Elite Bad Taste

In a front-page story on American hostage Roy Hallums, whose daughter lives in Orange County, OC Register reporter Gwendolyn Driscoll, her editors and a University of California Irvine prof conspired in a feat of bad taste that shows just how cynical and self-righteous the media and elite profs have become.

After setting up the Levine's quote with public statements from Hallums' daughter, his ex-wife and Sen. Feinstein, the story goes on:

Privately, however, experts said the outlook was grim.

"Obviously, if it's an American contractor, the chances are not good for him coming out of this in one piece, literally," said Mark Levine, an associate professor of Middle East History at UC Irvine, who visited Iraq last year to help secure the release of two Italian aid workers. (emphasis added)

Levine is often quoted and should know better than to say something so tasteless to a reporter. And any reporter or editor with the least bit of compassion for Hallums' family, or for that matter, the least bit of good taste, would never have run the quote.

It's a conspiracy of bitter, elite, rude dunces.