At the beginning of last week, a rumor was being floated among the various media outlets that they were preparing a legal battle to get the sealed records from Democratic presidential candidate John F. Kerry’s 1980 divorce.  In their ever-arching quest to sell newspapers and magazines, the media is awaiting in mouth-watering anticipation for his records, especially after the devastation caused to Illinois Senate candidate Jack Ryan’s campaign after a Californian judge unsealed his scandalous divorce records.  The fact that his ex-wife, Star Trek: Voyager and Boston Public star Jeri Ryan, now discounts the allegations she leveled at her husband at the time, it was far too late to abate the damage caused to his campaign.

Unfortunately for Kerry, the American media has been sliding farther and farther away from real news and deeper into the exploitative gossip that keeps many European papers, like London’s Guardian and Telegraph, alive.  In their quest to sell papers, it even appears likely that the media will even willingly destroy their preferred candidate.

This all creates an interesting hypocrisy for the liberal left and the majority of media outlets that they control.  Under the guise of “freedom of information” and the public’s “right to know,” they report on all of the dirt that they possibly can.  Yet, in their very next breath they talk about the right to privacy guaranteed by the Constitution when it comes to a woman’s right to choose and protecting the invasion of terrorists’ privacy.  As one would expect, these two positions are polar opposites, and as a result, the underlying hypocrisy of their position is beginning to cause a breakdown in their capacity to reason.

The ultimate flaw is that there is no right to privacy when the good of the civilization is at stake.  It is not prudent for a government to worry about protecting the privacy of illegal immigrants who may or may not be planning terrorist attacks against our country – the very legal framework that prevented our government from being able to stop September 11.  The USA PATRIOT Act, a terrifying, privacy-stripping piece of legislation to liberals, shredded that legal framework and gave law enforcement agents the same tools to use against terrorists that are already available for use against mobsters and serial killers.  The difference is, they are able to go about their business in relative secret so as to not tip their hand, but the PATRIOT Act does require judicial consent for warrants and seizures, just without letting the terrorists know and giving them the opportunity to flee.

For liberals, this is terrifying, and they cry about the invasion of privacy that this causes, conveniently ignoring the fact that the primary target of PATRIOT Act investigations are people who are already criminals because they are in this country illegally.  The media bemoans the loss of their privacy and their rights, yet they gleefully report on divorce records from a private divorce that occurred several years ago, records with no real ramification so many years after the fact.  The same is true of Kerry’s records.  They should be kept private because there is no “greater good” to be had from unlocking sealed records of an judicial proceeding that contained nothing illegal – no perjury, no criminal offenses – and that is twenty years old.

The California judge who unsealed the Ryans’ court records disagrees.  According to the Drudge Report, the Ryans “were aware they were in a public court system and protection from embarrassment cannot be a basis for keeping from the public what’s put in public courts.”  The Ryans’ attempts to protect their child from such embarrassing revelations be damned.  He added, “The openness of court files must be maintained, so that the public… can be assured that there is no favoritism shown to the rich and powerful” (ellipses in original).

Showing favoritism or preference to a supposedly rich couple and keeping sealed the very private records of a divorce are two very different things.  If Schnider is incapable of making such a common sense judgment, then he is a fool.  There is a big different between preferential treatment and reasonable privacy, but it is a distinction that too many liberals and members of the media are sadly unable to make.

The divorce records of a senate candidate, or a presidential candidate, are not all that important.  Ironically, the allegations of sexual perversion of Ryan are along the same lines as those liberals, only a few years ago, insisted were private matters of little interest to the public.  One wonders what has changed.  The only obvious difference is the party Ryan is aligned with.

The public’s right to know is not all encompassing, nor should it be.  Liberals insist that the public’s right to know everything about everyone is critical and important to the free society.  This is incorrect.  The public’s right to know everything about everyone is a hallmark of communism.  A democracy allows people to be private and secure in their person until they make the decision to go public.

Running for office should not grant carte blanche to reporters and other dirt-seekers seeking to sell a few more newspapers, regardless of whomever the candidate is.  A person should be entitled to some privacy, so long as their privacy does not infringe upon the rights of another human being.

To allow the political discourse to devolve to an even lower level such as this only prevents Americans from focusing on the real issues that are fundamentally important for the continued success and greatness of the United States.

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