The argument that animals are incapable of making a choice is surely invalid in that some animals choose to run away when fondled by humans, while others do not – which certainly indicates their ability to choose.

Have there ever been any reports that apprehended practitioners of bestiality have as high a rate of AIDS and syphilis as do homosexuals?

From NBC’s Channel 5 in Chicago and from Baltimore’s Channel 2 and the Baltimore News Journal last week came news reports of two instances of this alternative sexual orientation about which the so often outspoken LGBT organizations appear to be notably silent.

Headline in Chicago:

“Police Say Man Sexually Abused His Peacock”

Headline in Martyland:

“Harford County Public Schools’ Employee Stephanie Mikles Indicted on Deviant Sex Charges”

In the Illinois case, the subhead is: “Authorities Say Abuse of Bird Connected to Indecent Solicitation of a Child.”

And Channel 5 reports the following:

“A man from northwest suburban Roselle, in DuPage County, faces a charge of misdemeanor animal cruelty after police said he sexually abused his pet peacock.

“David Beckman, 64, … was charged with the crime after police learned the bird died while they were investigating Beckman about an alleged case of indecent solicitation of a child.

“Details surrounding the case with the peacock, reportedly named Phyl, were unclear Friday, as investigators said it was part of the case involving the child, the Daily Herald reported.

“Court records confirmed Beckman faces three charges of harassment by telephone, unlawful possession of drug paraphernalia, two counts of marijuana possession, attempted indecent solicitation of a child, cruelty to animals, and two counts of battery.

“He remained in the DuPage CountyJail on Friday on a $10,000 bond. An arraignment was scheduled for June 12.”

In Maryland, a behavioral specialist for Harford County Public Schools has been indicted, reported Channel 2. And the Baltimore News Journal reported:

“According to court records and photographic evidence, a grand jury indicted Stephanie Mikles with ‘unnatural or perverted sexual practice.’

“The indictment goes on to state that Mikles had ‘sexual intercourse with a dog,’ according to ABC 2 News.

“The incident happened in August 2008, say police, but in the state of Maryland there is no statute of limitations for these types of charges.

“The animal reportedly still lives with the family at their residence in the Jarrettsville area.

“Mikles has been placed on administrative leave without pay while the investigation wears on.

“Investigators say a separate investigation by the child advocacy center helped them make this stunning discovery.

“Mikles’ attorney says she’s fighting the charge and has filed motions to have the case dismissed.

“The educator is currently free on $5,000 bond.

“If convicted, the charge is a misdemeanor punishable with up to 10 years in prison and a $1,000 fine.”

In neither of these two news stories, or anywhere else that I know of, is there any comment whatsoever from the so often outspoken LGBT.

They were opposed by another black student who later characterized them as “hoodlums with serious academic problems (who were) admitted under lower academic standards.”

He defended Cornell from the militants’ allegations of widespread racism.

This man was a magna cum laude graduate of Harvard with a master’s degree from Columbia and a Ph.D. in economics from the University of Chicago in 1968.

His name is Thomas Sowell, and he has taught economics at Howard, Rutgers, Cornell, Brandeis, Amherst and UCLA. Since 1980, he’s been a senior fellow of the Hoover Institution at Stanford University. He is also a nationally syndicated columnist who, on April 30, wrote one of the best of all antidotes to what he headlined: “Fact-free gun control crusaders.”

Dr. Sowell wrote the following:

• “Have you ever heard even one person present convincing hard evidence that tighter gun control laws have in fact reduced murders? …”And if tighter gun control laws don’t actually reduce the murder rate, then why are we being stampeded toward such laws after every shooting that gets media attention?”
• “Have the media outlets that you follow ever even mentioned that some studies have produced evidence that murder rates tend to be higher in places with tight gun control laws?”The dirty little secret is that gun control laws do not actually control guns. They disarm law-abiding citizens, making them more vulnerable to criminals, who remain armed in disregard of such laws.”
• “What almost no one talks about is that guns are used to defend lives as well as to take lives. In fact, many of the horrific killings that we see in the media were brought to an end when someone else with a gun showed up and put a stop to the slaughter.”The Cato Institute estimates upwards of 100,000 defensive uses of guns per year. Preventing law-abiding citizens from defending themselves can cost far more lives than are lost in the shooting episodes that the media publicize.”
• “Many people who have never fired a gun in their lives, and never faced life-threatening dangers, nevertheless feel qualified to impose legal restrictions that can be fatal to others. …”People who support such laws seem to blithely assume that they are limiting the damage that can be done by criminals or the mentally ill – as if criminals or mad men care about such laws.”

A case of 80 goblets was brought to their annual reunions. Whenever a Raider died, his cup was upended.

This year, 2013, only four of these Raiders are still alive. At their annual reunion at Fort Walton Beach, Fla., this year, they gathered publicly for the last time.

After Japan’s attack on Pearl Harbor, with the United States reeling and wounded, something dramatic was needed to turn the war effort around. Even though there were no friendly airfields close enough to Japan for the United States to launch a retaliation, a plan was devised.

Sixteen B-25s were modified so that they could take off from the deck of an aircraft carrier. This had never before been tried – sending such heavy bombers from a carrier. The 16 five-man crews, under the command of Lt. Col. James Doolittle, who himself flew the lead plane off the USS Hornet, knew that they would not be able to return to the carrier. They would have to hit Japan and then hope to make it to China for a safe landing.

But on the day of the raid, the Japanese military learned of the plan. The Raiders were told that they would have to take off from much further out in the Pacific Ocean than they had counted on. They were told that because of this they would not have enough fuel to make it to safety.

Those men went anyway.

They bombed Tokyo and then flew as far as they could. Four planes crash landed; 11 more crews bailed out, and three of the Raiders died. Eight more were captured; three were executed. Another died of starvation in a Japanese prison camp. One crew made it to Russia.

Of the 80 Raiders, 62 survived the war. They were celebrated as national heroes, models of bravery. Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer produced a motion picture based on the raid: “Thirty Seconds Over Tokyo,” starring Spencer Tracy and Van Johnson. This was a patriotic and emotional box office hit. In the movie theater previews for the film, MGM claimed it was presenting the story “with supreme pride.”

Beginning in 1946, the surviving Raiders have held a reunion each April to commemorate the mission. The reunion was in a different city each year. In 1959, the city of Tucson, Ariz., as a gesture of respect and gratitude, presented the Doolittle Raiders with a set of 80 silver goblets. Each goblet was engraved with the name of a Raider.

Every year, a wooden display case bearing all 80 goblets was transported to the reunion city. Each time a Raider passed away, his goblet was turned upside down in the case at the next reunion, as his old friends bore solemn witness.

Also in the wooden case is a bottle of 1896 Hennessey Very Special cognac. The year is not happenstance: 1896 was when Jimmy Doolittle was born.

There has always been a plan: When there are only two surviving Raiders, they would open the bottle, at last drink from it and toast their comrades who preceded them in death.

As 2013 began, there were five living Raiders; then, in February, Tom Griffin passed away at age 96.

What a man he was!

After bailing out of his plane over a mountainous Chinese forest after the Tokyo raid, he became ill with malaria and almost died. When he recovered, he was sent to Europe to fly more combat missions. He was shot down, captured and spent 22 months in a German prisoner of war camp.

So now, out of the original 80, only four remain: Dick Cole (Doolittle’s copilot on the Tokyo raid), Robert Hite, Edward Saylor and David Thatcher. All are in their 90s. They have decided that there are too few of them for the public reunions to continue.

One of these Raiders was Jacob DeShazer of Oregon, a bombardier.

After the bombing in Japan, Jacob and his fellow crewmen parachuted into China, where they were captured by Japanese troops. In that Japanese POW camp, every day they faced the possibility of torture or death.

Amazingly, Jacob’s request for a Bible was fulfilled.

Jacob came back to the Christian faith in which he was raised. In his prison cell, he vowed to God that if he survived, he would return to Japan not as a warrior but as a missionary.

From Iwao Shimada, pastor of the church DeShazer founded in Japan, came the following:

“Jacob DeShazer was brave as a prisoner of the Japanese. … After conversion, he was braver, enough to love the Japanese. As a missionary, he never sought fame or wealth. … He was kind, patient and humble. … He was brave enough to make the Japanese commander of the attack on Pearl Harbor one of his best friends.”

How anyone – especially a long-time U.S. big media star like Brokaw – could make such an incredible charge illustrates what this nation had to endure for so many years before the major arrival of talk radio.

Brokaw’s statement came just after two Chechens were either killed or captured on charges of bombing to death three (including one 8-year-old boy) and injuring over 260, some very seriously and many requiring amputation.

Among other NBC statements by Brokaw were the following:

“There are a couple of things to remember here, David, I think for all of us. With the death of Osama bin Laden, Islamic rage did not go away. In fact, in some ways it’s more dangerous. This is a perfect example.”

(QUESTION: Just how many Americans believe that with the death of bin Laden, Islamic rage “went away”? And why would Brokaw make such a ridiculous suggestion?)

BROKAW: “Americans need to take a hard look at ‘the roots’ of why so many Muslims, including Americanized terrorists like the Tsarnev brothers in Boston, want to kill them.”

(QUESTION: Why should any Americans have to “take a hard look” at what is so appallingly obvious?)

BROKAW: “There’s a lot we still need to know about what motivated them, obviously (noting the Muslim faith of both bombers), and the fact is that Islamic rage is still out there.”

(QUESTION: How many American citizens does this Brokaw statement suggest are unaware of continuing Islamic terrorism against the U.S.? Other than such small minorities as the mentally ill, I suggest that all Americans are well aware of what Brokaw declared that we ought to know.)

BROKAW: We have to work a lot harder (to understand) the motivation here.”

(QUESTION: Does this mean Brokaw’s use of the word “we” means that he has found somebody else who shares his astonishing doubt?)

BROKAW: “We’ve got to look at the roots of all this. … I think we also have to examine the use of drones that the United States is involved in. There are a lot of civilians who are innocently killed in a drone attack in Pakistan, in Afghanistan, and in Iraq.”

(QUESTION: Is there any evidence that U.S. drones have killed or seriously injured anywhere nearly as many civilians as Islamic terrorists have murdered?)

WND, on April 21, noted the following:

• “Brokaw is often hailed as a politically neutral and patriotic journalist. He is, however, a self-described Democrat who in 2008 referred to Obama’s inauguration as a ‘velvet revolution’ and equated him to Jesus Christ, while comparing GOP running mate Sarah Palin to Pontius Pilate.”

• “In a recent National Press Club speech, moreover, he lamented the rise of the conservative press on the Internet and talk radio.”
• “‘There now is in too many quarters of commentary a tyranny of the right,’ he complained, adding that that the media has an ‘obligation’ to advocate on behalf of liberal causes.”

In a recent interview with the Columbia Journalism Review:

Journalists should “represent the views of those who are underrepresented in the social context or the political context and to make sure that they’re not overlooked and that their wrongs get the bright light of journalistic sunshine.” He said conservative cable networks, radio stations and bloggers are “instantly jingoistic and savagely critical of any questions raised about the decisions leading up to, for example, the war in Iraq.”

At least – and at long last – Brokaw The Unbelievable Left-winger is no longer on any of our TV networks each night.

And now, as compared to his one-time prime-time stint, the size of conservative talk radio, as well as a majority of the Internet, provides a balance to Brokawism, which once so dominated our nation’s media.

And, at the very same time, by what-on-Earth sense of reality could “millions of illegal immigrants living in the United States earn a chance at citizenship under a sweeping Senate proposal,” as reported on the top of Page 1 of the April 16 edition of the Washington Post?

This Post story also reports:

“In addition, billions of dollars would be invested in new border-control measures, including surveillance drones, security fencing and 3,500 additional federal agents charged with apprehending people attempting to enter illegally from Mexico.”

Think about that.

At the very same time, we are both rewarding millions of these criminal invaders and spending billions of dollars to stop more of such illegal border-jumpers.

This incredible contradiction in national policy comes just days after thousands of immigrant-rights activists rallied on the lawn in front of the Capitol.

These proponents for invading lawbreakers contended that since Hispanic voters delivered for President Obama’s re-election, they want fulfillment of his promise to legalize many of the estimated 11 million illegals who are now in the U.S.

President Obama promised action during his re-election campaign. He took the step of declaring that he would no longer deport most illegal immigrants 30 years old or younger, and instead would grant them tentative legal status and work permits.

This begs the question as to how monumentally unfair this is to those immigrants who have obeyed the law and waited their turn to come into the United States.

It also raises the serious question as to how the president can in good conscience – and in observance of his duty to enforce our laws – allow such invaders of our nation tentative legal status and work permits.

Washington Times photographer Andrew Gerasci obtained a memorable photograph showing four of the protesters at the illegal immigrants’ rally. They are looking askance at a large billboard sign displayed by 74-year-old Joyce Tamow of Florida. This sign proclaims:

“12 Million Out of Work – Stop the Immigration Insanity.”

The Times quoted NumbersUSA President Roy Beck as saying:

“There ought to be a rally for the 20 million Americans who can’t find a full-time job.”

“‘Some of you have said that I’m ignoring the Washington press corps – that we’re too controlling,’ Obama said.’You know what, you were right. I was wrong, and I want to apologize in a video you can watch exclusively at whitehouse.gov.’

Continued the AP: “Three days later, it was no laughing matter when the White House live-streamed on the Internet Obama’s meeting with his export council and allowed just one reporter in the room.”

During my decades as a White House correspondent, the ablest and fairest of all White House press secretaries whom I covered was Mike McCurry, who served President Bill Clinton.

Mike told the AP in an interview he sees an inclination by the Obama White House to “self-publish,” coupled with tactics “I never would have dreamed of in terms of restricting access” for independent news organizations.

“What gets lost are those revealing moments when the president’s held accountable by the representatives of the public who are there in the form of the media,” McCurry said.

Another of the best White House press secretaries I covered was George Bush aide Ari Fleischer. He is quoted as saying:

“Something is missing when the administration’s feet are not held to the fire in certain settings.”

From the University of Pennsylvania’s prestigious Annenberg Public Policy Center Director Kathleen Hall Jameson, the following:

“When viewers choose the White House as their news source, what people are being exposed to is highly selective. They’re not getting the balance of alternative points of view. They’re not getting the criticism that asks, ‘Is this accurate?’ It’s not being put in historical context.”

The AP also reported:

• “When defeated presidential candidate Mitt Romney met with Obama for lunch in the White House after the 2012 election, there was no press access. The only photo was a White ouseHouseHouse handout that House handout that showed the two men talking in the Oval Office, clearly on the president’s turf.”
• “When the president got complaints that his live-streamed meeting with his export council was open to just one reporter, Press Secretary Jay Carney responded: ‘Everyone in America with electricity and a computer could see it.’ That’s true, but the lone White House camera offered just one view.”
• “‘There’s no question that he’s opening and closing the door at his choice,’ says Gerald Shuster, a professor of political communication at the University of Pittsburgh. ‘He’s controlling the flow as much as he can.’”
• “‘It’s all about control,’ says Eric Dezenhall, an image consultant who has worked for years with politicians, celebrities and business people. ‘Why put your CEO on “60 Minutes” when he can record something that appears on the corporate website? That way he can’t be accused of not commenting but he doesn’t have to stand up to the withering scrutiny you might face in an investigative TV show.’”

This, ladies and gentlemen, is an excellent exposé of the Obama White House’s ill treatment and evasion of the media.

It was reported despite the fact that AP’s senior White House correspondent is always given the first question at every presidential news conference and at every daily White House news briefing by the press secretary.

It is hard for me to remember any AP White House correspondent who raised as many hard questions about the Obama administration as this AP story does. It exposed highly questionable Obama treatment of his closest coverers from the nation’s Fourth Estate.

A must-read for news junkies and respecters of reporting’s true purpose: “Gadfly: The Life and Times of Les Kinsolving White House Watchdog” — now just 99 cents!

“Benjamin Carson, the famed Johns Hopkins neurosurgeon, apologized Friday for his ‘choice of words’ and use of examples in discussing gay marriage on Fox News earlier in the week.

“During Sean Hannity’s show on Tuesday, when asked about the matter before the Supreme Court, Carson said, ‘Marriage is between a man and a woman. No group, be they gays, be they NAMBLA, be they people who believe in bestiality, it doesn’t matter what they are. They don’t get to change the definition.’

“The comparison of gays to members of the North American Boy/Man Love Association and those who engage in bestiality set off a backlash of criticism in the media, online and on campus. There is now a petition circulating at Johns Hopkins Medical to have Carson removed as commencement speaker in May at the School of Medicine.

“‘I think people have completely taken the wrong meaning out of what I was saying,’ the 61-year-old surgeon said in a telephone interview Friday. ‘First of all, I certainly believe gay people should have all the rights that anybody else has. …

“‘Now perhaps the examples were not the best choice of words, and I certainly apologize if I offended anyone,’ he added. ‘But the point that I was making was that no group of individuals, whoever they are, whatever their belief systems, gets to change traditional definitions.”

Missing from this Baltimore Sun report published by the Post is the rest of Carson’s statement, as reported by National Review magazine:

“The reason I believe the way I do, I will readily confess, is because I am a Christian who believes in the Bible.”

Why, in the name of Fourth Estate fairness, did both the Sun and the Post delete this statement by Dr. Carson?

In the National Review, John Fund wrote:

“Carson said he is willing to forgo his commencement duties if he is formally asked to. He explained to the Sun today, ‘This is their graduation, their big day, and if they think me being there is going to be a problem, I am happy to withdraw.’

“We’ll see if his apology is accepted. If not, it will be clear that an authoritarian, anti-free-speech mindset has set in with many gay-marriage supporters. Free and open debate is vital to discussing public-policy issues. In fact, it was liberal Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor who brought up the issue of bestiality during this week’s oral arguments on a gay-rights case, openly asking if the extension of marriage law to gays would open the courts up to lawsuits demanding equal marriage rights by polygamists and those who engage in bestiality.

“Apparently, for many liberals, free-speech rights can be extended to people who agree with them or their allies, but those outside their circle had better be prepared for attempts to shut them up.”

Let me ask the question: Does anybody believe that if the U.S. Supreme Court approves same-sex marriage, that it will not be legally obligated to approve marriage for all other alternate sexual orientations?

How can the high court grant marriage approval to homosexuals – whose practitioners have the nation’s highest rates of AIDS and syphilis – while denying marital rights to zoophiliacs, or practitioners of bestiality (provided the beasts are freely consenting and do not resist or run away)?

American Thinker columnist Lloyd Marcus, on March 29, wrote the following:

• “Dr. Ben Carson is a conservative, which means Dr. Carson touts character, education, and hard work as the keys to success rather than Democrat government programs and being placed at the front of the line because of his skin color.

• “Dr. Carson’s common-sense health care solutions delivered in his National Prayer Breakfast speech went viral because Obama was in attendance. Even though Dr. Carson did not direct his comments to Obama, the left says he rudely dissed the president.”
• “Suddenly, Dr. Carson is hot, receiving well-deserved media coverage. Incredibly, the most vicious attacks on Dr. Carson are coming from black media.”
• “Folks, the bottom line is the modern black civil rights movement has shamefully become a business – making millions of dollars by keeping racism alive and minorities feeling victimized and disenfranchised, while living in the greatest land of opportunity on the planet.”
• “Dr. Ben Carson, former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, and former president of the National Restaurant Association and presidential candidate Herman Cain have achieved extraordinary success outside of the Democrat plantation system. This is why each of them is hated and vilified by the black civil rights coalition rather than celebrated as a role model. It is truly sad and disgusting.”

American Thinker columnist Thomas Lifson wrote the following:

“The homosexual movement has a very strong aversion to any mention of other sexual deviations in the same breath as homosexuality, abhorring any comparison of the undefined range of behavior encompassed in the acronym LGBT to bestiality in particular, and for some, pedophilia. (It must be noted that NAMBLA formerly marched in the San Francisco Gay Pride Parade, until its presence there became a public embarrassment, as the parade’s visibility grew. So at one point the homosexual movement big tent sheltered adult-child sexual relations.)”

Anyone so naïve needs to consider the March 5 Campus Reform report by Katherine Timpe, which included the following:

“On Saturday afternoon, Yale hosted a ‘sensitivity training’ in which students were asked to consider topics such as bestiality, incest, and accepting money for sex. …

“The session was hosted by ‘sexologist’ Dr. Jill McDevitt, who owns a sex store called Feminique in West Chester, Pa.

“Survey responses revealed that 9 percent of attendees had been paid for sex, 3 percent had engaged in bestiality, and 52 percent had participated in ‘consensual pain’ during sex, according to an article published in Yale Daily News. …

“Event director Giuliana Berry ’14 told Campus Reform in an interview on Monday that the workshop was brought to campus to teach students not to automatically judge people who may have engaged in these sorts of activities, but rather to respond with ‘understanding’ and ‘compassion.’

“‘People do engage in some of these activities that we believe only for example perverts engage in,’ she said. ‘What the goal is is to increase compassion for people who may engage in activities that are not what you would personally consider normal’ …

“‘We are not all heterosexual, able-bodied folks who have standard missionary sex.’

“During the workshop, McDevitt taught the approximately 40 students that just because people think something is deviant does not mean that it is bad.

“‘It’s sensitivity training. Don’t judge other people, because we all have something we’re embarrassed about.’

“The event was part of Yale’s Sex Weekend, which ran from Feb. 28 through March 3. Sponsors included Yale Women’s Center, Undergraduate Organizations Committee, the Sexual Harassment and Assault Response Education Center at Yale, and SeLF: The Sexual Literacy Forum.”

All of this raises a number of questions, including the following:

1. When will the administration of Yale University approve of any undergraduate organization operating houses of prostitution?

2. Will the university conduct any sort of health analysis to determine if the rate of student venereal disease has increased as a result of this “sensitivity training”?
3. What has the American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals – as well as People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals – have to say about Yale teaching sensitivity to bestiality?
4. Do the trustees at Yale believe that any classroom support of bestiality should be confined only to freely consenting beasts? Or is there any scientific evidence that all beasts (rather than only some beasts) try to escape being raped by humans in that alternative sexual orientation?
5. Will the Yale administration be inviting another alternative sexual orientation to meet on its campus, called NAM/BLA – the North-American Man/Boy Love Association – for pedophiles and their small boy victims?
6. How does this Yale bestiality sensitivity class fail to illustrate rival Harvard’s panning of the Yale tribute, “For God, for country – and for Yale,” as: “The greatest anticlimax ever written”?

“There was a heckler about 15 minutes into remarks. Man standing to Obama’s left back near center press platform began shouting in Hebrew. A reliable Hebrew speaker seated near pool says the shouting was about Pollard. We presume calling for his release. Pool couldn’t see what happened to the heckler.

“‘This is part of the lively debate that we talked about,’ Obama said after pausing for the interruption. The crowd seemed to boo the heckler then began applauding. Eventually most in the audience rose to their feet, giving the president a standing ovation. The friendly response seemed to be unanimous or nearly so.

“That warm response seemed to prompt POTUS to laugh a bit and say: ‘I have to say we actually arranged for that because it made me feel at home. I wouldn’t feel comfortable if I didn’t have at least one heckler.’”

When he was interviewed by Israel’s Channel 2, President Obama was questioned about the possibility of his granting a release of federal prisoner Jonathan Pollard.

To which President Obama replied that Pollard “committed a very serious crime for which he is serving his time. I have no plans for releasing Jonathan Pollard immediately.” (Immediately? Does this possibly imply a later release?)

Pollard has served 28 years in prison. This is unprecedented among Americans convicted of spying on behalf of an American ally. There have been three other U.S. spies for friendly nations who have served less than five years.

Recently declassified has been a CIA 1987 Pollard damage estimate. His instructions were to provide Israel with U.S. intelligence information on Israel’s Arab adversaries and the military support they received from the Soviet Union. This included information on Arab chemical and biological weapons.

Pollard, a civilian U.S. Naval intelligence analyst, provided what were described as “suitcases full” of copies of classified documents to Israeli agents every two weeks. The CIA regarded this as a serious risk to American intelligence services and methods. There remains a question as to whether Pollard provided “suitcases full” or briefcases, 11 times.

Mrs. Pollard begged President Obama for mercy. And those asking for a presidential release of Pollard include the following: Israel’s President Shimon Perez; former minister of education and law professor Amnon Rubenstein; former U.S. Secretaries of State George Shultz and Henry Kissinger; former CIA Director James Woolsey; Lawrence Korb, Reagan assistant secretary of defense; Amos Yadin, Israel’s former director of military intelligence; and Gilad Shalit, Israeli captive of Arabs for five years.

Jonathan Pollard was given a life sentence with recommendation that he never be paroled.

Prior to sentencing, then-Secretary of Defense Caspar Weinberger delivered a 46-page classified memorandum to the sentencing judge. Have Pollard or his attorneys ever been allowed to see that memorandum?

Has anyone else in U.S. history ever received such a life sentence for passing classified information to an ally? There are reports that in 2000 Pollard’s wife received a letter from the Clinton White House that the Pollard case was being considered by the president.

On his last (memorable) day in office, President Bill Clinton granted clemency to 140 people, including robbers, drug dealers and murderers.

Among those pardoned was President Clinton’s brother – but not Jonathan Pollard.

One exception came from former AP and Newsweek reporter and now author Robert Parry headlined: “Dirty War Questions for the New Pope.”

Parry wrote the following:

“If one wonders if the U.S. press corps has learned anything in the decade since the Iraq war – i.e. the need to ask tough question and show honest skepticism – it would appear from the early coverage of the election of Pope Francis I that U.S. journalists haven’t changed at all, even at ‘liberal’ outlets like MSNBC.

“The first question that a real reporter should ask about an Argentine cleric who lived through the years of grotesque repression, known as the ‘dirty war,’ is, ‘What did this person do? Did he stand up to the murderers and torturers, or did he go with the flow?’ If the likes of Chris Matthews and other commentators on MSNBC had done a simple Google search, they would have found out enough about Cardinal Jorge Bergoglio to slow their bubbling enthusiasm.

“Bergoglio, now the new Pope Francis I, has been identified publicly as an ally of Argentine’s repressive leaders during the dirty war when some 30,000 people ‘disappeared’ or were killed, many stripped naked, chained together, flown out over the River Plate or the Atlantic Ocean and pushed, sausage-like, out of planes to drown.”

A similar critique came from The Guardian columnist Hugh O’Shaughnessy, as well as the Washington Post’s Eugene Robinson and also from the New York Times’ Emily Schmall and Larry Rohter. They reported that the new pontiff “was less energetic, however, in standing up to Argentina’s military dictatorship during the 1970s as the country was consumed by conflict between right and left that became known as the Dirty War. He has been accused of knowing about abuses and failing to do enough to stop them while as many as 30,000 people were disappeared, tortured or killed by the dictatorship.”

Surely the College of Cardinals must have considered the issues raised in these critiques. I would imagine that their electing Cardinal Bergoglio means they have honestly resolved this controversy. By striking contrast to these five journalists, President Obama issued the following statement:

“As the first pope from the Americas, his selection also speaks to the strength and vitality of a region that is increasingly shaping our world, and alongside millions of Hispanic Americans, those of us in the United States share the joy of this historic day.”

The New York Times on March 16 reported from Vatican City the following:

“Reacting with unusual swiftness, the Vatican on Friday rejected any suggestion that Pope Francis of Argentina was implicated in his country’s so-called Dirty War during the 1970s, tackling the issue just two days after the pontiff’s election.

“Dismissing them as opportunistic defamations from anticlerical leftists, the Rev. Federico Lombardi, the Vatican spokesman, added that such charges ‘must be rejected decisively.’ On the contrary, he said, ‘there have been many declarations of how much he did for many people to protect them from the military dictatorship. …’

“Fernando Solanas, a film director and congressman who was forced into exile during the dictatorship, said Francis was known for his ‘enormous fairness and wisdom.’ …

“One of the charges is that Francis was complicit in the kidnapping of two Jesuit priests with antigovernment views whom he had dismissed from the order a week before.

“After the church for years denied any involvement with the dictatorship, Francis, then a cardinal, testified in 2010 that he had met secretly with Gen. Jorge Videla, the former head of the military junta, and Adm. Emilio Massera, the commander of the navy, to ask for the release of the priests. …

“[Father Lombardi] pointed out that one of the two priests, the Rev. Franz Jalics, had made a statement on Friday. It was issued by the German branch of the Jesuit order and also released by the Vatican.

“Father Jalics said that he and the other priest moved to a Buenos Aires slum in 1974 to work among the poor, with the permission of the archbishop and of then-Father Bergoglio.

“He said their position was ‘misunderstood within the church’ and that they were later falsely linked to leftist guerrillas. Soldiers arrested and interrogated them, and they were ‘inexplicably held in custody blindfolded and bound’ for five months, even after an officer said he believed in their innocence, according to Father Jalics. ‘I cannot comment on the role of Father Bergoglio in these events,’ he said.

“Years later, he continued, the priests met with Father Bergoglio, who by then was archbishop of Buenos Aires. ‘Afterward, we together celebrated Mass publicly and embraced,’ Father Jalics said. ‘I am reconciled to the events and view them from my side as concluded. I wish Pope Francis God’s rich blessing for his office.’”

Francis I is the first pope in world history from the New World, the Western Hemisphere, as well as the first member of the Society of Jesus to be so elected.

Having known and considerably enjoyed a number of his fellow Jesuits – three of whom I debated many years ago on the subject of abortion – I share in the widely broadcast enthusiasm over the selection of this new world leader.

And let me add my relief that a one-time issue of controversy seems to have been passed into history. Witness the absence of almost anyone questioning whether papal infallibility belongs only to the new pontiff – rather than to him who has just retired as well – and what would happen if they disagreed on a matter of faith.

Seventy-six-year-old Francis I is the 266th pope.

The New York Times reports that he faces an immense array of challenges left by his predecessor: a shortage of priests, rising secularism in a West that increasingly sees the Church as out of touch, growing competition from evangelical churches in the Southern Hemisphere and the sexual-abuse crisis.

“Known for his outreach to the country’s poor, he gave up a palace for a small apartment, rode public transportation instead of a chauffeur-driven car and cooked his own meals. …

“Though he is averse to liberation theology, which he views as hopelessly tainted with Marxist ideology, Cardinal Bergoglio has emphasized outreach to the impoverished, and as cardinal of Buenos Aires he has overseen increased social services and evangelization in the slums. …

“In a long interview published by an Argentine newspaper in 2010, he defended his behavior during the dictatorship. He said that he had helped hide people being sought for arrest or disappearance by the military because of their political views, had helped others leave Argentina and had lobbied the country’s military rulers directly for the release and protection of others.”

That is similar to what Pope Pius XII did. Instead of directly defying Rome’s occupying Nazis – which would have surely led to his immediate execution – Pius was able to save the lives of thousands of Jews, surreptitiously.

For this, he – and Pope Francis I – deserve tribute, not denunciation.

Adolfo Perez Esquivel, Nobel Peace Prize-winning Argentine human rights activist, told the BBC:

“There were bishops who were complicit in the dictatorship – but not Bergoglio.”