Feminist-Left Unabashed in its Dishonesty

Kathryn Jean Lopez over at The Corner links to a post by Jessica Valenti, Executive Editor of Feministing.com, about the "scary" new Director of The Office on Violence Against Women.

Why is the new Director so scary? Well, she is "another wacky Bush Appointee," Mary Beth Buchanan. First lets run down some of the other "wacky appointees" listed on the White House Press release Valenti links to:

• Belinda Childress Anderson, the first female President of Virginia Union University, to the President's Board of Advisors on Historically Black Colleges and Universities. Governer Mark Warner credited Anderson, a black woman, with bringing financial stability to the 140 year old university and raising its academic standards. VUU is a historically black university that counts among its alumni Jesse Jackson, Douglas Wilder and Samuel Lee Gravely, Jr., the first black Admiral in the United States Navy.
• Verna Fowler, Member the Menominee Indian Tribe of Wisconsin and founding President of the College of the Menominee Nation, to the President's Board of Advisors on Tribal Colleges and Universities. Fowler has been involved in education of Native Americans for 40 plus years now and has also served as Executive Director, Director of Credit and Finance, and as the Superintendent of Education for the Menominee Tribe.
• Beverly Daniel Tatum, President of Spellman College, to the President's Board of Advisors on Historically Black Colleges and Universities. Spellman is a historically black college for women founded in 1881 and ranks among the top historically black colleges in the United States. Tatum has taught, lectured and been published (including by the Harvard Education Review) on the issues of race, racial identity and the psychology of racism.
• Laura L. Rogers, of California, to be Director of the Office of Sex Offender Sentencing, Monitoring, Apprehending, Registering, and Tracking at the Department of Justice. Ms. Rogers currently serves as Director of the National Institute for Training Child Abuse Professionals. Previously she served as a Senior Attorney of the National Center for Prosecution of Child Abuse at the American Prosecutor's Research Institute. She has also served as a Deputy District Attorney in the San Diego County District Attorney's Office. (Ms. Rogers information quoted directly from White House Press Release)

This list of incredibly qualified women and men (Most members of a minority) from just this one set of appointments goes on; what a wacky, scary bunch.

But, on to the wack-job that really bothers Ms. Valenti:

• Mary Beth Buchanan (ominous organ rift please): Ms. Buchanan is the first woman in Pennsylvania's history to be Presidentially appointed to the position of United States Attorney for the Western District of Pennsylvania. Buchanan also served from June 2004 until June 2005 as the Director of the Executive Office for United States Attorneys, a Washington D.C.-based office that provides administrative support to the 94 United States Attorneys' Offices. As an assistant U.S. Attorney for the same district she helped form the Western Pennsylvania Crimes Against Children Task Force. Until her appointment as United States Attorney, Ms. Buchanan served as the Chairperson of the Crimes Against Children Task Force and the district's Child Exploitation Coordinator; she's served as Chair of the Judiciary Committee of the Allegheny County Bar Association; President of the University of Pittsburgh Chapter of the American Inns of Court, and President of the Women's Bar Association of Western Pennsylvania.

You get the picture.

What in Valenti's eyes makes Buchanan someone to be so loathed and feared? Well, for one thing she had the audacity to prosecute 55 people, including Tommy Chong for helping his son sell drug paraphernalia over the internet, a crime in Pennsylania; one of the articles Valenti links to that chronicles the martyrdom of Chong seems to imply that after 9/11 all law enforcement should be solely focused on terrorism-related activities. Oddly enough, however, one of the wacky things about Buchanan according to Valenti and several comments under the story is that Buchanan supports the Patriot Act (!).

Buchanans' next crime against women is prosecuting a California adult film company for three movies it produced and distributed. To quote from the CBS News article Valenti links to to show what a bad choice Buchanan is:

She believes that three films produced and distributed by Extreme Associates by mail and over the Internet contain coercive and violent sex, along with other material that is vile and degrading. Rob Black, president of Extreme Associates, considers that a compliment. One film, called “Forced Entry,” includes shots of women getting raped and murdered. It also includes suffocation, strangulation, beatings and urination. Black calls “Forced Entry” a slasher film with sex, loosely based on the Hillside Strangler case. But 60 Minutes couldn’t find enough plot to show anything beyond the opening credits.

This is anti-anti-violence against women? But we're not through yet. Buchanans' other crime was helping to prosecute a 54 year old Pennsylvania woman for posting stories on a web site depicting adults having sex with pre-teen children. Why would Valenti not like that? To (fully) quote our intrepid feminist:

"She’s an anti-obscenity crusader, prosecuting people for written stories on the internet and going after any and all porn. (Don't get me wrong, I'm not a fan of violent porn and the like, but Buchanan strikes me as more interested in enforcing morality than the law.) The legal director for the Pittsburgh ACLU once called Buchanan "the vanguard of [former U.S. Attorney General John] Ashcroft’s attempt to impose his morality on others." Yikes.
So basically, this sucks. I can see it now...VAWA funds being diverted to conservative anti-obscenity groups under the rhetoric of protecting women. I am completely freaked out."

Like totally.

More interested in enforcing morality than the law? If this is the quality of thought and logic produced by degrees in Womens and Gender Studies, such as the one Valenti obtained from Rutgers, refunds should be issued forthwith. In Valenti's world, being against depictions of kidnapping and rape of women as well as small children is suspect if done from a moral perspective.

While there are morals not enforced as laws, all laws are based on the concept of morality, including laws protecting women against hostile work enviornments, children against sexual predators and governing that VERY narrow range of speech so brereft of social value that courts and juries hold them as not protected. Perhaps Ms. Valenti could explain why we should consider the constitution a guiding authority if it is not moral at its foundation?

Valenti's post is the textbook example of Bush Psychosis and the rejection of critical thought in favor of emotional hysteria. A giant leap forward for women everywhere.