We’ve no problem with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement doing its job and deporting violent criminals and those guilty of sex offenses involving minors, among other serious matters. We’ve no wish for immigration agents to do so in secrecy, either. But here in America, we don’t have show trials nor do we ritualistically lambaste such people in service of political power or television ratings.
Unlike some nations, we don’t hang, beat or interrogate people in the public square, either.
Why not? It debases everyone. America takes a higher path.
Or took.
We were astonished to see Phil McGraw, a man who uses a sobriquet that includes the word “doctor,” embedding himself with ICE, a questionable move in and of itself for a person who has claimed to heal, and then literally shining a spotlight on a Thai national who was rounded up by ICE on Sunday in Chicago. Dr. Phil’s quarry told him he recognized him from TV and then took part, consciously or not, in his own ritual humiliation for a hungry TV audience.
Let’s be clear here. The man reportedly was a convicted sex offender and internet predator, and we want him gone. We understand the propaganda value, too, for a Trump administration that wants to confirm the president’s point that there are bad people in this city and state without legal authorization.
True. And there are bad people with legal authorization too.
Either way, there was something profoundly unsettling about a man who found fame and a huge fortune in our city on “The Oprah Winfrey Show,” a man who made his bones by offering advice to often vulnerable guests as a psychotherapist would, someone who set himself up as an avuncular healer, telling people how to nurture their relationship with their spouse or cope after a relationship has fallen apart. Dr. Phil had many followers, and much of his advice, although sometimes controversial, had a certain commonsense appeal. We may even have listened occasionally ourselves.
Dr. Phil now is pushing a new prime-time show on his Texas-based network Merit Street Media. And he apparently believes his audience is well served by the former TV healer standing next to the feds and questioning a target without a lawyer at his side. We get why Donald Trump’s Department of Justice wants him there: It implies that such people won’t just be removed; they’ll be humiliated at the same time.
Given the abhorrent nature of the Thai national’s crimes, it’s easy to say that’s all fine. Take all the licks you want, Dr. Phil.
But it’s not. The Taliban do not roam the streets of Chicago, and their modus operandi should be applied here.
We think that somewhere deep in his memory from “The Oprah Winfrey Show,” Dr. Phil knows that too.
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