Moral Equivalency

It was a standard response by Reagan-era Republicans to criticisms of the US--as supporting brutal dictatorships in Central America that happened to be pro-American, for example--that there was no "moral equivalency" between the United States and the Soviet Union. We've seen this same approach taken recently in the kerfuffle over Amnesty International's use of the "gulag" metaphor. Even though Jeane Kirkpatrick and other equally deep thinkers tried to imbue the phrase with layers of sophistication and meaning, at bottom its import is simple--we're the good guys, so what we do, even when it's bad, isn't as bad as what the bad guys do.

Now we're coming to the end (one hopes) of the week-long news cycle in which various figures from the Watergate era meet on television to hash out the unmasking of Deep Throat. Having seen these characters all week, I have to admit I was still stunned to see Richard Ben Veniste of the Watergate prosecutor's office sitting (virtually) next to G. Gordon Liddy, convicted Watergate felon, to discuss the matter with Chris Wallace on Sunday. Before you rush to knee-jerk anti-Foxism, I'll be glad to point out similar pairings on the other cable nets.

But did no one ask Chris or his booker, "Are we, by this pair of bookings, declaring a moral equivalency between the prosecutor and the ones he prosecuted?" What other crime story would get such weirdly even-handed treatment? Can we look forward to Vincent Bugliosi and Susan Atkins side-by-side on Court TV for a leisurely look back at the Charles Manson case? Were there no Watergate-era Nixon supporters (aside from the ubiquitous Pat Buchanan) available who hadn't had their tickets punched by a Federal warden?

Where's Jeane Kirkpatrick when we need her?