There has been a rash of stories about U.S. State Department employees taking drugs and cavorting with prostitutes. In addition, the Ambassador to Belgium, Howard Gutman, was accused of soliciting prostitutes and minor children. While all of these alleged crimes are reprehensible, the Catholic League only has interest in the charge that Gutman “routinely ditched his protective security detail in order to solicit sexual favors from both prostitutes and minor children.” (My italics.)
No media outlet was more outraged over minors being molested by priests than the Boston Globe, but it has shown no interest in this story; it has not run a single piece on it. The New York Times ran one story; the Washington Post ran one story, but unlike the Times, it never mentioned “minor children”; the Los Angeles Times, like the Globe, ignored the story altogether.
Most disturbing is CBS News. It deserves credit for breaking the story, but what it did on June 11 was indefensible. Here is what it said: “One specific example mentioned in the [Inspector General’s] memo refers to the 2011 investigations into an ambassador who ‘routinely ditched...his protective security detail,’ and inspectors suspect this was in order to ‘solicit sexual favors from prostitutes.’”
Now compare the last sentence in the paragraph above to the last sentence I quoted in the first paragraph. What is missing is any reference to “minor children.” This was not a mistake: by excising reference to “minor children,” it demanded that the reporter also excise the word “both.” He did.
In short, current allegations of child rape by government officials are far less interesting to the media than decades-old stories about priests. Let’s face it: the media, as well as pundits (and “comedians” like Bill Maher), are not interested in kids. Their interest is in the identity of the offender.
