In his “Regarding Media” column in the Los Angeles Times about the Jayson Blair scandal, Tim Rutten writes:
Nobody who believes that greater diversity in universities and the workplace is not simply a moral imperative but also a tangible economic asset wants to see this contemptible con man turned into the affirmative action debate’s Willie Horton.
This is a rich, fascinating comparison. Has anyone else referred to Blair as the Willie Horton of affirmative action? Rutten’s throwing out that comparison, which he says no right thinking person wants to see, almost reminds me of Adlai Stevenson’s frequently saying in the 1956 campaign that he was not going to mention General Eisenhower’s heart condition.
Rutten says no one, or at least no good person, wants to see Blair become a Willie Horton-like club with which to bash liberals, but, interestingly, he does not go on to say that such a comparison would be unfair (beyond the obvious point that fraud is not rape and vicious assault).
Is it? Whatever the merits of the Massachusetts Prison Furlough program, and however many other states had something similar, it was nevertheless true that Horton as soon as he was furloughed Horton took off for Maryland and committed a brutal rape and assault. Similarly, whatever the merits of diversity in general and preferential hiring and differential treatment in particular, it is also true that Blair was hired as part of an aggressive diversity program, was coddled afterward, and committed massive fraud. Does that mean that all preferential hires are unqualified frauds? Of course not, just as all prison furloughees don’t take off on a crime spree.
The Willie Horton ad was devastatingly effective because it was essentially accurate. I suspect that may be behind the fear that Blair may be promoted as the new Horton.
[For a startlingly silly attempt to portray the Horton ad as distorted and unfair, see this remarkable article by election ad expert Kathleen Hall Jamison. His real name, you see, was not “Willie” but William Horton, and the furloughs were not “weekend passes” because their duration was 1 to 170 hours and they could occur on any day of the week. Etc.]
