"John Leo calls it �the rapid refurbishing of appalling people,� and he has more than a point. In 1987, Joel Steinberg of New York City beat to death his illegally adopted six-year-old daughter. Though still in jail, he has parlayed his notoriety into a job with a cable TV show. Jayson Blair fabricated stories for the New York Times, and has a six-figure advance for a book telling how a �racist� press made him do it. Stephen Glass fabricated stories for the New Republic and other publications, which earned him a movie sale and big book contract, as well as a job writing for Rolling Stone, for which he wrote fiction as fact. Roman Polanski drugged and raped a thirteen-year-old girl, and then skipped the country, which did not prevent him from getting last year�s Oscar for best director. Marv Albert�s career was presumably shattered by a messy sex scandal, but a little more than a year later he was hired as host of MSG Sports Desk. And then there is Al Sharpton, co-perpetrator of the Tawana Brawley rape hoax, leader of an agitation against a Jewish store owner in which he joined with others in screaming �bloodsucking Jews� and �Jew bastards,� which agitation ended with three people shot and seven dead in a fire set by a protestor. Now he is a �civil rights leader� who is addressed as �the Rev. Sharpton� in national debates with other aspirants for the presidency of the United States. Such things are to be expected, writes Leo, �in a culture with no higher standard than non-judgmentalism.� "

Judgement can be a good thing.