Ken Berwitz
Remember Cecil the Lion? Remember the weeks of non-stop coverage over his death, and what a horrific crime it was? Remember the demands that his killer, Minnesota dentist Walter Palmer, be extradited and tried for killing such a beloved icon?
Well, forget about it. Zimbabwe says everything is OK and Walter Palmer is persona grata again.
Excerpted from USA Today\’s article – which was published two days ago, and was barely reported by any other mainstream media:
Reuters reportsPalmer had “all (his) papers in order,” according to Zimbabwe EnvironmentalMinister Oppah Muchinguri-Kashiri, who told reporters on Monday thatPalmer could not be charged.
According to thereport, Muchinguri-Kashiri said: “We approached the police and then theProsecutor General, and it turned out that (Walter) Palmer came to Zimbabwebecause all the papers were in order.
Muchinguri-Kashirihad said in July that Zimbabwean police and prosecutors would work to ensurePalmer returned to Zimbabwe to face poaching charges.
But on Monday shetold reporters in Harare that Palmer can now safely return to Zimbabwe as a”tourist” because he had not broken the southern African country\’shunting laws. She said the police and the National Prosecuting Authority hadcleared Palmer of wrongdoing.
Whoa. Wait a minute. What happened here?
I think I may be able to answer that question.
When Walter Palmer went to Zimbabwe, he filled out some papers and paid a huge fee – about $50,000 – to kill a lion. This was not some under-the-table agreement with a guy in a hood, it was a completely legal agreement with the government.
Palmer did not aspire to kill Cecil in particular, any lion would have done just as well. He only did so because Cecil was the lion his guides brought him to.
This in no way makes Walter Palmer any less of a jerk – “jerk” being the nicest description I can think of for someone whose idea of hunting is being taken to an animal that has no possible defense against his weaponry and killing it – not for food or the value of its hide, but just for “sport”. I have no respect for Palmer at all.
But, whether I like what he did or not, this is legal in Zimbabwe, and that is where Palmer was at the time.
In any event, none of this was deterring the Zimbabwean authorities – not initially, anyway. They wanted Palmer on a silver platter.
So what caused them to make a u-turn and tell him there\’s no longer any problem/he\’s welcome to come back?
Well, I can\’t prove it. But I would bet that it had a lot to do with the likelihood that the income derived from other “hunters” – and, evidently, there are quite a few of them willing to shell out this kind of money – summarily dried up when the government went after Palmer.
Why take a chance that, if your guides screw up, your life is going to be ruined and you might face jail time? Go kill a defenseless animal somewhere else.
Therefore, I speculate, Zimbabwe decided the $50,000 a pop from these “hunters” was more valuable to them then getting and trying Walter Palmer. Show the world that he\’s okey-dokey with them, and those fat “hunting” fees will start coming in again.
We\’ll never know for sure…but that\’s my guess.
What we do know for sure, though, is that the news coverage of Walter Palmer\’s “exoneration” is a bare tip of the iceberg compared to the coverage when this story first broke.
Reminds me a lot of the Chris Christie “bridgegate” scandal – which, though it was nothing with nothing even if he was involved in closing a couple of lanes on the George Washington Bridge for a few days, generated non-stop media coverage for months anyway. But when the Eric Holder-led DOJ (which would have loved to nail Christie) exonerated him, the same media barely reported it. Suddenly it was no story at all. Just like Walter Palmer\’s exoneration.
Quite a media we have…..
