PC and Incompetence

by Charley Reese

  Political correctness and incompetence often embrace each other.  That was made clear 

in the Atlanta courthouse shooting. Brian Nichols proved to be a lot smarter than his 

captors, not to mention a quicker and better shot.

  Political correctness and incompetence example No. 1 is the Rule that prisoners must 

not be shackled lest it prejudice the jury. Luckily, the jurors weren't present, but 

if they had been, watching a prisoner shoot a judge and a court reporter would certainly 

be more prejudicial than seeing him in handcuffs. I expect even the incompetent people 

in Fulton County will change that rule.

  Political correctness and incompetence example No. 2 is assigning a female deputy to 

escort an unshackled prisoner to the courtroom.  Feminism is an ideology, not a description 

of reality. A 51-year-old, 5-foot-tall female was no match for a 6-foot-1-inch former college 

linebacker. He attacked her and took her gun. What in God's name would anyone expect to happen? 

  For a little bit of history, most law-enforcement agencies used to have height and weight 

requirements for male officers. Then a federal judge decided that that was treating women 

unequally. Feminist ideology dictates that women 5 feet, 1 inch tall or so and 115 pounds 

can wrestle 200-pound men equally as well as male officers. That, of course, is nuts,

but this country became an open-air insane asylum during the 1960s. God shorted women on 

upper-body strength. Guess he's a male chauvinist pig.

  Incompetence example No. 3 is that the initial assault on the female deputy was caught 

on security cameras. Trouble is, nobody was monitoring them, or if someone was, the person 

hid under his or her desk.  Unmonitored security cameras are - how shall we say it - a stupid 

waste of money.

  Nichols - and bear in mind in lawyerspeak that these are all allegations, since he has not 

been legally convicted of anything - went on to kill another deputy and pistol-whip a reporter 

in a parking garage, stealing his car.

  Incompetence example No. 4 is that the police spent 13 hours looking for this car, when all 

the time it was parked on a lower floor in the same parking garage. As I said, Nichols is smarter 

than his captors and pursuers. He had intended to take the reporter as a hostage, but when the

reporter escaped, he knew that everyone would have a description of the car.  Ergo, he went to the

lower floor, parked the car and took the subway.

  Incompetence example No. 5 is that they locked down the courthouse after it was all over, but 

failed to guard the subway. Even after 13 hours, Atlanta's finest had not discovered the car they 

were searching for. A civilian did that. And another civilian, whose life might be ruined by 

excessive media attention, talked Nichols into peacefully surrendering after he took her hostage.

  Nichols is also thought to have killed a U.S. Customs agent, so, excluding the judge and the 

court reporter, the score was Nichols 3, and armed, presumably trained and equipped law-enforcement 

officers 0.

  So, it was a civilian who found the car and a civilian who brought the episode to a peaceful 

conclusion. Perhaps Atlanta doesn't need its oh-so-politically correct police and sheriff's 

departments, which acted more like the Keystone Cops than trained professionals.

  My advice is to stay clear of Atlanta. It is overcrowded and incompetently governed, and 

its urban sprawl is spreading like a cancer all over North Georgia. Pretty soon, north and 

southbound travelers will have to detour through Alabama and South Carolina just to avoid 

Atlanta's traffic jams. Air travelers already know what a horror the airport is.

  Political correctness should have no place in America. It is always costly to allow 

politics to trump reality, and, as in Atlanta, the results can be tragic. Look at the ruined 

lives that political correctness and plain old stupidity caused. Even after the carnage, 

as of this writing, Fulton County authorities haven't decided what crimes to charge Nichols

with. How about murder? It shouldn't take too many brain cells to figure that out.

  Charley Reese has been a journalist for 49 years, reporting on everything from sports to 

politics. From 1969-71, he worked as a campaign staffer for gubernatorial, senatorial and 

congressional races in several states. He was an editor, assistant to the publisher, and

columnist for the Orlando Sentinel from 1971 to 2001. He now writes a syndicated column 

which is carried on LewRockwell.com. Reese served two years active duty in the U.S. Army 

as a tank gunner. 

Write to Charley Reese at:

P.O. Box 2446, 

Orlando, FL 32802.

© 2005 by King Features Syndicate, Inc.

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