MEDIA MATTERS Supports Infanticide?
I am not quite sure how and why I got embroiled in this hit by the left wing media watchdog group, Media Matters, against radio and television talk show host Glenn Beck. But I did, compelling me to respond.
Apparently Beck criticized Hillary Clinton for suggesting that the issue of national health care is back on the political table, and did so in the context of the Anglican Church's position supporting the withdrawing life-sustaining treatment from some prematurely born infants, which some media mistakenly reported as endorsing euthanasia. I didn't see the segment, but apparently Beck compared the Anglican Church's position to the killing of Baby Knauer, who I have called "the first victim of the Holocaust," since his infanticide opened the door to the murder of 250,000 disabled infants and adults in Germany during World War II.
This is how Media Matters put it: "Beck said the [Church of England] report was 'a very slippery slope' and compared it to the case of 'Baby Knauer,' a blind and physically deformed infant who Beck claimed 'was allowed to die' in Nazi Germany and whom Beck, echoing Discovery Institute senior fellow Wesley J. Smith, described as 'the first victim of the Holocaust.' Beck then juxtaposed Hitler's decision to create 'a panel of expert referees, which judged the infants and found out which ones were eligible for death'" (Where I am mentioned, Media Matters links this column I wrote for the Weekly Standard last March, criticizing Dutch plans to legalize eugenic infanticide.)
Where to begin? First, Baby Knauer wasn't "allowed to die," he was murdered at the request of his parents, who had petitioned Chancellor Hitler to permit their son to be killed by doctors. Hitler granted the request and had the murder personally supervised by one of his own physicians, Karl Brandt. (Brandt would later be hanged at Nuremberg, in part for his participation in the German euthanasia program.) Source: The Nazi Doctors by Robert Jay Lifton.
Second, the German infanticide pogrom did indeed, as Beck said, involve panels of so-called experts who sorted through the medical records of disabled infants deciding which ones deserved the "healing treatment" of being killed.
Third: The doctors who committed most of the infanticides were not doing so because of Nazi orders, but rather, because they enthusiastically accepted eugenics theory.
Finally, I would never compare Hillary Clinton's health care proposal and political views to anything that came out of Nazi Germany.
So, why involve me in MM's beef with Beck? No doubt it was to bring up the name of the dreaded Discovery Institute as a way of, (in the minds of Media Matter's editors), damning Beck. (We wear their scorn as a badge of honor!)
But talk about shallow thinking among the minions of Media Matters: Please read my original piece. In it, I differentiate the current Dutch plan for legalized infanticide from the Nazi pogrom of 1939-1945, but point out that the Dutch plan is no different in kind or degree from the murder of Baby Knauer--meaning that Media Matters: A. Agrees that it was right to murder Baby Knauer, and thus sees disabled infants as being part of a killable class. B. Is utterly ignorant of history, C. Didn't read my Weekly Standard column even though they linked it, or D. All of the above.
I choose D.
posted by Wesley J. Smith @ 5:55 PM
5 Comments
5 Comments:
I have the highest regard for David Brock, who runs Media Matters, and who had the courage to "out" the far right for what they are.
That being said, however, people from his group are totally out of their depth when they are talking about bioethical issues. They were especially remiss when discussing the Schiavo case. It was so dishonest, for they kept up the myth that the people who were against her killing were all a bunch of religious nuts and ignoring the real, serious issue of denying people their civil rights because their disabilities. It didn't matter to them. If it was something they could hang over what they term the "theocratic right," that's what they would do, even if it meant twisting the facts.
When they would try to "correct" the record, they would invariably cite Judge Greer's rulings, as if his rulings were the "truth." Well, they were as a matter of opinion, and they were in error. Nothing MM could have said about the case was credible if you believed the judge was wrong, which in fact he was.
I would post over there excoriating them over their errors and dishonesty about the case, and that the case wasn't a left-right matter at all, but it was to no avail. (Another big offender is Bill Berkowitz, a "reporter" who was quick to tell readers the evil outfits backing the Schindlers but failed to mention the legal embezzlement of Terri's trust account by her husband.)
What is sad is MM has mirrored the same tactics the radical right has done, and they are hurting themselves in the proces.
Oh, I am surprised MM didn't mention the fact you are married to pundit Debra J. Saunders, which would further get their boxers in a wad.
I just read the Media Matters piece. I think it was option C - they just didn't read your article. In fact, I think they're making a lot of the same points you are about history and how it should not be repeated in the Dutch "compassionate killing" program.
Susan: Thanks. DJS gets grief because of me all of the time. Royale, it struck me that they were hitting Beck on comparing Hillary Care to Nazi German healht policies, which if he did, was completely wrong. But I think they completely don't understand the infanticide issue.
Hey Wesley, you work for the Discovery Institute -- what more do they need to know to declare your guilt? ;-)
Well, that's how I got dragged into this. The DI is like a red flag in front of a bull to some people.
Take my Starbuck's cup. I saw some blog comments to the effect that the sentiment expressed was fine. But because it came from a senior fellow of the DI, it was clearly wrong. .
That's intellecual shallowness of the first order.
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