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is an established disaster, that being the destruction, in a country of
which it was one of the pillars, of the sacrosanct principle that, even
in an accusatory system, a man has the right to the respect of his
honor and his integrity as long as his guilt has not been established.
In the case of Dominique Strauss-Kahn, this principle was flouted by
the tabloids (The New York Post, The Daily News, etc.) whose
competitions in humiliation transformed him, from the first moment,
into a monster. He was trampled on by that part of the "serious"
press, which, like Time magazine, with its astounding cover
illustrating the “lies” and “arrogances” of the “powerful” with a
photo of a pig, committed what the worst of the tabloids did not dare
to.
And he was crushed, then, by that fraction of the American judicial
apparatus that, by putting Dominique Strauss-Kahn in stocks, by
humiliating him before the entire world, by ruthlessly pursuing him,
has probably ruined his life. That is what I wished to say when I
wrote that, after George W. Bush’s invention of the concept of “pre-
emptive war,” America, under Cyrus Vance, Jr., has perhaps begun to
invent the idea, scarcely less horrifying, of “pre-emptive penalty.”
And please allow a friend of this country to repeat, here, what he has
said in his own country, when media-judicial tornadoes of the same
kind have swept the land: that all this calls, at the least, for serious,
honest, and substantial soul-searching.

Bernard-Henri Lévy is one of France's most famed philosophers, a
journalist, and a bestselling writer. He is considered a founder of the
New Philosophy movement and is leading thinker on religious issues,
genocide, and international affairs. His most recent book, Left in
Dark Times: A Stand Against the New Barbarism, discusses political
and cultural affairs as an ongoing battle against the inhumane.

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