Although the political exchange between Clinton and the NRA is far from over perhaps it is possible to add a little perspective. Clinton has portrayed the NRA fund raising letter as a condemnation of all police at all levels of all kinds. In response the NRA is narrowing down its condemnation to those who conducted the actions on their rather long list of abuses.
There is certainly the old saying that one bad apple can spoil the barrel. And certainly it is improper to consider all the Law Enforcement Officers (LEOs) in an agency the same as the few bad ones. So which is the right view?
As usual a third view better addresses this conflict. Every Law Enforcement organization has its rotten apples. Some have so many the entire organization is justly viewed as corrupt. So we have to tolerate it because of the good LEOs?
There is the problem. There are no good LEOs who cover up for the bad ones. We suddenly do not find many good one's left, mainly those too new or too dumb to know what is going on in their organization.
But from the point of view of those covering up they are showing loyalty to their fellow officers. And in so doing they are permitting the cause of Waco and Ruby Ridge to continue to fester. And there is no doubt of a coverup.
There was no discipline of anyone for Ruby Ridge. For Waco a few players were disciplined but nothing serious happened. Two were fired and suddenly remembered events that officially did not happen. When they were reinstated their memories failed again.
Of course it is, for the perverted concept of the good of the service. When there are a few bad apples moving them off of the street or out of the field into a desk job is often the way it is handled. But even if this is the intention, the image of promoting Potts to second in command at the FBI is not quite what the critics were looking for.
In a larger sense, one of the reasons the leadership of the major departments are political appointees is to assure they are accountable to the people. It is identical to the reason the President is Commander in Chief of the Armed Forces. When there is a problem with an agency it is the responsibility of the political appointees to clean it up not to become members of the fraternity.
But what else is to be the conclusion when the Justice Department releases the report of an internal investigation of Waco that the New York Times calls a whitewash and still refuses to release the report on Ruby Ridge? This rather clearly appears as though the political appointees have been members of the fraternity. It is difficult to escape the impression the appointees have joined the good old boy network within the organization.
Thus we have people acting "for the good of the organization" rather than the good of the people. This is all under the mistaken notion that if an organization exposes its dirty linen that the public will lose confidence in it. This concept appears to have been specifically created to justify covering up the people in the organization that are in need of prison time.
When a city has a corrupt police department it is not as though it is a secret to the people in the city. There is nothing to lose by admitting what everyone knows. There is more confidence to be gained by admitting the problems and cleaning them up.
After doing that the problem is political. If one tries to clean up the police on the take or who are thieves, the rank and file start talking about the officers who have died in the line of duty and showing pictures of a crying widow and their young children. And thus the supporters of police in general side against the clean up.
And thus we have Clinton and the NRA playing out the same scenario as in dozens of cities over the years. The NRA is playing the part of the reformers who are getting the attention of the public by making overly broad statements. Clinton is playing the role of avoiding any consideration of the charges that everyone knows by attempting to rally public opinion against any reform.
Clearly the ball is now in the NRA's court. Now is the time for the NRA to name names in regard to as many specific incidents. (Why did Special Agent Fred Smith kill an unarmed man at the wrong address on 20 January 1993?) Perhaps simply the repetition of the number of such cases until the press starts asking for specifics as pro-LEO types will not let such numbers stand without questioning.
But the issue here is as old as the hills, whether or not the bad cops are to be eliminated or whether they will be protected by their fellow police. The NRA is not quite in the role of reformer. But doing so can lead to a higher opinion of the NRA in this country.
It will have to be a long term commitment but the present publicity is the only opportunity anyone has ever had to reform the federal agencies. It would be a shame to waste the opportunity.