In the last few weeks we’ve witnessed Arizona race-profiling passed into laws that allow US citizens tossed into jail for looking Mexican. Then we got the spectacle of a United States Senator, Connecticut’s Joe Lieberman, proposing that US citizens accused of terrorism be stripped of their citizenship and rights before a trial. This sort of 2010 insta-jury thinking is a bit much for me. I’m more used to what Dan Wetzel pulled today filling up column space about Lawrence Taylor’s arrest on charges he raped a kid. This is trial by news hack. Wetzel manages to utterly destroy Taylor in a mere six paragraphs before righteously declaring: “Taylor™s side of the story remains to be heard.” Wetzel then quickly corrects this with: “His defense better be a strong one. If this isn™t some incredible case of mistaken identity, it™s difficult to envision an innocent scenario here.” And we all know it’s the job of reporters to envision the end of their story, rather than report it.
I have no more sympathy with Taylor than I do in Wetzel’s demanding his head before judge and jury hear him out. This isn’t a case like Ben “Big Rape” Roethlisberger, where the cops on the scene also took fan boy pictures with him and destroyed the crime scene. The way it looks, Taylor is answering to authorities who are making serious charges. In this case, both sides will be heard — which is, sadly, an improvement over recent Roethlisberger news. Wetzel’s emotional attack is made up of understandable outrage at the charges (which are sickening) but he should post this stuff to message boards.