Continuing to Chase the Wrong Rabbit
Judge in Craig Case 'Doesn't Suffer Fools'
EDINA, Minn. -- The star of today's legal proceedings is not Sen. Larry Craig, the Idaho Republican who's trying desperately to rescue his political career. Instead, it's Judge Charles Porter, who effectively holds Craig's legal and political fate in his hands.
While the two figures could not find themselves in more different legal predicaments, Porter and Craig do share at least a similar career arc toward public service. Both men were born in 1945, pre-Baby Boomers (barely) and definitely not part of the "Greatest Generation" that fought and won the war. And after a few different career moves in their early 30s -- Craig climbing the political ladder in local Idaho politics while Porter privately practiced law in Minnesota -- the two men both achieved critical success in 1980, a year that proved pivotal to the next 27 years of their lives.
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The common thread to all areas of decline in American society are woven through allowing elected officials to accept money--in any form--from those doing business with the governement.
Money as the root of all evil has been replaced in the modern lexicoon--the new paradigm is the paid vote. It is illegal to stand in front of a voting place and pay money for votes, but legal (and actively promoted) to pay off Henry Waxman and Teddy Kennedy and all other members of the conspiratorial aggregation we call Congress. They have made it legal. They, who make the laws, have chosen to make laws that pay them bribes.
All this fanfare about Bush illegalities and the 'failures of the Democrats' and 'Larry Craig's wide stance' pale before the consistent purchase of democratic government in America by the highest bidder.
THAT is something worth rioting in the streets to condemn and change. Our constitutional guarantees of representative government are not being damaged, nor are they being taken from us--they are being bought, purchased illegally from those who are sworn to represent us and instead sell their votes.
If the ACLU wants some work to do--there is the beginning.
This is not wild-eyed rhetoric. It is truth. That the nation gets outraged by Larry Craig or the Jena Six and continues to ignore the truth is the sword we choose to fall on.
* For more in-depth articles by Jim on Washington at Work, check out Opinion-Columns.com