttrell relates how the SEAL team worried about legal repercussions at a critical part of their mission, and that their actions after that led to the circumstances that killed all but one of their team, and a helicopter filled with would-be rescuers.
And the issue Luttrell was dealing with had to do with killing in cold blood. If SEALs and other American warriors know in the back of their minds that a fat lip on a bad guy can get them a 6 month legal battle, it's hard to see how that's a good thing for their effectiveness.
This decision, thankfully, did not cost these fine young men their careers. That's great. However, the process could still cost American lives – and that should worry all of us.