Wednesday, June 16, 2004
 
Transitional Equivalence

Hooray for this bit of moral equivalence:
    ABC News reports investigators have tied the man to a terrorist cell set to carry out a series of bombings and assassinations in London.

    The man, a naturalized citizen from Pakistan, was secretly taken into custody in April.

    He is being held at the Metropolitan Correctional Center in Lower Manhattan and is said to be cooperating offering investigators significant information about Al Qaeda's plans.

    He is being held as a material witness and his family is now under federal protection.

    The man has told investigators that Al Qaeda is planning more attacks in the United States. He has also revealed a scheme to smuggle terrorists across the Mexican border.

    The suspect's assertions were part of the intelligence that led to recent warnings about a summer threat from Al Qaeda.

    Another man being held today is kidnapped American Paul Johnson.
Got that? A material witness in the custody of the United States is the same as Paul Johnson.

Rage, rage against the dying of the schnucking moral insight that would tell ABC News or its affiliate's writers that these things are not the same, and Paul Johnson is not another man being held in the same way as a material witness.

Link seen on Hugh Hewitt, who doesn't comment on this blatant idiocy.)

 
To say Noggle, one first must be able to say the "Nah."