Ireland's hope of first gay president kaput.

[Tigger]

Pensioner, this post http://rationalia.com/forum/viewtopic.p ... 09#p933109 is a personal attack which is against the rules.

[Seth]

Pensioner, this post http://rationalia.com/forum/viewtopic.p ... 09#p933109 is a personal attack which is against the rules.

Is he getting a vacation for repeated, blatant personal attacks, or does his favorite-son status immunize him from anything but a talking-to?

[Cormac]

You misunderstood my intention.

I am not declaring that he should have done what he did. I'm not saying that he should be President. In point of fact, I think he should not, as this issue would follow him, and bring our state into (further) disrepute.

However, everyone should note that what was at issue here was his right to seek and get a nomination, and not the actual election itself. For me, it was for the people to decide, not the other parties or the media. This will not happen now.

Well, he decided that his chances of being elected were nil after the scandal broke, so he did the responsible thing in not wasting all the donated campaign funds of his supporters, didn't he? He made the decision right? He wasn't told by the government or anybody else that he was not allowed to run, so what's the problem? He could have continued but decided not to.

No, because you can't just announce your intention to run. You either need a quota of parliamentary votes, or a quota of county/city council votes to get onto the ballot. Only then will the people decide. The political parties cut off his support at county and city council, and he lost some support in the Parliament.

He still took the right decision to withdraw.

I'm simply trying to give some other information, because what has been said so far is short of detail and, for that matter, legal perspective.

Okay, fine, but what other information have you actually provided? Your claim that he was 7 years out of the gay relationship when the incident occurred does not seem to be accurate, given the OP. Do you have inside information refuting the claims in the story? If so, I'd love to hear them, but so far you just made a conflicting statement without any supporting information.

Read my last post. Apart from the fact that the paper of record "The Irish Times" got it right, I heard Norris categorically declare it in a live radio interview yesterday. The OP is wrong. The Independent regularly gets such matters wrong, as it rushes headlong to Moral Outrage.

For my two cents, I think it is ok for someone to write to seek clemency for a criminal. A judge is under absolutely no obligation to pay any heed to it. I think he was very unwise to use Dail (parliament) headed paper.

I too think it's okay for "someone" to write to seek clemency, so long as he's not an elected politician using state stationary in an attempt to improperly influence the judge. It also matters which criminal he's seeking clemency for. Writing supporting clemency for someone you are unassociated with and don't know because his or her case has been brought to you by a constituent and your review of the record reveals what you believe to be a gross miscarriage of justice is one thing. Using state stationary and the power of your office to seek clemency for your intimate sexual partner is quite another thing entirely, particularly in the view of the public. It reeks of self-serving abuse of power, frankly.

It is irrelevant whether or not he used headed stationery. Norris is a Senator in Ireland. The judge was a judge in ISRAEL. In point of fact, the relationship between these two states is dire. As far as most Irish people are concerned, the Israeli state murdered two Irish soldiers on peacekeeping duty, and we don't particularly like that they use our passports when on assassination missions overseas. Ireland regularly makes statements that Israel doesn't like.

From my point of view, Norris was unwise to use Parliamentary headed paper in an issue in which he had personal involvement, but he was also unwise to think that it would add weight to his request. I imagine that the exact opposite would have been the case.

I think it was an error of judgement, but one that is understandable in the circumstances. He is a human being after all.

BUT, in all the letters that he wrote on behalf of prisoners (of conscience and otherwise), he would have written on headed paper (as he said in his radio interview yesterday). Personally, I think this is inappropriate, and should never have happened. The significance of this is that he didn't use the headed paper just for his former lover specifically. He used it for all people for whom he made representations. It was still wrong, but wrong for a different reason.

Yes, but such slipups have tripped up many a politician. Politics is seldom fair, but it's how we (try to) get the best representatives.

Yes, agreed. I have said on several occasions that he was right to withdraw.

1. The relationship between Norris and the offender had been over for at least 7 years by the time the "Crime" was committed.

That was far from clear in the OP, which said, "Senator Norris had a relationship with Mr Yitzhak Nawi for almost 30 years and the couple were together until 2001." Then it said, "his former partner Ezra Yitzhak Nawi on his conviction for the statutory rape of a 15-year-old Palestinian boy in 1997."

So, Norris had a relationship with Nawi beginning as early as 1971, and Nawi was convicted of a rape occurring in 1997.

This clearly indicates that Norris and Nawi had a relationship at the time the rape occurred in 1997, which continued for four years after the incident.

The "Independent" is one of those newspapers of outrage. It rarely reports in a measured manner, and is very quick to call for public outrage.

There was an interview with Norris on the radio yesterday afternoon in which he declared that their intimate relationship ended in 1985, when it became apparent that the other fellow would not commit to a lifelong exclusive relationship.

And, as quoted in the Irish Times (the paper of record) today:

"“I deeply regret the most recent of all the controversies concerning my former partner of 25 years ago, Ezra Nawi,” said Mr Norris. “The fallout from his disgraceful behaviour has now spread to me and is in danger of contaminating others close to me both in my political and personal life.”

After that, their involvement continued in relation to charitable and human rights work in Israel/Palestine.

It would seem that the Independent is factually wrong on at least this count.

Fair enough. Doesn't really explain why he wrote the letter if he truly believes it was "disgraceful behavior."

As he explained himself, even though the relationship was over, he still cared for his ex. Specifically, he was in deep fear that his ex would kill himself, as he'd attempted to do so in the past. So he wrote letters hoping to prevent such an occurrence.

Perhaps you cannot put yourself in his position, and for that matter, I am not sure I'd have written the letters, but I can understand his need to try to prevent his friend from killing himself. (Even if that friend was guilty of a crime, which in this case, he was).

2. Norris has spent most of his life fighting for human rights in particular for abused children, and this is openly acknowledged by his political rivals.

Great. Glad to hear it. That still wouldn't excuse his knowledge of or covering-up of a 1997 statutory rape by his partner.

What knowledge? He didn't know. He declared yesterday that he had no knowledge of the crime before his friend was prosecuted.

1. The relationship ended in 1985, the statutory rape in (I think) 1995, and the trial in 1997.
2. Norris lives in Ireland, the convict lives in Israel/Palestine.
3. The crime was committed in Palestine.

Fair enough, now that the chain of events has been clarified. Still doesn't explain why he would write a letter seeking clemency for someone convicted of "disgraceful behavior."

See above.

3. The offender had a history of depression and self-harm and Norris was terrified that I
without some intervention, the trial might push him over the edge.

Who cares? If Nawi raped a 15 year old boy, suicide would have been a viable option for him. I note with some disgust the opprobrium heaped upon the Catholic Church in the recent event of one of it's officials being found in possession of kiddie porn (among other such opprobrium heaped upon innocent Catholics and Catholic priests in this forum) and yet when a favorite son is mired in a sex scandal, it's all "oh, no, it's not really RAPE if it was consensual, even if the child was 15." This seems to ignore the fact that a good many of the allegations of sexual abuse by Catholic priests (some 4000 or so allegations out of more than half a million Catholic priests, almost all of which are allegations made about purported events more than 40 years ago) also involved, at least potentially, "consensual" sex with teenagers.

Sauce, goose, gander.

This is how Norris explains himself:

He struck a note of defiance in saying he neither regretted supporting nor seeking clemency for his friend but regretted giving the impression he did not have sufficient compassion for the victim. “I accept that more than a decade and a half later when I have now reviewed the issue and am not emotionally involved, when I was afraid that Ezra might take his own life, I see that I was wrong.”

Fair enough, admitting one was wrong is fine, if a bit self-serving in this particular context. Perhaps that's why he judged that his prior actions fatally tainted his candidacy. As I said, politics is hardly fair. After all, Teddy Kennedy got drunk and drove off a bridge, leaving a girl to die and running away from the accident, and he served in Congress for decades before finally dying in the saddle. That was grossly unfair to the people of the United States, but it happens.

Well, I think time will tell. I have not yet seen the gory details of the case in question, and I will reserve judgement as to the degree to which Norris's intervention was politically and socially unethical.

But, I would not equate Kennedy's hit and run homicide and cover up with Norris's situation. Kennedy was actually guilty of a crime, whereas Norris DID NOT COMMIT A CRIME AT ALL.

Incidentally, your argument fails here because you've employed the Tu Quoque fallacy.

The major scandal in Ireland involving the Catholic Church was not the crimes committed by opportunistic predators, but the actions of the church in actively covering it up, and actively undermining the law in countries all around the globe.

The problem is that atheists tend to conflate both Catholics, as religious individuals, and innocent Catholic priests, all 500,000 of them together with a very small number of Bishops who did such things and condemn the whole lot of them as if each and every one of them is guilty of some crime. Moreover, most atheists fail to understand the structure of the Catholic church and do not understand how little actual regulatory authority the Vatican and the Pope have over individual Bishops and Archbishops, particularly in the United States.

As someone who grew up in the Catholic church, and someone who has read widely on the topic, this is bollox.

The Vatican has utter control, and it is enforced strictly through Canon Law. They, like the devil, like to cite scripture for their own purpose, and like to pretend that local bishops are independent, but this is not the case. This is why Canon Law courts exist in Rome, and it is why Bishops and priests alike are hauled off to Rome to be punished when they step out of line. The same goes for Bishops and priests in the USA. Bishops and priests that step too far out of line will be removed.

It should be noted that the opprobrium is not because of the abuse that has happened. It is generally recognised that the abuse was largely committed either by paedophiles who sought to use the church as a safe harbour for their crimes, taking advantage of the special position of clergy, or by people who were severely damaged by the severe and unnatural life to which religious people (priests, nuns, monks) are subjected. These are depraved criminals, or insane. The opprobrium is reserved for those clergy who acted to cover up the abuses and who facilitated the ongoing criminality by continuing to cover up. This is the crime that the church and many of its representatives committed.

As for innocent Catholic priests, it is clear that there are many many priests (including my uncles and cousins) who are good people, and who dedicate their lives to helping others. Furthermore, Parish operations do offer something to people that help people through their lives.

This last point has absolutely nothing to do with the global conspiracy to pervert the course of justice in countries the world over (including your own) which was run by the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith in Rome since the 60s (and probably earlier). Ratzinger was the head of that organisation since the late 70s, and it is inconceivable that he was not personally involved in those activities.

Also, the Vatican promulgates a concept of "mental reservation" which is where priests are allowed to lie - overtly or by omission, if doing so advances or maintains the position and welfare of the church. This is interesting, because in the Cathecism that I learned as a child, and in all my Religious Knowledge lessons through school, it was made clear to us that the end does not justify the means. So the Vatican and any clergyman who acted in furtherance of official policy regarding the reporting of abuse are, in my mind criminals. It has come into the public domain through investigations by the state in Ireland into church activities in relation to child abuse, that mental reservation was widely used in relation to victims, the movement and cover up of abuser and abuse, and the relationship of the church with the state.

As the largest group of religious people in my country are Catholic, it would be a stupid person indeed who would think that most people conflate ordinary lay Catholics with those involved in covering up abuse.

Opprobrium is due where it is due, to be certain, but the typical atheist approach is to condemn everyone and everything Catholic using the same broad brush in spite of the fact that a) many of the allegations are 40 years or more old and are impossible to prove or defend, and are generally undertaken because of the large amount of money that one can get from the church by making even spurious or false accusations against dead priests, and b) without acknowledging the enormous efforts undertaken by the church in recent years to prevent such abuse.

Nonsense. I don't, and I'm not unrepresentative of atheists commenting on these matters. Furthermore, the vast amout of critical and aggressive comment against the church comes from Catholics like my parents and for that matter, our Prime Minister.

Very few of these cases will result in large amounts being paid out.

In Ireland, the state (in an outrageous move) agreed to pay half of the compensation for the church. The state stumped up ALL of its part. The church has stumped up almost nothing. This despite having had ten years to do so, and during those ten years, the church sold vast amounts of property in Ireland during the boom, and so were at least at some points during that ten years - cash rich. Yet they are now trying to weasel out of their side of the bargain. In behaving like this, they are piling up more and more bitter disappointment and anger amongst the ordinary Catholics in Ireland - probably the most vocal of critics. Catholicism in Ireland is on the verge of a revolution amongst the laity not seen before in Ireland - (the Reformation largely passed Ireland by). This is solely due to the behaviour of the church in relation to abuse, and the behaviour of the Vatican in relation to abuse in Ireland.

As for your last point - have you read the Cloyne Report? It specifically shows that the Vatican acted to undermine the child protection policy it told the Irish government and people that it was implementing. This was in the last ten years.

There are clergy, nuns, and monks who take this issue very seriously. Many of them wrote to our Taoiseach to congratulate him on his statement in the Dail (Irish Parliament), which was critical of the Vatican. But the real position of the Vatican is mendacious and cynical.

And there is the matter of focusing on the Catholic church, where there are about 4000 validated complaints of sexual abuse in the US, while ignoring the estimated five MILLION children PER YEAR who are molested by public school teachers. I have no idea what the stats are for Ireland when it comes to sexual abuse by teachers, but if I had to guess, there's a significant amount of child-buggering going on in schools in Ireland too. One has to ask whether all the sound and fury about the Catholic church is really aimed at protecting children or if it's merely a convenient stalking horse for the anti-religious agenda of atheists, given how little attention and outrage is directed at other identifiable groups of child molesters.

1. Tu Quoque fallacy again.
2. Such people are not protected by a global organisation that has, by virtue of the fact that it is a large religion, and a sovereign state, got a special position in most countries. They stand a much higher chance of being detected and prosecuted.
3. The church is a separate organisation from the states in which it operates, (except in the Vatican, or whatever theocracies it has managed to retain - e.g. the Phillipines), and the fact that it and its personnel have acted against the interests of the people and government of many states legitimately singles the church out for special focus.
4. Ordinary citizens who commit abuse are the concern of the state. Most states at least declare their disgust at such crimes, and their determination to seek it out and punish it. The church, as an organisation, abused children. As part of the state's efforts to tackle abuse, it is only correct that the state must deal with the church/Vatican as a single entity.

The outrage is well merited. Here is an organisation that was AND IS extraordinarily privileged in public life - apart from the vast supply of public money it gets for education and medicine, it gets an even bigger benefit from having extremely generous tax benefits. The church set itself up as an unquestionable organisation, that held moral perfection and authority in its hands. All the while it was plotting against the peoples and states which host it.

I'm all for jailing priests (and teachers) who bugger kids and Bishops (and school administrators) who conspire to conceal the crimes, but I don't accept at face value every accusation made about events 40 or more years old. The standard of evidence for criminal cases still applies so far as I'm concerned. There's a reason there are statutes of limitation against charging people many years after the fact; it's generally impossible to provide the accused with a fair trial when evidence has been lost (or never preserved), witnesses have died and are no longer available, memories have faded and it has become little more than a matter of one person's word against another. The presumption of innocence must prevail in such situations.

And yet, you're willing to take at face value the statements made by a newspaper you're not at all familiar with, about a case that happened in a different country to the one you thought less than 20 years ago?

Noone takes these claims at face value. Many priests and nuns have been falsely accused, and many of these have had the cases against them thrown out. This is a terrible thing to happen to anyone, but people are falsely accuse of crimes all the time. It is awful, but it is a risk we take in a democracy to try to create a free and independent judiciary and judicial system.

Most cases boil down to one person's word against another. It is the role of the judge and jury to weigh up the facts and the evidence, and arrive at a decision as to whose case is more convincing, and within the bounds of the relevant burdens of proof. Statutes of limitations do apply for many crimes, but I see no reason why a statute of limitations should apply for conspiracy to pervert the course of justice, for child abuse. There is no statute of limitation on murder, for example.

As to the cover-ups, I have no problem whatsoever with prosecuting those Bishops or others who have actively engaged in tampering with evidence or were conspirators, but the same statutes of limitation must apply.

I don't agree. Conspiracy to pervert the course of justice is a direct attack on the authority of the judicial system, and therefore a direct attack on democracy. There should be no protection in time for this crime.

Norris openly wrote a letter to a court giving a character reference for someone he cared about who had committed a crime, and about which crime he had known nothing until the trial. In his letter, he asked for clemency (not a pardon - but clemency - seeking a sentence that might be more appropriate- in his opinion. The court was not in any way obliged to act).

This is categorically different.

Perhaps, but still a bad political decision.

Agreed.

4. At no time has Norris condoned the crime in question

He condones it by asking for clemency. Did he condemn it, he would not do so.

That is nonsense. He doesn't condone the crime at all, and never did.

Unless he believes the individual is innocent of the crime, asking for clemency for a convicted felon convicted of the rape of a child is condoning the act and minimizing the gravity of it, as he admitted in the quote you provided above. He said he was wrong to do it. I'm merely saying the same thing. Make up your mind.

It is not, they are categorically different issues.

Take this example:

A person suffering from severe mental illness, stabs his or her partner 48 times in a frenzy in a planned attack, having come to the belief that their partner was the devil. Such a person will be convicted of murder, but a person might ask for clemency by asking that instead of being sentenced to life in a prison, that they be instead committed for life to a psychiatric institution for the criminally insane. I know of a case exactly like this.

In asking for clemency in this case, clearly a person would not have to condone the violent crime in order to ask for clemency. The same logic applies to Norris's letter - at least sufficiently to give him the benefit of the doubt.

This is a general outline of his letters. He asks for clemency on these grounds:

1. Psychiatric social workers had recommended a non-custodial sentence
2. That similar cases around the world had led to non-custodial sentences
3. That he did not argue his innocence, and thereby spared the victim the ordeal of giving evidence (this would normally lead to some leniency from a court).
4. That he had offered financial compensation
5. That he suffered from mental health problems

I don't see any condoning in these letters.

I do. I see him minimizing the impact on the victim, disrespecting the rights of the victim to justice, condoning an attempt to buy-off the victim to evade punishment, an invocation of the appeal to popular practice fallacy, and a general belief that raping 15 year old boys is not a serious criminal offense that justifies a harsh prison sentence. To me that's condoning the crime. And I believe to the public the impression is the same thing. His action at the time played into every gay stereotype there is, particularly the false stereotype that homosexuals are axiomatically child-predators too, and it was exceedingly imprudent of him, and he acknowledged it was wrong. He really had no choice but to withdraw.

You don't have enough facts about the case, or his letters to draw that conclusion. Noone does except those in possession of the court transcripts. I haven't seen them, have you?

Can we also be clear that "Statutory Rape" is not necessarily the same thing as what we commonly understand "Rape" to be. The latter always involves violence of one sort or another or combination. Statutory Rape may in fact be completely consensual.

For example, in Ireland, a 15 year old boy who has sex with a 15 year old girl can be found guilty of statutory rape, and will in those circumstances be put onto a sex-offenders register. The girl will not have any criminal conviction. In this case, how serious a crime is statutory rape.

Statutory Rape is indeed a very serious criminal offence, but it is not necessarily of the same order as what we commonly understand as rape (although it definitely can, and probably often is), and neither are as serious an offence as murder. (Although they can be close).

The point I'm making here is that it is possible for there to have been mitigating circumstances, and I can think of several, in which the crime was committed but the offender's ability to discern the correct choice could have been impaired.

The main point is that neither you nor I know, because we were not party to the crime, and neither of us has seen the court transcripts. You seem to have plucked your facts from the OP, which quoted an unreliable newspaper, and you wrapped it up in your favourite defence of the Catholic Church, and regurgitated it here, despite knowing less than me about the case - and that is saying something, because I know nothing about it at all, apart from what I've said above.

Because I know fuck all about the case, I'll reserve judgement until I know more. I think this is the sane and humane thing to do. However, you are free, as you know, to carry on with your prejudgement and premature condemnation.

5. At the time he wrote this letter it was commonplace for politicians to write letters on behalf of both accused and convicted people.

Convicted pedophile rapists? That sounds like a pretty bad political choice to make to me.

I don't disagree. It was a bad political choice.

Yup.

Yup. (We can probably delete this one in any subsequent exchanges).

One of Norris's rivals for the presidency wrote letters seeking clemency for a double murderer who was on death row.

That would cause me to reject him as well.

Yes, but we'll see if he is forced to drop out of the race, BEFORE the people get a chance to vote.

The public is fickle when it comes to politicians.

The public have no say in who is put before them as a Presidential Candidate in Ireland. The candidate I refer to above is the candidate of the ruling party.

He is a good man, but I hope the public reject him as a punishment to his party.

His party, by the way, have not had a successful presidential election in the history of the state, and are of the view that they are entitled to the office. They are behind a lot of moves against Norris, which were unethical and deeply unpopular with the public. (This latest not yet connected to them - although in this case, there is a real smoking gun that has been revealed).

Is statutory rape worse than double murder. If so, why?

You assume that it's acceptable for a politician to come to the defense of convicts of any stripe. It's not. They have no business writing letters and abusing the prestige and authority of their office to suborn the legal system that has duly judged and sentenced someone for a heinous crime.

I make no such assumption. My criticism is of the media, the political parties, and my citizens who have acted to prevent Norris getting a nomination, let alone get to stand in front of the people and their judgement in the election to come.

Why are you critical? It's all part of the vetting process that takes place with every candidate in every election. That's the purpose of the press, to dig into the backgrounds of candidates and look for scandals and hidden character defects and misbehavior that might make the person a poor choice as an elected official. God knows the press has failed often enough in that respect, with Nixon, Clinton and a host of others, but the theory is correct. People have a right, and a need to know about those who are seeking power and public office long before they get to the ballot box, so that the public debate can be had over the candidates qualification to serve. If such information is suppressed, how are voters to know who is qualified to serve?

I am critical because in this case, the press didn't even get basic facts right, and as of today, even after he has clarified the position were still stating untruths (like that the relationship was still in place, when it was not). That they went from zero to foaming at the mouth outrage in one fell swoop is, for me, the very essence of Murdochian tabloidism, and is a long distance from responsible journalism. Bear in mind that the election itself isn't until much later in the year. A more professionally prepared article would have scuppered Norris's chances of getting elected then, so why the rush to print?

The point in this case, as I've already said, is that the people will not get to have their say, because Norris was denied a position on the ballot by political shenanigans, (not including this current topic).

The nomination process necessarily and justifiably includes public review of a candidates record and personal character. We don't want nominees who are unfit for public service in the eyes of the public, because that just clutters up the field. It's a winnowing process, and always has been, and the public and the press are the ones who rightfully separate the wheat from the chaff in the court of public opinion. It cannot properly work any other way. When critical information such as this is suppressed, charlatans and demagogues attain office, and we all suffer. Does that mean that some qualified candidates who might have a black mark in their past don't get a chance? Yes, but better that than allow someone of poor moral character into office.

Yes agreed.

However, in this case, it is the timing and the shoddy grasp of facts in that newspaper, in the context of the many other attempts to prevent Norris from getting on the ballot that cause me to criticise what is going on. There was plenty of time to do proper journalistic digging into this case, and to bring a fully researched and detailed exposition of the facts to the public long before a vote would ever be held. Why the rush to print?

If the issue is that he wrote letters seeking clemency for a convicted criminal, then surely his rival will also have to withdraw? But he won't.

That's up to him, isn't it. But it's the public who will eventually decide. It's not just about writing a letter, it's the precise circumstances involved. As I said, writing a letter about someone you don't know based on your review of his trial and your perception of a miscarriage of justice is one thing, but writing a letter for a former lover arguing that he shouldn't be punished so harshly gives the appearance of being entirely self-serving, and the public doesn't like self-serving politicians.

Well, at least the public will get to decide on that rival - as I've set out above.

The issue most people have with this situation is not that Norris appeared self-serving (and I don't agree with you on this point anyway), but that people would take your view about matters, and spin negative PR about Ireland and the Irish people in the context of the investigations into Church activities.There was a risk that people like you would (erroneously and incorrectly) impute that the Irish people are hypocritical in relation to abuse of minors. As this is not the case, many people felt that Norris should withdraw, even though he is by far the best candidate.

This stinks of hypocrisy and corruption to me, and it is problematic because this current government whined and whined about political dirty tricks, unfairness, and hypocrisy the whole time they were in opposition, and they came to power on a massive mandate to change this.

What's corrupt about revealing factual information?

The fact that it was laced with inaccuracy, deliberate falsity, and the fact that the election isn't until much later this year, and there was plenty of time to execute good journalism without risking that a compromised candidate would be elected.

6. In all criminal trials, judges will hear character references for the accused

During the trial perhaps. Once convicted and sentenced, the felon should not have the luxury of a pet legislator going to bat for him. Not unless the legislator is going to write letters for EVERY convict. It's an abuse of power, plain and simple. Legislators should respect the independence of the judiciary and keep their mouths shut about such matters and not try to exercise undue influence. And "everybody else is doing it" is hardly a rational or logical argument I'm afraid. It's pure fallacy.

Note, that the trial was in Israel, and Norris lives and works in Ireland. There is no question of a legislator attempting to influence the judiciary.

Not necessarily true. The cachet of a government legislator from another country is considerably greater than just your average citizen writing the same letter, which is, of course, precisely why he wrote the letter on government stationary in his capacity as a government official.

That is not the point you made. You imputed a breach of separation of powers. Well, the powers in question couldn't be further separated, being different states a great distance removed from each other, and for that matter, deeply antipathetic to one another.

He used the same headed paper for all the people for whom he wrote letters. Noone here really thinks that Norris was being either corrupt or self-serving in doing so. People think he was foolish and politically naive.

And it is common for judges to take such statements into account in sentencing. In fact, it is the only time that such testimony is really relevant, because such testimony has nothing to say about the facts of the case. It can only be of any value in helping the judge to come to a decision about the most appropriate sentence, given all circumstances.

True, but so what? This is not about what the Israeli judge did, it's about him misusing the power of his office and potentially tarnishing the reputation of the Irish government by using his position to argue for clemency for his former lover. It was clearly a misuse of his office, and now he's paying the price, as he himself acknowledged.

Senators in Ireland have no power at all. The upper house is merely a debating chamber. It has no real purpose other than as a channel to put matters and questions into public discourse, and in some respects to thrash debates out in order to refine a common understanding.

For the rest of your statement, see my previous comment.

7. The point should be made that Norris was by far the favourite to win the presidency, despite an unprecedentedly dirty campaign, particularly by the main government party.

Until his dirty underwear was revealed. Oh well, that's the whole point of politics and newspapers, to hold public officials accountable to the people for ALL their misbehaviors, including the ones they don't want revealed. Then it's up to the voters to decide whether to vest power and trust in them.

Please note, the voters will not get to decide, because the other parties acted to prevent him getting a nomination. They had tried again and again to stop his nomination, because he was the clear favourite to win the election if he could secure a nomination, and they were set to lose the campaign. All attempts to date had failed, until this came out.

Oh well. He withdrew of his own accord. He could have carried on, but didn't. No one to blame but himself. It's not like the evidence produced by the press was false and defamatory information after all. It was the truth. He admitted it was the truth. I really don't know why you object to having a truth about a candidate published in the press. You do understand that if such truths are suppressed by the press to favor a candidate, that this facilitates the election of tyrants and other unqualified candidates. You may not believe that this incident fatally tarnishes his ability to be President, but HE DID, and moreover, the public has every right to know about the incident and judge for themselves whether he's really qualified for office. You seem to be arguing that the information should have been suppressed. To what end? Just so that your favorite could be elected without the people having full knowledge of his past actions as a legislator? That's corruption to me.

He was never a legislator, because he was only ever a Senator - a group that have no role in legislating.

The evidence "produced" by the press you are quoting has been demonstrated to be factually incorrect in at least one key issue. That key issue has created the impression of a far more serious breach. This has been repeated by the same newspaper today, despite being corrected by Norris yesterday.

As I have said before, although you seem to have missed it, I DO think that this case has compromised him as a candidate, and I approve of his withdrawal.

I am not at all arguing that the information should be suppressed. I simply think that facts should be checked, and journalism should be journalism, not shrill hate-mongering procurers of public moral outrage.

The fact that you have so many misapprehensions about this case, and the fact that the independent is factually wrong on at least one count, suggests to me that there was an effort to attempt to make out that Norris was complicit in some way with the crime. This was the impressiom that many took, and it is just wrong.

I am all for holding him to account, but for acts he has committed, not acts someone else committed. Neither should political parties be allowed to get away with their behaviour.

What behavior? Publishing factual information? If you're complaining about the timeline, that was corrected by other press outlets. Certainly he could have, had he wished, corrected the misinformation himself and carried on with his candidacy. But he didn't. Evidently he was less concerned about the timeline than he was about his abuse of his office, which is a correct judgment. He never should have written a letter asking for clemency for his former lover using state stationary. That's why he withdrew, and justifiably so.

See above.

8. The full story of this is not in the public domain, and the point has been widely made that there may be more to this story than meets the eye

Oh dearie me, special knowledge is it? Well, put the full story right here and let's find out, shall we?

When it comes out, I will. I don't have special knowledge. But I have observed Norris all my life, and in all that time he has come across as a thoroughly decent person. I am willing to give him the benefit of the doubt until the full details emerge, which they mostly will.

Bear in mind, that I think that due to this affair, he can no longer be our President. However, I am very uncomfortable about some matters:

1. Norris will not now stand in front of the electorate - so the voters will have no say one way or the other.

By his own choice.

By a media driven frenzy, centred on a lie embedded in the article you're quoting, which gave the impression of a much greater breach.

2. The timing of this is suspicious - why now, and not ages ago. He has, after all, been a Senator for many years.

Perhaps it was not discovered till now. Or perhaps those with knowledge of the letter felt that it was pertinent to an analysis of his qualification to hold the Presidency of Ireland, which is a position of high prestige and international implication that might be severely affected if the information came out only after his election to office, which might create a much greater and more harmful scandal for Ireland.

See my comments above about journalistic ethics and the importance of getting facts right, BEFORE publication.

The higher you go in government, the more scrupulous you have to be in your behavior and the more deeply the press and the public will investigate your background. That's perfectly natural and appropriate, since many are called to serve in high office, but few are chosen.

Yes indeed. But again, timely reporting of well researched facts is good. Shrill, ill-researched, outrage-inflating tabloidism is not.

3. The behaviour of the ruling party in particular.

Politics is a dirty business, and I'm sure the minority party does its fair share of dirty tricking.

The minority party is responsible in large part for the political failures that led to our current economic position. They are busy trying to rebuild their party, (and I hope they succeed - I think they add an important dynamic).

BUT, in this case, they have also been trying to have Norris excluded from office.

[Seth]

You misunderstood my intention.

I am not declaring that he should have done what he did. I'm not saying that he should be President. In point of fact, I think he should not, as this issue would follow him, and bring our state into (further) disrepute.

However, everyone should note that what was at issue here was his right to seek and get a nomination, and not the actual election itself. For me, it was for the people to decide, not the other parties or the media. This will not happen now.

Well, he decided that his chances of being elected were nil after the scandal broke, so he did the responsible thing in not wasting all the donated campaign funds of his supporters, didn't he? He made the decision right? He wasn't told by the government or anybody else that he was not allowed to run, so what's the problem? He could have continued but decided not to.

No, because you can't just announce your intention to run. You either need a quota of parliamentary votes, or a quota of county/city council votes to get onto the ballot. Only then will the people decide. The political parties cut off his support at county and city council, and he lost some support in the Parliament.

Really? How...elitist. Here in the US, literally anyone can run for any office. All they need to do is file the paperwork and meet the qualifications. But, you have just shot your argument in the foot because he WAS subject to a vote, albeit not a public referendum. He was required to obtain the vote of some number of his peers in Parliament. Weird system if you ask me because it perpetuates elitism, but still, he had his chance to argue his case before the voters, now didn't he?

Fair enough. Doesn't really explain why he wrote the letter if he truly believes it was "disgraceful behavior."

As he explained himself, even though the relationship was over, he still cared for his ex. Specifically, he was in deep fear that his ex would kill himself, as he'd attempted to do so in the past. So he wrote letters hoping to prevent such an occurrence.

Perhaps you cannot put yourself in his position, and for that matter, I am not sure I'd have written the letters, but I can understand his need to try to prevent his friend from killing himself. (Even if that friend was guilty of a crime, which in this case, he was). [/quote]

Fair enough. And he's sacrificed his political career in the attempt, albeit unintentionally it seems.

Opprobrium is due where it is due, to be certain, but the typical atheist approach is to condemn everyone and everything Catholic using the same broad brush in spite of the fact that a) many of the allegations are 40 years or more old and are impossible to prove or defend, and are generally undertaken because of the large amount of money that one can get from the church by making even spurious or false accusations against dead priests, and b) without acknowledging the enormous efforts undertaken by the church in recent years to prevent such abuse.

Nonsense. I don't, and I'm not unrepresentative of atheists commenting on these matters. Furthermore, the vast amout of critical and aggressive comment against the church comes from Catholics like my parents and for that matter, our Prime Minister.

Very few of these cases will result in large amounts being paid out.

And that explains the hundreds of millions, nearing a billion dollars paid out by the church and the bankrupting of several archdiocese in the US how, exactly?

In Ireland, the state (in an outrageous move) agreed to pay half of the compensation for the church. The state stumped up ALL of its part. The church has stumped up almost nothing. This despite having had ten years to do so, and during those ten years, the church sold vast amounts of property in Ireland during the boom, and so were at least at some points during that ten years - cash rich. Yet they are now trying to weasel out of their side of the bargain. In behaving like this, they are piling up more and more bitter disappointment and anger amongst the ordinary Catholics in Ireland - probably the most vocal of critics. Catholicism in Ireland is on the verge of a revolution amongst the laity not seen before in Ireland - (the Reformation largely passed Ireland by). This is solely due to the behaviour of the church in relation to abuse, and the behaviour of the Vatican in relation to abuse in Ireland.

I concede that you have better information on the Irish situation than I do.

As for your last point - have you read the Cloyne Report? It specifically shows that the Vatican acted to undermine the child protection policy it told the Irish government and people that it was implementing. This was in the last ten years.

No, I haven't. But I'll try to find it online.

There are clergy, nuns, and monks who take this issue very seriously. Many of them wrote to our Taoiseach to congratulate him on his statement in the Dail (Irish Parliament), which was critical of the Vatican. But the real position of the Vatican is mendacious and cynical.

Agreed. There's plenty of cynicism to go around however.

And there is the matter of focusing on the Catholic church, where there are about 4000 validated complaints of sexual abuse in the US, while ignoring the estimated five MILLION children PER YEAR who are molested by public school teachers. I have no idea what the stats are for Ireland when it comes to sexual abuse by teachers, but if I had to guess, there's a significant amount of child-buggering going on in schools in Ireland too. One has to ask whether all the sound and fury about the Catholic church is really aimed at protecting children or if it's merely a convenient stalking horse for the anti-religious agenda of atheists, given how little attention and outrage is directed at other identifiable groups of child molesters.

1. Tu Quoque fallacy again.[/quote]

Not really. It's a legitimate argument to criticize those who focus exclusively on the moral turpitude of the Catholic church while at the same time ignoring the moral turpitude of public school teachers when it comes to sexually abusing children, particularly when the magnitude of the problem is many times larger. It's perfectly legitimate to question the focus exclusively on the Catholic issue in the face of the much larger public teacher issue as being politically motivated by a core antipathy towards religion in general and Catholics in particular. One would expect that if child protection were the actual issue, and not a stalking horse for atheist attacks on Catholics, the outcry against public school rapists would be many times larger than the outcry against Catholic priests. But it's not. In fact, there is almost NO outcry whatsoever about public school teachers buggering children by the millions. Why is that, do you suppose?

2. Such people are not protected by a global organisation that has, by virtue of the fact that it is a large religion, and a sovereign state, got a special position in most countries. They stand a much higher chance of being detected and prosecuted.

So? It's okay to ignore five million kids raped every year because the Catholic church happens to be a worldwide organization? How is that logical?

3. The church is a separate organisation from the states in which it operates, (except in the Vatican, or whatever theocracies it has managed to retain - e.g. the Phillipines), and the fact that it and its personnel have acted against the interests of the people and government of many states legitimately singles the church out for special focus.

Fair enough, but that's not the argument being made, is it? The argument is about priests molesting children, not about the political power of the Catholic church, so that's a vacuous argument.

4. Ordinary citizens who commit abuse are the concern of the state. Most states at least declare their disgust at such crimes, and their determination to seek it out and punish it. The church, as an organisation, abused children. As part of the state's efforts to tackle abuse, it is only correct that the state must deal with the church/Vatican as a single entity.

Except that it's not a single entity. It's a religion. It has a spiritual leader, but the business side of things is run at the diocese or archdiocese level. Individual churches are owned by the archdiocese, the diocese or an individual congregation. Priests get their religious authority from the Vatican, but operationally decisions are made at a much lower level, depending on the individual church/diocese. This is true in the US, but may not be true everywhere, of course. The Pope is the spiritual leader of the church, and he pronounces church doctrine, but at least in the US, the details of administering that doctrine is left to the U.S. Council of Catholic Bishops, who are a notoriously liberal thorn in the side of the Vatican, and who frequently do things that piss off the Pope that the Pope cannot do anything about without destroying the entire church in America.

Since the decision making is not centralized, as you claim, but dispersed among the various diocese and archdiocese, it is totally IN-appropriate for those who have no actual knowledge of, and who did not participate in crimes taking place at an individual parish/diocese, to be held legally liable for conduct that they had no control over. Molesters, and those who conspire to conceal evidence of their crimes, justifiably should face criminal charges, but the entire church is not criminally responsible for the acts of a few priests and bishops. That's just nonsense, and it's an argument based in atheistic hatred of religion and the Catholic church that's part of a concerted attempt to demolish the religious institution that serves more than a billion people worldwide.

The outrage is well merited. Here is an organisation that was AND IS extraordinarily privileged in public life - apart from the vast supply of public money it gets for education and medicine, it gets an even bigger benefit from having extremely generous tax benefits. The church set itself up as an unquestionable organisation, that held moral perfection and authority in its hands. All the while it was plotting against the peoples and states which host it.

Depends on what you mean by "against." For the most part the Catholic church has plotted to keep Catholicism from being destroyed and to expand the spread of Catholicism wherever it can do so because they believe that people benefit from being Catholics. That's the goal of most religions and political parties. Nothing unusual there at all. I agree with you that the priest sex scandal is an exceedingly dark cloud on the moral authority of the church, but one cannot ignore the great good that the church does worldwide either.

I'm all for jailing priests (and teachers) who bugger kids and Bishops (and school administrators) who conspire to conceal the crimes, but I don't accept at face value every accusation made about events 40 or more years old. The standard of evidence for criminal cases still applies so far as I'm concerned. There's a reason there are statutes of limitation against charging people many years after the fact; it's generally impossible to provide the accused with a fair trial when evidence has been lost (or never preserved), witnesses have died and are no longer available, memories have faded and it has become little more than a matter of one person's word against another. The presumption of innocence must prevail in such situations.

And yet, you're willing to take at face value the statements made by a newspaper you're not at all familiar with, about a case that happened in a different country to the one you thought less than 20 years ago?

Sure, why not? It's an iterative process, you see. Information is revealed, people make judgments. More information comes out, they amend their judgments.

Noone takes these claims at face value.

I disagree strongly. A good many people do exactly that, and innocent people's lives and reputations are destroyed in the process.

Many priests and nuns have been falsely accused, and many of these have had the cases against them thrown out. This is a terrible thing to happen to anyone, but people are falsely accuse of crimes all the time. It is awful, but it is a risk we take in a democracy to try to create a free and independent judiciary and judicial system.

Is it? Actually, the very reason that statutes of limitation exist is precisely because the risks of ruining lives and reputations by false allegations about events that occurred decades ago are deemed to be unreasonable risks to order and justice.

Most cases boil down to one person's word against another.

No, most cased boil down to the examination and analysis of physical, documentary and testimonial evidence.

It is the role of the judge and jury to weigh up the facts and the evidence, and arrive at a decision as to whose case is more convincing, and within the bounds of the relevant burdens of proof. Statutes of limitations do apply for many crimes, but I see no reason why a statute of limitations should apply for conspiracy to pervert the course of justice, for child abuse. There is no statute of limitation on murder, for example.

Murder is a crime of such magnitude that it warrants no statute of limitations. Moreover, murder destroys the ability of the victim to bring charges, so withholding a tolling of the statute is appropriate. Still, a decades-old murder charge still has to be proved beyond a reasonable doubt to a jury, and "he said/she said" doesn't cut it.

Nothing prevents the victim of child abuse from bring forth the accusation other than their own reticence. One can justify a long statute of limitations, since a child may be reluctant to challenge an authority figure, but not much beyond adulthood in my opinion. As I said, the reason that such laws exist is that it is impossible to give the accused a fair trial long after the crime, when the evidence has disappeared and witnesses are dead or missing.

It's also bad public policy to allow people to sit on their complaints for a long period. In civil law, sitting on your rights for too long vacates your right to claim them. Letting people sit on allegations of criminal activity does not serve either justice or the good order of the community, because if true, it means that by remaining silent, the victim is allowing the victimizer to victimize others, and that's a moral wrong. We all have a duty to report and prosecute crimes against us, for the betterment of society through the apprehension and punishment of criminals. Society rightfully says to those who refuse to bring a case that their refusal to do so is also a moral wrong that is justly punished by their being a victim whose victimization goes unpunished.

As to the cover-ups, I have no problem whatsoever with prosecuting those Bishops or others who have actively engaged in tampering with evidence or were conspirators, but the same statutes of limitation must apply.

I don't agree. Conspiracy to pervert the course of justice is a direct attack on the authority of the judicial system, and therefore a direct attack on democracy. There should be no protection in time for this crime.

And if such a case can be proven against some individual within the applicable statute of limitation, I'm all for prosecution.

4. At no time has Norris condoned the crime in question

He condones it by asking for clemency. Did he condemn it, he would not do so.

That is nonsense. He doesn't condone the crime at all, and never did.

Unless he believes the individual is innocent of the crime, asking for clemency for a convicted felon convicted of the rape of a child is condoning the act and minimizing the gravity of it, as he admitted in the quote you provided above. He said he was wrong to do it. I'm merely saying the same thing. Make up your mind.

It is not, they are categorically different issues.

Take this example:

A person suffering from severe mental illness, stabs his or her partner 48 times in a frenzy in a planned attack, having come to the belief that their partner was the devil. Such a person will be convicted of murder, but a person might ask for clemency by asking that instead of being sentenced to life in a prison, that they be instead committed for life to a psychiatric institution for the criminally insane. I know of a case exactly like this.

In asking for clemency in this case, clearly a person would not have to condone the violent crime in order to ask for clemency. The same logic applies to Norris's letter - at least sufficiently to give him the benefit of the doubt.

I disagree. The judicial system itself deals with such situations regularly. People who are found to be legally insane are NOT (in this country) convicted of the crime, but they ARE (or may be) committed to a mental institution. I happen to disagree with that construction, and feel that a person who commits a crime is guilty of the crime regardless of mental state, but that mental incapacity may be a mitigating circumstance affecting the length and type of sentence. I dislike the notion of an insane murderer being treated back to sanity and then being released with no criminal conviction.

Can we also be clear that "Statutory Rape" is not necessarily the same thing as what we commonly understand "Rape" to be. The latter always involves violence of one sort or another or combination. Statutory Rape may in fact be completely consensual.

Indeed. But it's still rape because, according to the legal logic (which I happen to question too) there is no such thing as "consensual" sexual activity with an underage person because they are incapable of giving proper legal consent. Therefore it's "rape" because it's sex without consent, or in this case, informed adult consent.

For example, in Ireland, a 15 year old boy who has sex with a 15 year old girl can be found guilty of statutory rape, and will in those circumstances be put onto a sex-offenders register. The girl will not have any criminal conviction. In this case, how serious a crime is statutory rape.

Which is asinine. If it's consensual, it may well be at the instigation and invitation of the girl, and it would be SHE that should be so charged. Such instances are grossly sexist and biased against the boy and falsely make the presumption that a girl would never be the sexual aggressor, which is absolutely not the case.

Statutory Rape is indeed a very serious criminal offence, but it is not necessarily of the same order as what we commonly understand as rape (although it definitely can, and probably often is), and neither are as serious an offence as murder. (Although they can be close).

Well, that depends on how you view it. Those who make such laws see no distinction because they see the coercion inherent in the age of the victim versus the age of the attacker to be every bit as much "force" as jumping out of the bushes. I happen to disagree, but that's the law.

The point I'm making here is that it is possible for there to have been mitigating circumstances, and I can think of several, in which the crime was committed but the offender's ability to discern the correct choice could have been impaired.

Is statutory rape worse than double murder. If so, why?

You assume that it's acceptable for a politician to come to the defense of convicts of any stripe. It's not. They have no business writing letters and abusing the prestige and authority of their office to suborn the legal system that has duly judged and sentenced someone for a heinous crime.

I make no such assumption. My criticism is of the media, the political parties, and my citizens who have acted to prevent Norris getting a nomination, let alone get to stand in front of the people and their judgement in the election to come.

Why are you critical? It's all part of the vetting process that takes place with every candidate in every election. That's the purpose of the press, to dig into the backgrounds of candidates and look for scandals and hidden character defects and misbehavior that might make the person a poor choice as an elected official. God knows the press has failed often enough in that respect, with Nixon, Clinton and a host of others, but the theory is correct. People have a right, and a need to know about those who are seeking power and public office long before they get to the ballot box, so that the public debate can be had over the candidates qualification to serve. If such information is suppressed, how are voters to know who is qualified to serve?

I am critical because in this case, the press didn't even get basic facts right, and as of today, even after he has clarified the position were still stating untruths (like that the relationship was still in place, when it was not). That they went from zero to foaming at the mouth outrage in one fell swoop is, for me, the very essence of Murdochian tabloidism, and is a long distance from responsible journalism.

Right, as if the leftist press organs aren't just as quick to jump on their political enemies. Please, give me a break. It's politics, and the free press. That's just how it works, and has for more than 200 years. The scurilliousness of the press today is as nothing compared to the days of "yellow journalism" which originated in the late 1700's and early 1800's, and both sides play the game even today.

Bear in mind that the election itself isn't until much later in the year. A more professionally prepared article would have scuppered Norris's chances of getting elected then, so why the rush to print?

If they are opposed to him as a candidate, which wouldn't surprise me at all, given that the press can be biased in either direction, clearly now was the time, when all they had to convince were a few party leaders in Parliament, rather than millions of voters. Perfectly normal political gamesmanship.

The point in this case, as I've already said, is that the people will not get to have their say, because Norris was denied a position on the ballot by political shenanigans, (not including this current topic).

Sounds to me like a problem with your political system. Perhaps you should change it so anyone can run for office.

The nomination process necessarily and justifiably includes public review of a candidates record and personal character. We don't want nominees who are unfit for public service in the eyes of the public, because that just clutters up the field. It's a winnowing process, and always has been, and the public and the press are the ones who rightfully separate the wheat from the chaff in the court of public opinion. It cannot properly work any other way. When critical information such as this is suppressed, charlatans and demagogues attain office, and we all suffer. Does that mean that some qualified candidates who might have a black mark in their past don't get a chance? Yes, but better that than allow someone of poor moral character into office.

Yes agreed.

However, in this case, it is the timing and the shoddy grasp of facts in that newspaper, in the context of the many other attempts to prevent Norris from getting on the ballot that cause me to criticise what is going on. There was plenty of time to do proper journalistic digging into this case, and to bring a fully researched and detailed exposition of the facts to the public long before a vote would ever be held. Why the rush to print?

Well, to maximize their chance of convincing members of parliament not to give him permission to run. You seem to be laboring under the mistaken impression that the press is, or should be, carefully neutral in politics. Here's some historical information for you: It never has been, and never will be. Political reporting BEGAN with unbelievably scurrilous and flatly libelous attacks on candidates. That's where the term "yellow journalism" originated, from the hundreds and thousands of independently published broadsheets, printed on cheap yellow pulp paper, most of which were nothing more than mouthpiece organs for one party or another. It's no different today, nor will it change.

Politics is ugly, dirty and nasty, and if you're going to go into it, you'd better have a sterling reputation and a constitution of armor-steel plate because any chinks in your armor will be revealed by the press, and rightfully so. That's their job. An adversarial press is absolutely necessary to keep the process on the up-and-up and the candidates on their toes. When the press suppresses information or becomes complicit with one candidate, the interests of the public are not well served.

This stinks of hypocrisy and corruption to me, and it is problematic because this current government whined and whined about political dirty tricks, unfairness, and hypocrisy the whole time they were in opposition, and they came to power on a massive mandate to change this.

What's corrupt about revealing factual information?

The fact that it was laced with inaccuracy, deliberate falsity, and the fact that the election isn't until much later this year, and there was plenty of time to execute good journalism without risking that a compromised candidate would be elected.

There was plenty of time for other journalists to correct the record, which appears to have happened, but after he withdrew from the race. Perhaps he should have waited a bit longer. In any event, it's not the duty of the press to suppress or withhold information, it's the duty of the press to publish what they have and let the public decide what it means and how to apply it.

When the press begins deciding what is best for the public to know, very evil things can happen.

And it is common for judges to take such statements into account in sentencing. In fact, it is the only time that such testimony is really relevant, because such testimony has nothing to say about the facts of the case. It can only be of any value in helping the judge to come to a decision about the most appropriate sentence, given all circumstances.

True, but so what? This is not about what the Israeli judge did, it's about him misusing the power of his office and potentially tarnishing the reputation of the Irish government by using his position to argue for clemency for his former lover. It was clearly a misuse of his office, and now he's paying the price, as he himself acknowledged.

Senators in Ireland have no power at all. The upper house is merely a debating chamber. It has no real purpose other than as a channel to put matters and questions into public discourse, and in some respects to thrash debates out in order to refine a common understanding.

Well, there's your problem right there, my good man. That's what Progressives want for our country, a Congress that is nothing more than a debating club and a government run by unelected bureaucrats commanded by an imperial executive President who is the next thing to a king.

Change your government, that's my suggestion, and give your Senators some actual function in the system of checks and balances that keep government from becoming tyrannical and oppressive.

The evidence "produced" by the press you are quoting has been demonstrated to be factually incorrect in at least one key issue. That key issue has created the impression of a far more serious breach. This has been repeated by the same newspaper today, despite being corrected by Norris yesterday.

As I have said before, although you seem to have missed it, I DO think that this case has compromised him as a candidate, and I approve of his withdrawal.

I am not at all arguing that the information should be suppressed. I simply think that facts should be checked, and journalism should be journalism, not shrill hate-mongering procurers of public moral outrage.

Tell it to the left-wing liberal press. Freedom of the press implies a freedom on the part of who owns the press to publish a particular political viewpoint. Freedom of the press also implies that anyone is free to start up a newspaper to present their preferred political position. In the 17 and 1800s, and well into the 1900s, there were thousands and thousands of purely political broadsheets published for the express purpose of espousing one or another political view and attacking, much more vigorously and scurriously, the opposition candidates.

And people of that time were much, much better informed about politics and were able to easily separate the wheat from the chaff and determine for themselves the veracity and truth of a particular paper's claims.

The press need not dumb-down or edit the information so as to pander to the least intelligent of society, and it's a bad idea for it to do so. If you don't like what one press organ says, read another or write and publish your own. That's how it's supposed to work. Diversity of opinion.

1. Norris will not now stand in front of the electorate - so the voters will have no say one way or the other.

By his own choice.

By a media driven frenzy, centred on a lie embedded in the article you're quoting, which gave the impression of a much greater breach.

Big deal. Who cares? He did the deed, and he admitted it, and he made his choice. The media is not responsible for his supporters in Parliament withdrawing their support, he is. He's the one who wrote the letter. You're free to defend that, but you can't say that the core information is false, because he admitted writing it.

2. The timing of this is suspicious - why now, and not ages ago. He has, after all, been a Senator for many years.

Perhaps it was not discovered till now. Or perhaps those with knowledge of the letter felt that it was pertinent to an analysis of his qualification to hold the Presidency of Ireland, which is a position of high prestige and international implication that might be severely affected if the information came out only after his election to office, which might create a much greater and more harmful scandal for Ireland.

See my comments above about journalistic ethics and the importance of getting facts right, BEFORE publication.

The words "ethics" and "journalism" departed company more than 200 years ago, my man. People only speak of ethics in journalism when it's their ox that's being gored, not when it's the other guy's ox. It's caveat emptor in the press, and always has been. Now, if the claims were deliberate and egregious, and the product of deliberate and callous disregard of the truth, like for example if they had forged and manufactured a letter with his signature on it, then he can sue them for libel. But a minor error in the time line? I don't think so.

The higher you go in government, the more scrupulous you have to be in your behavior and the more deeply the press and the public will investigate your background. That's perfectly natural and appropriate, since many are called to serve in high office, but few are chosen.

Yes indeed. But again, timely reporting of well researched facts is good. Shrill, ill-researched, outrage-inflating tabloidism is not.

Oh, I don't know, tabloid journalism has its place, particularly in politics. It tends to help weed out those who are not fit for public office. If they are really fit for office, they will survive even the worst sort of tabloid rumormongering. Of course, historically, "tabloidism" was the order of the day, as I've mentioned before. Today's journalists and newspapers are light-years more respectful and careful than they used to be, and I'm not all that certain that it's a change for the better, given how far the press leans to the left these days.

3. The behaviour of the ruling party in particular.

Politics is a dirty business, and I'm sure the minority party does its fair share of dirty tricking.

The minority party is responsible in large part for the political failures that led to our current economic position. They are busy trying to rebuild their party, (and I hope they succeed - I think they add an important dynamic).

BUT, in this case, they have also been trying to have Norris excluded from office.

Like I said, a dirty business, but it's the best we've got to offer.

[Cormac]

I'll rspond to this when I'm back at my PC. It is too lengthy to address via my phone.

[klr]

...
No, because you can't just announce your intention to run. You either need a quota of parliamentary votes, or a quota of county/city council votes to get onto the ballot. Only then will the people decide. The political parties cut off his support at county and city council, and he lost some support in the Parliament.

Really? How...elitist. Here in the US, literally anyone can run for any office. All they need to do is file the paperwork and meet the qualifications. But, you have just shot your argument in the foot because he WAS subject to a vote, albeit not a public referendum. He was required to obtain the vote of some number of his peers in Parliament. Weird system if you ask me because it perpetuates elitism, but still, he had his chance to argue his case before the voters, now didn't he?

In theory only. In reality, money talks. And the bigger the office, the more talking you need to do ... we're talking telephone number territory. So if you don't have enough money yourself (and people hardly ever do), find some seriously wealthy backers, or else drop out. Which is not very democratic when you think about it. Give me a system where entry to the race is controlled by canvassing publicly elected representatives any day. I think you'll find that's far cheaper and more accessible. Of course they mightn't back you because they don't agree with your views, policies, etc. But then why would potential financiers choose to back or not back someone, other than for those same reasons? As I said, I know which system I prefer.

[mistermack]

It's customary for politicians to declare any special interest, when they make interventions.
This guy did not reveal to the court that he had had an extended gay relationship with the defendant.
It's clearly an abuse of position, speaking up for the guy, on Government headed paper, without declaring your special interest.
And I'm not sure what point Cormac is making.

What he did was simply made public. Nobody lied about it.

His supporters made a judgement not to support him, knowing all the facts.
They had every right to do that. I would have done the same in their shoes.

And I see no justification for keeping it quiet.

[Seth]

...
No, because you can't just announce your intention to run. You either need a quota of parliamentary votes, or a quota of county/city council votes to get onto the ballot. Only then will the people decide. The political parties cut off his support at county and city council, and he lost some support in the Parliament.

Really? How...elitist. Here in the US, literally anyone can run for any office. All they need to do is file the paperwork and meet the qualifications. But, you have just shot your argument in the foot because he WAS subject to a vote, albeit not a public referendum. He was required to obtain the vote of some number of his peers in Parliament. Weird system if you ask me because it perpetuates elitism, but still, he had his chance to argue his case before the voters, now didn't he?

In theory only. In reality, money talks.

Well, of course. Nobody said it was easy, or free. So what? There is no law which prevents one from running for office, which is what counts.

And the bigger the office, the more talking you need to do ... we're talking telephone number territory. So if you don't have enough money yourself (and people hardly ever do), find some seriously wealthy backers, or else drop out. Which is not very democratic when you think about it.

It's perfectly democratic. It's as egalitarian as it gets. Anyone who wants to can sign up and run if they meet the qualifications for the office. Just because their chances of winning if they don't actually campaign may be small is utterly irrelevant.

Give me a system where entry to the race is controlled by canvassing publicly elected representatives any day. I think you'll find that's far cheaper and more accessible.

Hogwash. It's a barrier to entry that prevents anyone who is not part of the power elite from even thinking about challenging the status quo. And the campaign finance issue still reign supreme, even in your system. Even if you do get the nod from the power elite, you still have to have money to campaign, so all your system does is turn the existing power elite into gatekeepers who can exclude anyone who doesn't fit the party image.

It's a heinous offense against the right of the people to determine for THEMSELVES who will represent them, and I'm glad we rejected such a system.

Of course they mightn't back you because they don't agree with your views, policies, etc. But then why would potential financiers choose to back or not back someone, other than for those same reasons? As I said, I know which system I prefer.

Over here, a "grassroots" candidate can get money from lots of people and have just as good of a chance at winning an election as someone with large corporate and political donors, if he's got the right message. Over there, someone with the right message cannot even run for office unless he has the support of the existing power elite, which does NOTHING but perpetuate the iron-grip of the existing power elite and suppress the chance that a grass-roots candidate will overturn the status quo. It's a horrific abuse of the public's civil rights. I really had no idea how horrific the system was until now. It's horrific enough that I would advocate for overthrow of the existing government if the law is not changed to allow ANYONE to run for office, because what you've got is a defacto tyranny.