THE VALUE OF SUNLIGHT – AT 12:30 P.M. ET:  Politicians, and other office holders who act like politicians, seek publicity.  They crave it.  But publicity has a downside.  With it comes sunlight, exposure, examination.  We often learn more about the publicity seeker than that person wants us to know.

Sunlight, Justice Brandeis wrote, is the best disinfectant.  And we're seeing an example of the disinfecting right now.  From the Washington Free Beacon: 

Embattled Broward County Sheriff Scott Israel said he had provided "amazing leadership" to his department on Sunday, drawing disbelief from CNN host Jake Tapper.

Tapper pressed Israel during a nearly half-hour interview about the response of his department before and during the Stoneman Douglas high school shooting in Parkland, Florida, that left 17 dead.

Israel announced Thursday that school resource officer Scot Peterson had been suspended and decided to retire rather than be terminated after learning Peterson failed to enter the school during the massacre and engage the shooter.

Israel also defended the conduct of his department in response to the 18 calls its deputies got about the killer, Nikolas Cruz, including fears he could be a "school shooter in the making." No report was initiated upon that tip.

Tapper asked Israel, who participated in CNN's town hall on guns on Wednesday and called for stronger gun control laws, if he could see how the public would be critical when it saw so many red flags go ignored by the department.

"How could there not even be a report on this one?" Tapper asked.

"If that's accurate, Jake, there needed to be a report and that's what we're looking in to, that a report needed to be completed, it needed to be forwarded to our homeland security or violent crimes unit and they would've followed up on it," Israel said.

And...

"Are you really not taking any responsibility for the multiple red flags that were brought to the attention of the Broward Sheriff's Office about this shooter before the incident?" Tapper asked.

"Jake, I can only take responsibility for what I knew about. I exercised my due diligence. I've given amazing leadership to this agency—" Israel started.

"Amazing leadership? Tapper asked incredulously.

COMMENT:  It now turns out that three other sheriff's deputies also did not enter the school to engage the shooter. 

Maybe this politically ambitious sheriff thought this was his moment in the sun.  It was.  And the sunlight is doing its job. 

And a pat on the back for Jake Tapper, one of the more independent CNN reporters, for refusing to follow the CNN party line and blame the gun.

February 25, 2018