John Hinderaker from Power Line reports on a story of censorship and political-correctness that you'll likely see nowhere else.We wrote here about Miss Universe, Dayana Mendoza, who was invited to tour Guantanamo Bay by the USO. She was impressed by the facility and the U.S. soldiers she met there, and wrote a cheerful, positive account of her visit on her blog at the Miss Universe site, as she has done with visits to other locales.
Evidently, however, saying anything positive about Guantanamo Bay and the soldiers who run it is beyond the pale. Miss Mendoza's blog entry has been deleted and replaced with a statement by Paula Shugart, President of the Miss Universe organization, which says in part:
"Dayana Mendoza's comments on her blog were in reference to the hospitality she received while meeting the members of the U.S. military and their families who are stationed in Guantánamo."
They were indeed. Miss Mendoza's comments were entirely non-political and merely reflected her own experiences and first-hand observations. So why did they have to be deleted? Apparently Guantanamo Bay has become a topic on which, in polite society, rational conversation is prohibited.
It would be nice if Miss Mendoza would tell the Miss Universe organization to take their tiara and shove it, but that isn't a reasonable expectation. After all, if our own President won't defend our troops or the reasonable steps our government has taken to protect our security, one can hardly ask a 22-year-old Venezuelan girl to stick her neck out farther.
