Meet one of San Fransicko's celebrities

A very flattering photo of Bernie Ward

If you live anywhere but the San Francisco Bay Area, the name Bernie Ward probably doesn't mean much to you.

It didn't mean much to me until I moved to Northern California in 1990 to take over the historic Sacramento Union newspaper and overheard this radio talk-show host maligning me, calling me names, railing about the direction in which I had taken the paper and, of course, never bothering to pick up the phone to discuss his reckless allegations.

That was my introduction to this radical, anti-American, anti-Christian, anti-military pervert.

Now it's time for the rest of America to meet him.

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I always knew something was just not right about this guy. I mean, you can have political disagreements with people, or religious differences, and it doesn't need to get ugly. I have regular dialogue with hosts from Air America who are perfect gentlemen – who understand good people can disagree with one another without resorting to name-calling.

Bernie Ward was never one of those people.

But there was more than that. This guy was just not all there. He was smart, in an intellectual way – fast on his feet. But he was clearly unbalanced. He wasn't playing with a full deck of the soul.

He struck me as evil – from my very first impression.

Lo and behold if Bernie Ward was not indicted last December for possessing and distributing child pornography.

He insists on his innocence, of course. He was merely involved in an investigation of the subject matter – one he was planning to share with the rest of the world in an upcoming book.

But then earlier this month a television station in San Francisco obtained chat log transcripts of instant message conversations Ward had with the woman who turned him in to the police – an Internet dominatrix.

I'm not going to tell you my conclusions about that evidence. I'm going to quote Counterpunch's Debbie Nathan, who shares many of Bernie Ward's political prejudices. She apparently looked into the matter herself believing Ward might be getting framed.

"The chat logs show that, whatever Ward was doing with her, it cannot by any stretch of the imagination be called 'reporting,'" wrote Nathan, whose beats are sexual politics and immigration. "Instead, the logs make clear that Ward was spinning intricate bondage and discipline fantasies with the woman."

But, it gets worse – much worse.

Without prompting, Ward sent the dominatrix child porn. After she turned them into police and began cooperating in their investigation, he sent more. And, incredibly and bizarrely, he also sent detailed accounts of having sex with his own teenage children.

Now, Bernie Ward has lost his radio job – as he should have. But, as my friend San Francisco-based national talk-radio star Michael Savage points out, why were Bernie Ward's children not pulled out of his home as a result of this investigation?

Could it be, as Savage suggests, his former boss, Sen. Barbara Boxer, for whom he worked for three years as chief legislative assistant, intervened on behalf of her old charge? Could it be the San Fransicko political establishment just couldn't bear to see one of their own humiliated any further? Could it be there are two standards of justice in San Fransicko – one for the political and cultural elite and the other for everyone else?

If you've got the stomach for it, you can read the police report on Savage's site.

As a newsman, I can tell you it is the rule, not the exception, for children to be removed from the household in these circumstances. Interviews with the children are not even considered by law enforcement to be valid if they are not protected from possible victimizers.

I've seen a lot of ugliness and sin and depravity in my job as a journalist over the last three decades. Nevertheless, I am shocked about the way this Bernie Ward investigation has proceeded. Yes, even in San Fransicko, this is surprising to me.

One of these days, we'll probably learn that Bernie Ward got off with a slap on the wrist. And, knowing his predilection for dominatrixes, he will probably enjoy it.

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