I want to follow up on my post yesterday, "An Amazing Fantasy," to show how the New York Times, one of the most prominent cheerleaders for lower criminal sentences, attempts to advance its cause. Let me cut to the chase. Its principal means are condescension and deceit. In this, it is all too representative of the movement for which it speaks.
I will begin by analyzing yesterday's editorial one piece at a time. As you will see, there is barely a sentence in it that's not condescending or deceptive or both.
Let's take it from the top, with the first paragraph:
For more than a year, members of Congress have been doing a lot of talking about the need to broadly reform harsh federal sentencing laws, which are a central factor in the explosion of the federal prison population. It's an overdue conversation, and one of the few in which Democrats and Republicans find some agreement -- but, so far, they have nothing to show for it.
We don't get past the first line without the Times's assuming its conclusion: That federal sentencing is so unduly "harsh" that it needs rolling back. And it's true that, among pro-criminal groups like the Brennan Center (which the Times cites), the Sentencing Project, and various efforts backed by George Soros and other billionaires, sentencing is seen as nativist, punitive and (very often) racist.
Fine. Pro-criminal groups agree with one another. We didn't need a NYT editorial to discover that. But the question never answered (because never asked) is whether the public wants shorter sentences for drug pushers (and gun runners, Medicare fraudsters, alien smugglers and child pornographers, which is what we're mainly talking about in federal sentencing).
If there is evidence (e.g., an honestly worded poll) supporting the view that the American people think these folks are being treated too harshly, I haven't seen it. Certainly none was cited by the Times. I'll bet a goodly sum it doesn't exist. Any takers?
(N.B. I am not asking whether there has been a poll asking, "Do you think judges should be more able to tailor sentences to individual facts, or should they be bound by pre-set rules?" I've seen polls like that, sure, but they are less evidence that the public agrees with the "reform" agenda than of exactly the kind of deceit I'm talking about: Those backing sentencing reform commission push-polls rigged to conceal the key fact -- to wit, that "more discretion" virtually always means" giving the criminal less time." No poll I seen ever just asks, "Do you favor or oppose shorter sentences for people convicted of serious federal crimes?").
[Note: Gads. I've only gotten through the editorial's first two lines!]
Next, the Times notes the need for "an overdue conversation" about one of the few issues "in which Democrats and Republicans find some agreement."
Even though it's only a few words, this too is steeped in deceit. First, the "conversation," far from being overdue, has been going on forever; I do not remember a time in this century we haven't been having it. Second, it's not actually a "conversation." It's a one-way, and usually a supercilious, lecture about how Americans are too dumb to follow The Truly Enlightened, be they in Europe, the academy, New York, or, indeed, the board room of the New York Times.
Third, contrary to the Times's implication, Republicans and Democrats do not agree on the need to lower sentences; that is simply false, and the Times knows it. Most Democrats are for it and most Republicans against. To pick out a few libertarian outliers (e.g.,Rand Paul) or long-since has-beens (e.g.,Newt Gingrich) as "examples" of Republican thought is, again, nothing but an exercise in deceit. "Examples" are supposed to be, you know, representative. The Times (and, to be fair, most other sentencing "reform" backers) always choose their Republican "examples" precisely, and only, because they are not representative.
This also explains why, for all the talk of modern-day Republican "reformers," the Times walks right past the most obvious source of supposedly "New Breed" Republicans, that being the nine freshman senators who took over Democratic seats in the election less than four months ago.
Thus, the Times says this in its penultimate paragraph:
For now, the six-term Mr. Grassley may obstruct progress toward [lowering sentences], but the newer generation of lawmakers, Republican and Democratic, are more creative and forward-looking...
One would think the "new generation" would have shown up most conspicuously on November 4, and that if they wanted to lower federal sentences, they might have said at least a word about it in their campaigns. So who did that? Thom Tillis? Joni Ernst? Tom Cotton? Anyone?
It turns out that, using the old trick of misleading-by-omission, the Times goes on and on about the "New Breed of Republicans" favoring sentencing reform without giving us the name of a single one who ran and won on that platform. Instead, the Times's "New Breed" turns out to be the same old breed from the same old barn. The Times doesn't cite anyone actually in the Senate's large Republican freshman class because -- guess what! -- there isn't any.
Did I mention deceit?
Oh, and one more thing. As noted, Republicans as a whole disfavor lowering sentences. In the November elections, which Party did better? The Party that, on the whole, wants to build on the gains we've made against crime in the past 20 years? Or the Party that wants to gamble them on a gussied-up version of the failed rehabilitation-oriented policies of the past?
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