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A successful married man with young children at home
pursues a romantic liaison with a co-worker. When the co-worker doesn’t
sufficiently reciprocate his affections, he stalks her boyfriend for two months,
and devises a plan to kill him. He collects weapons, disguises himself, packs up
some garbage bags to dispose of the body, and drives 900 miles to attack his
rival. He launches the assault but the boyfriend manages to escape and notify
the police, and the man is arrested and charged with attempted murder.
Would CBS commentator Harry Smith express sympathy
for this “poor" fellow for “falling in love” and then “crash-landing”? Would Fox
News commentator Steve Doocy opine that "love makes you do weird things," and
claim that prosecutors were being too hard on him?
Would MSNBC describe
him as a stressed out “super dad” who “snapped”, ignoring that the two months of
stalking and preparation sure were a long, slow “snap”? Would MSNBC have a
psychologist sympathetically explain that the would-be murderer acted because he
was “experiencing the fear of abandonment” that was “so terrifying” that he had
to “secure the love object and eliminate the threat"? Would a reporter for a
major newspaper describe the murder attempt as the man’s effort to “share with
someone else a bit of the pain swelling inside”?
Lisa Nowak is
receiving widespread sympathy, in part because she is legitimately admired for
being an astronaut. But a large share accrues because she’s a woman, and our
society—both men and women—views women’s misdeeds more sympathetically than
men’s.
The media is
soft-pedaling numerous aspects of the Nowak case. Practically every media outlet
has explained Nowak's decision to wear astronaut diapers on her journey to
allegedly attack romantic rival Colleen Shipman as a bizarre, freakish action
indicative of her mental instability. In reality, Nowak acted with logic and
calculation—she did not want to stop several times on the way from Houston to
Orlando and leave a trail of convenience store camera records behind her. For
the same reason, when Nowak arrived in Orlando she disguised herself, checked
into a hotel under a fake name and address, and paid cash.
Similarly, numerous
commentators have described Nowak’s equipment--a 4-inch folding knife, a steel
mallet, several garbage bags, rubber tubing, a BB gun, and pepper spray--as
“wacky” or “bizarre.” They are nothing of the sort. Orlando police believe Nowak
intended to kill Shipman, and she probably planned to utilize the garbage bags
to dispose of her, perhaps in Galveston Bay. As Orlando police Sgt. Barbara
Jones explained, it was a “fairly elaborate plan.”
In widely-reported
comments, Dr. Jon Clark, a former NASA flight surgeon, said that Nowak may have
come unhinged due to the burdens of being a female astronaut. According to
Clark:
"They made more
sacrifices than the ‘right stuff' guys. They have to balance two careers, be a
mom, wife and an astronaut. You don't come home at night, like most of the male
astronauts, and have everything ready for you.”
Space travel is and
always will be hazardous, but the astronauts of the dawn of the space age
depicted in The Right Stuff faced far more danger and uncertainty than
today’s astronauts do. The assertion that astronauts today--even women
astronauts with families--deal with greater stress is dubious.
One major newspaper
sadly lamented Nowak’s “meltdown”, a term usually used to describe a performer’s
onstage temper tantrum, not an apparent murder attempt. One commentator labeled
Nowak an “unfortunate” individual who “has been the subject of relentless news
coverage…[and] hounded and beleaguered by the press,” an unusually sympathetic
description of the media attention people bring upon themselves when they try to
kill someone.
Nowak’s neighbors
have lent her their support, and both her former Naval Academy classmates and a
Florida restaurateur are raising money for her legal defense. And, of course, a
movie about Nowak’s life is in the works.
Nowak was let out on
a light $25,500 bail and, except for those grumpy Orlando prosecutors, most are
trivializing what she did. In 2002, Scott Peterson killed Laci Peterson and
disposed of her body in San Francisco Bay. Except for the fact that Nowak
botched the job, is her alleged crime much different?
This article first appeared in the
Philadelphia Daily News (2/26/07).
Jeffery
M. Leving is one of America's most prominent family law attorneys. He is the
author of the new HarperCollins book
Divorce Wars: A Field Guide to the Winning Tactics, Preemptive Strikes, and Top
Maneuvers When Divorce Gets Ugly. His website is
www.dadsrights.com.
Glenn
Sacks' columns on men's and fathers' issues have appeared in dozens of America's
largest newspapers. Glenn can be reached via his website at
www.GlennSacks.com or
via email at Glenn@GlennSacks.com.
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