Lambslove has a point, Bear. The original post repeated a lie designed to smear Hillary Clinton.
Whether or not you feel that public defenders, even those defending the lowest of the low, are sleazy or performing a noble job is besides the point. What you feel about Hillary's politics now, then, or in the future is besides the point.
That article was a lie designed to smear her. That's the
point. This can't be a conversation about Hillary's politics, because the original post doesn't mention them. It can't be a conversation about public defenders, because she wasn't one then. It can't be a conversation about the ACLU, because it's not mentioned in the OP.
The original post is a specific lie containing only
one gram of truth: Hillary Clinton was at the Black Panther's trial.
Okay, so we've got two subjects to discuss.
1) Is it okay to lie to smear opponents if you believe they're evil/bad/low/sinners/whatever? I mean, if she's that bad, don't you have enough
truthful things to bring up?
2) Is it good or bad that someone was at the Black Panther's trial? (Not participated, that's part of the lie. Just physically present).
Back to Hillary. Her political activism does go back to her college years, and she continues in the same political vain today. So, even though it is really no big deal to me, it would not suprise me at all if after accessing the court records, I found it to be true. Also, my initial contribution to this thread was to another member's remark, equating Hillary with Paul. I merely said that the analogy does not apply.
From the Snopes link (Snopes being noted for the quality of their research):
Ms. Clinton wasn't a lawyer then, either; she was a Yale law student. The sum total of her involvement in the trial was that she assisted the American Civil Liberties Union in monitoring the trial for civil rights violations. That a law student's tangential participation in one of the most controversial, politically and racially charged trials of her time (one that took place right on her doorstep) to help ensure it remained free of civil rights abuses is now offered as "proof" of her moral reprehensibility demonstrates that McCarthyism is alive and well -- some of us apparently believe in rights but don't believe everyone has the right to have rights.
Of course, neither Mr. Lee nor Ms. Clinton had anything to do with "defending" the other twelve Panthers, who never even stood trial because the government declined to prosecute them or allowed them to turn state's evidence. The flimsy "evidence" typically mustered as "proof" of their "support" for the Black Panthers is that Hillary Clinton was co-editor of the Yale Review when it printed a derogatory cartoon depicting police as decapitated pigs, even though no one has demonstrated that she approved (or even knew) of it,
Frankly, Bear, I expected a bit better of you. I think the summation of the Snopes article really applies to you, and I find that personally upsetting:
Stripped of all the invective and blatant political ranting, the case here against Mr. Lee and Ms. Clinton comes down to nothing more than "We don't like their politics" and "They were there," so they must be as morally guilty as the Panthers themselves. As a junior senator from Wisconsin once demonstrated, if you can't defeat your political opponents at the ballot box, and you can't point to anything specific they've done wrong, simply declare them guilty for once having been associated (no matter how tenuous the association) with a group now reviled. "Vilification by association" tactics that worked for McCarthyites in the 1950s apparently still have their adherents today.
So you don't like liberals. Big fat deal. I don't like conservatives. But you won't see
me passing off some lie about Tom Delay, despite the unending emnity I hold my esteemed Congressman. I find that, if I don't have enough
truth to spread, enough
actual events and
real evidence, that it's probably best not to badmouth someone.
