Daily Archives: June 12, 2008

Sean Kennedy’s killer sentenced in Greenville

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Stephen Moller, who murdered Sean Kennedy on May 16, 2007, was sentenced June 11 to a five-year suspended sentence to three years with three years probation after he gets out of jail. He will spend about 10 months in jail, after which he is then entitled to parole. If granted, he will then be on probation for three years. Moller was also sentenced to 30 days community service, ordered to take anger management classes and undergo alcohol and drug counseling.

Sean’s mother, Elke Kennedy, held a press conference after the hearing. Here is her statement:

I want to thank you all for being here today. You have followed the story since Sean’s violent murder last year and I appreciate it. There was no justice today for my son Sean. The sentence that Stephen Moeller received is a joke and a slap on the wrist.

Once again it proves that in the state of South Carolina there is no justice for the victim, especially for a victim of a senseless, violent, bias-motivated crime. I understand that the judge had to sentence according to the plea agreement and the existing restrictions in the law, but that does not make this any easier!

Our judicial system is a joke and it is trying to make you believe that it is there to assure justice. Decisions are made by the solicitor instead of judges and juries. Like in Sean’s case, nobody will ever hear the evidence and all the facts like the voice mail because it was plea bargained by the solicitor, who has only met with me one time almost 10 month ago.

In essence, when the solicitor plea bargains any case, are they not really working for the defendant instead of the victim? Most pleas benefit only the defendant because it results in a lesser charge.

In fact, I believe that Sean’s case has been mishandled from the beginning. Getting the investigation started – we had to initiate the securing of evidence – sheriffs deputies did not take it serious. Our Solicitors got a lot of pressure about the case, received weekly phone calls from our SC senators from Washington and from congress man Inglis himself. Do any of you know of another local case that our Senators and congressman would be that interested in? I don’t!

Furthermore, our officials have known about the 25-year gap in our laws and have not done anything about it! When asked why there was this gap I was told that nobody had ever complained. Well this mother has and will continue to do so.

Bob Arial stated last October that involuntary manslaughter charge and the maximum time with that is not enough in the case of Sean’s Murder, but that is all they could do according to the existing law! Our solicitor invited me to help him change these laws – Mr. Arial – I am here, I am willing and I demand that we change these laws.

So moving forward we must identify the gaps, educate the public and we must demand all inclusive laws in our state that will protect all human beings. We need to be able to identify bias-motivated crimes and be able to report them.

Remember, this is an election year – you can make a difference!

My son was violently murdered because of hate, and as his mother I want justice. This could have happened to anybody’s son, daughter, brother or sister. My family will never be the same. A big part of our lives has been ripped out of our hearts and we are all struggling through birthdays, holidays, etc.

No mother should ever have to bury her child. No mother should ever have to lose her child to violence and hate. No mother should ever have to fight to see justice for her child!

Me and Scott McClellan, brothers in arms

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by Eric Boehlert
Media Matters

“Some Bush defenders, including former press secretary Ari Fleischer, [suggested] that McClellan may have had a ghostwriter or undergone heavy-handed editing.” Washington Post, May 30

“McCellan’s publisher, Peter Osnos, denies that a ghostwriter worked over McClellan’s draft.” Slate, May 28

Now that Scott McClellan has come clean in his book about the real nature of the Bush White House, I’ll confess my own secret: Scott McClellan was a ghostwriter for my 2006 book, Lapdogs: How the Press Rolled Over for Bush.

No, really.

But let’s be honest, prior to McClellan’s new turncoat book, What Happened: Inside the Bush White House and Washington’s Culture of Deception, where the formerly loyal aide confirms so many liberal critiques of the White House, as well as chastises the complacent media for rolling over for Bush, how many people would have even believed my unlikely tale of collaboration? Talk about a possible career-killer for McClellan.

And trust me, he understood the risk of colluding with a liberal media critic, especially while he was on the White House clock. I remember back when he was secretly helping me with the book, I’d say, Mac (that’s what I called him), are you crazy? What would Republicans say if they found out you were being disloyal to Bush, as well as aiding to puncture the long-running myth about the “liberal media”? I warned him that party elders like Bob Dole would open a can of whupass on him if they found out.

But McClellan was committed to my project and insisted on helping me craft my critique of how the press adopted a flagrant double standard when covering the Bush administration. He was especially angry about the media’s lapdog performance during the run-up to the Iraq war.

That’s why I wasn’t surprised by the revelations in his new book last week. In fact, they sounded a little bit too much like Lapdogs, if you know what I mean. (But Mac and I are buds, so it’s all good.)

This passage from his new book certainly had a Lapdogs ring to it:

And through it all, the media would serve as complicit enablers. Their primary focus would be on covering the campaign to sell the war, rather than aggressively questioning the rationale for war or pursuing the truth behind it. … [T]he media would neglect their watchdog role, focusing less on truth and accuracy and more on whether the campaign was succeeding. [Page 125]

So did this blast:

If anything, the national press corps was probably too deferential to the White House and to the administration in regard to the most important decision facing the nation during my years in Washington, the choice over whether to go to war in Iraq. … In this case, the “liberal media” didn’t live up to its reputation. If it had, the country would have been better served. [Pages 156-157]

And, man, did the press act shocked last week, or what? Tim Russert on NBC was stunned that McClellan was using “MoveOn.org” language to describe the Bush White House, and the Politico’s Mike Allen likened it to rhetoric used by the “left-wing haters.” (C’mon, Mike, don’t be a hater hata.)

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