Hitch: Getting tough on drunk driving akin to getting off on child porn

Hitch meets Mitch', originally uploaded by Lindsay Beyerstein.

The sexually magnetic Christopher Hitchens feels sorry for poor Paris Hilton:

So now, a young woman knows that, everywhere she goes, this is what people are visualizing, and giggling about. She hasn't a rag of privacy to her name. But this turns out to be only a prelude. Purportedly unaware that her license was still suspended, a result of being found with a whiff of alcohol on her breath, she also discovers that the majesty of the law will not give her a break. Evidently as bewildered and aimless as she ever was, she is arbitrarily condemned to prison, released on an equally slight pretext and—here comes the beautiful bit—subjected to a cat-and-mouse routine that sends her back again. At this point, she cries aloud for her mother and exclaims that it "isn't right." And then the real pelting begins. In Toronto, where I happened to be on the relevant day, the Sun* filled its whole front page with a photograph of her tear-swollen face, under the stern headline "CRYBABY." I didn't at all want to see this, but what choice did I have? It was typical of a universal, inescapable coverage. Not content with seeing her undressed and variously penetrated, it seems to be assumed that we need to watch her being punished and humiliated as well. The supposedly "broad-minded" culture turns out to be as prurient and salacious as the elders in The Scarlet Letter. Hilton is legally an adult but the treatment she is receiving stinks—indeed it reeks—of whatever horrible, buried, vicarious impulse underlies kiddie porn and child abuse. [Slate]

Jill has a good response to Hitch.

Unaccountably, tide of public opinion seems to be shifting back in Paris Hilton's favor. Even James Wolcott wants to cut Paris some slack.

The latest meme is that Paris has been unfairly treated, that she's a scapegoat for all the other rich people who break the law with impunity. I'm sure her publicists worked overtime to spread the myth that a mean celeb-hating judge sentenced her to 45 days for a DUI. That's not really what happened, of course.

Sheriff Lee Baca, who engineered Paris's short-lived release to house arrest also claims that she was treated more harshly by the courts because of her celebrity status.

Baca's opinion on this point is totally irrelevant to the propriety his decision to defy the judge's explicit order that Hilton serve her time in jail. The police don't get to sentence criminals. The official story is that Hilton was shifted to house arrest because she was suffering from an unspecified medical condition, not because the sheriff thought her initial sentence was unjust.

Without knowing the medical details, it's difficult to say whether Hilton got special treatment when the sheriff let her serve her sentence at home. I've certainly never heard of anyone getting house arrest because they were distraught about being locked up. Jails deal with distraught and unstable inmates all the time.

Maybe Paris is sick, but if she's so ill, she needs to be in a prison hospital rather than at home with an ankle bracelet.

Getting back to the original point, Paris isn't being sent to jail for a mere DUI. She's going to jail for violating the probation she got for alcohol-related reckless driving, a crime for which she was sentenced to three years' probation.

In exchange for the privilege of serving her sentence in the community, Hilton was ordered obey all laws and court orders, and enroll in an alcohol treatment program; she was also forbidden to drive without a valid license in her possession.

The whole point of probation is that you're allowed to stay out of jail, provided you follow the rules.

Prior to this judicial leniency, Hilton's license had already been suspended for an earlier DUI offense. The DMV notified her and her lawyer of the suspension in writing.

On January 15, Hilton got pulled over again, at which point she was again notified verbally and in writing that her license was suspended. She even signed an acknowledgment of the fact and got a copy to take home. The officers made Hilton's passenger drive away from the scene.

Then she got stopped again on February 27. This time she was going 75 miles per hour in a 30 zone in the dark with her headlights off.

She never enrolled in the court-mandated alcohol treatment program.

Showing up 18 minutes late for court probably didn't endear her to the judge. 

Hilton has also had other recent brushes with the law.

I'm tired of hearing that wanting to see Paris Hilton spend a few weeks in jail is sexist or draconian. She deserves jail time for violating the privilege of parole in multiple ways, disrespecting the court, and putting others at risk with chronically reckless and impaired driving. She flat-out lied to the judge when she claimed she didn't know her license was suspended.

Anyone else in her situation would have been behind bars a long time ago. If she's genuinely ill, the prison hospital is the right place for her.

Of course Hilton's parents jumped the line to visit their daughter in prison while the families of other inmates waited up to 4 hours.

Comments

[John Lucid]

Her talent agency also dropped her. Maybe they re-evaluated what it meant to be a "talent" agency.

She has her Bible, and I guess she's also got Buddha in her corner, so I'm sure she'll be okay. She's double-saved.

[John Lucid]

Forgot to mention that she saw a plastic surgeon when she was briefly under house arrest on Friday. Maybe she needs emergency breast implants. It could happen.

[Lindsay Beyerstein]

I just realized I should explain the origins of the phrase "the sexually magnetic Christopher Hitchens"...

A couple years ago a friend of mine is waiting in line for the bathroom at an NYC nightspot and she turns to the really drunk and vaguely familiar-looking guy behind her and asks, "Are you Christopher Hitchens?" He answers, "The sexually magnetic Christopher Hitchens, yes. I love [ethnic group of friend] women."

Upon hearing the story, DJA and I resolved to refer to him as "the sexually magnetic Christopher Hitchens" henceforth.

[John Lucid]

What a letdown. All this time I believed you actually found him sexually magnetic. What a gyp. I demand a refund.

[Amanda Marcotte]

I shocked at how much people do cater to her privilege. If anything, jail should be the punishment for the rich over the poor, because treatment programs, fines, probation, and community service are not as onerous to the rich as the poor.

[Eric Jaffa]

Lindsay Beyerstein -

Does "[ethnic group of friend]" = "black"? "Asian"?

[Marc]

I do question whether or not the very low amount of alcohol in her system (0.08%?) is really a level that should be considered 'impaired'; that's practically the fumes from inhaling the drink from someone next to you! Maybe she's just a crappy driver.

[inkybrain]

Ah, Snitchens. Why am I not surprised he's defending a drunk driver with a sense of entitlement the size of the Oort Cloud? Can we coin a term for when ironic distance circles back on itself? I nominate "denirony."

Also, John Lucid, I'd wager you didn't mean it as such, but "gyp" is actually a racial slur on Roma/Gypsies.

[Dabodius]

Why Hilton couldn't use her family's money and friends to get her DUI fixed, as our current president did about 35 years ago, I don't know. But people resent the money and the privilege it buys less than Hilton's being not only a sybarite but (as used to be said in a quainter day) a "brazen." I'm comfortable under the rule of law, and have some confidence the system will do well by the likes of Hilton (and Scooter Libby) -- but there are those who can't get enough of her suffering, it delights them so. Leave it to another drunk to take up the other extreme, of outrage that she gets punished at all.
Btw, I thought "I like [ethnic group of addressee]" was said only to potential johns by prostitutes, like the Singapore transvestites in Peter Bogdonovich's film of Paul Theroux's Saint Jack: "I very much like American men."

[togolosh]

It's not surprising that TSMCH would sympathize with driving while sloshed, as I imagine he knows what it's like.

The whole Hilton farce (her entire public life) is just pathetic. She's famous for being a rich spoiled brat, and that's about it. I feel sorry for her betrayal at the hands of a shithead boyfriend, but that's about it. Perhaps a few weeks in the clink will help her gain a sense of perspective.

[Wah]

--
She's famous for being a rich spoiled brat, and that's about it.
--

She's a porn star. Every time she is mentioned in the media, it should be..... Paris Hilton, porn star, arrested in California. Paris Hilton, porn star, released from prison. Prison Hilton, porn star, re-arrested.

/intentional typo

[greensmile]

is Gore right? is this become a nation of idiots addicted to the very stupidest things TV can reflect about us? Paris Hilton is a problem. I don't mean [and I could care less if] she has a problem. The problem is so severe that you could not even make it go away by putting the inebriateated ditz out of her misery...her death, it seems likely, would occupy as much air time as that of the vastly more interesting princess of Wales. I want to throw the damn TV out a window these days. I come to Majikthise for the news and it is still Paris Hilton. What Hitchins has to say about her is not as important as what he has to say about the likelihood of god and he knows it:

"do something I would have never believed I would do, and choosing to write about Paris Hilton. Choosing to write about her, furthermore, not just as if she were some metaphor or signifier, but as a subject in herself.

I protest!

[ceabaird]

Wolcott says: "But I think it's more than their pampered celebrity aura that bugs people, I think it's that they're young women perceived (rightly or wrongly) as bachelorette sluts."

He goes on to mention that the cast of "Entourage" are seen "...as a bunch of puppies because, hey, they're guys, and guys are supposed to enjoy the perks and prerogatives of Hollywood freebie-dom--they get to roll with it without being pursued by the Furies."

The guy vs. gal thing may be involved, but I think that with a lot of bad shit happening in this country, and around the world, people are a little tired of seeing the young, dim, and rich, sail away from all responsibility for their actions. Period.

[PersonMan]

I really don't care about Paris at all, but what happened to don't do the crime if you can't do the time?

[Bruce/Crablaw]

Lindsey, bravo on getting the procedural posture details down so well. A lot of journalists fail at handling procedural posture issues in criminal and civil cases; I have seen it time and again in multiple media.

[Tyler DiPietro]

I really wish that Hitch wouldn't make an idiot out of himself every time I turn around. I love his new book, damn it! I want to be able to coherently defend him without egregiously dubious crap like this hanging over my head.

[MarkJames]

The Hitch contrarian routine is getting old. I have a sinking feeling something is going to happen to one of these 20 something airheads soon, of the accident variety.
That would not be nice, and much worse if they take out somebody else,on a final drive to oblivian.

[cfrost]

So I have to travel this last week and am stuck in a hotel where as usual, the reading light arrangement doesn’t work but the giant boob tube does. Finally, I quit trying to read technical papers (on genetics, in small print) and switch on the idiot box. I channel surf through a tidal wave of diarrhea and get to some news channel where Ms. Hilton is cycled ad nauseam over a ticker that recounts the number of casualties in the latest Baghdad car bombing (or was it car bombings- plural?).

Really, WTF? Isn’t it time we just turned on the rich and eat their sorry asses? Who gives a flying fuck whether the wealthy do or don’t get equal justice? We already know they’re more equal than the rest of us. My sister has spent a lifetime dealing with the consequences of a fool who decided it was a good idea to get hammered and drive. God help the moneyed dipsomaniac driver that has me for a juror.

And no, I have not seen the Paris-gets-porked video. I’d rather wank off to copulating dogs.

[Asad Raza]

Hey Lindsay. The other good Hitchens prefix (besides the one supplied by you-know-who) is Gawker's customary "comical British alcoholic."

[Hawise]

"First, the trivial doings of Paris Hilton are of no importance to me, or anyone else, and I should not be forced to contemplate them. Second, she should be left alone to lead such a life as has been left to her. "

This was section that got to me, that and the "legally adult but...". I wish that I could lead such a life as has been left to her. She is going to get out still rich, young and entitled. The media wave that "the sexually magnetic Christopher Hitchens" put himself into is entirely of her own making. She chased fame and media coverage and I can hardly pity her for getting what she wanted. Her family is as clueless as she is and unless she breaks out of the mindset that the world is just in her way, she will just keep putting herself into the same situations.

[Norman Costa]

Lindsay,

Thanks for the detailed timeline of relevant facts, legal issues, and public policy matters. Regarding TSMCH, I love his writing even when I don't agree with his view. For example, the following sentence, "Hilton is legally an adult but the treatment she is receiving stinks—indeed it reeks—of whatever horrible, buried, vicarious impulse underlies kiddie porn and child abuse", is a beautifully crafted case in point. I object to the dilution of the underlying impulse for kiddie porn and child abuse as if it were a democratically distributed commodity. The impulse for sexual and physical abuse of children is discontinuous in our population. It is not an overstatement to say that abusers do not dabble in the harm and the evil they do. They are set apart as a unique and destructive subculture of disturbed predators. I wish TSMCH had found another metaphor to illuminate the subject of Paris Hilton's spoiled brat antics and the public's reactions of both outrage and sympathy.

Norman Costa

[Joerg]

Marc -- no, 0.08%, or 0.8 per thousand as the Europeans measure it, means that you drank quite a bit, and that you are definitely impaired. Although obviously dependent on jurisdiction, a typical threshold where police will take you off the street is 0.05%.

[Count Zero]

cfrost:Really, WTF? Isn’t it time we just turned on the rich and eat their sorry asses?

I've been thinking this could potentially be where the country is headed for awhile now. Personally, I think the media throws Paris out there as some sort of carthartic release for the extreme classism our society endures. They'll pretend she's in trouble, hype it, yet in the end nothing reallf happens. It's pure Roman spectacle.

[B-Money]

"I shocked at how much people do cater to her privilege. If anything, jail should be the punishment for the rich over the poor, because treatment programs, fines, probation, and community service are not as onerous to the rich as the poor."--Amanda Marcotte

This is absurd! So people with money get jail because they can afford the penalty? Ridiculous! How discriminatory is that? And poor people find fines, community service and treatment more onerous? WTF does that mean? you must live in your own little world.

On the PH thing, I don't care what happens to her. But she was treated unfairly. I was a traffic prosecutor for 2 years and saw much worse offenders never even sniff jail. 45 days in jail? For what she did? I once had a guy with 3 DUI convictions, 5 suspended license convictions and multiple moving violations come before the judge with several tickets raning from running a red light to no insurance. He received 30 days suspended if he completed a driving education class and paid a $500 fine. That is just one example.

Paris did get a raw deal.

[minstrel boy]

the only issue i've been concerned with is that the courts either trust the sherrif to faithfully execute their directives, or they don't. if the courts don't trust the sherrif then a new sherrif is needed, or a new court. a house divided and all . . .