Wednesday, January 27, 2010

Festina Lente

Who'll be the first to decry jumping to hasty conclusions about the arrest of James O'Keefe, the young videojournalist whose undercover videos posed such problems for ACORN last year, for allegedly plotting to do something (it's not clear exactly what) to the telephones in the office of Senator Mary Landrieu?

How about Scott W. Johnson, a co-founder of the conservative blog, "Power Line"? In response to the arrest, he said, "It sounds like it was another kind of journalism project, maybe a misguided one — I'm open minded — but there's so little information it's impossible to say anything intelligent about it."

An excellent attitude. I'm sure all of O'Keefe's defenders took the same open minded, cautious approach when O'Keefe's ACORN videos first broke. One wouldn't want to jump to any hasty conclusions. Festina lente -- an excellent rule for all pundits on either side of a debate to follow.

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