The idea of looking at Rawat as an equal is somewhat bizarre as I'd feel that I was rather demeaning myself with such a comparison. You don't?Well, I suppose if I said I looked down on him that would just confirm Gerry's judgement that I am too superior. I guess what I was trying to say is that I don't look at him with rose-coloured glasses anymore. Whether my current sight is 20/20 I don't really know. I think I've made my judgements about him reasonably clear over the years. I have no wish either to don glasses that make him look worse than he is. My view of him is incomplete - that's partly what makes hearing from others who actually have been around him a lot so interesting.
But I completely disagree with you about John MacGregor. He deserves compassion to some extent, sure, but he has indeed betrayed his friends. To overlook that would leave no room for acknowledging all the braver, more principled, ways he might have done things. Put it this way -- any fellow journalists familiar with his original expose learning of his later grovelling would be aghast. Piteous, sure but nonetheless disgusted.
Maybe I am wrong about him. If what you say is the case then so be it. You are rather suggesting that his recanting... his 'change of mind' , was a cowardly act to get himself off the hook. I rather took it that under all the pressure he simply caved in and genuinely did change his mind and disown his former judgements. If that was the case he presumably did think he was doing the pricipled thing. Either way I think that anyone who betrays their friends when a gun is held to their head still deserves compassion. I am not in a position to argue about the extent to which he is deserving.
I agree that Suzie was given too rough a ride. Her christian shtick deserved to be shut down, either by her or anyone she kept serving it to, but that was all.
So don't you think that the people who gave her this rough ride (and others) ought to be given a warning to be more moderate or be themselves booted off the forum? I do. Why? Because I have some sympathy for the poor 'thinner-skinned' folk who want to express themselves here but daren't for fear of being given a similarly rough ride. Reasonable confrontation does not have to be so hostile and alienating. From what I hear there are a significant number of people who are simply too scared to post because of these attitudes. Really it is just paranoia that makes people threatened by people like Suzie. Even her christian views were pretty innoffensive to any normal civil person. If this forum becomes the domain of people who are intolerant of peoples various beliefs (however absurd they might seem) it is something I will raise objection to. A little tolerance - acceptance, kindness and niceness would go a long way here. Now we have Gerry moaning that I'm too nice! Since when was being nasty a requirement here?
