Congress has returned to Washington and nothing will be the same. As Democrats take control of the Senate, President Bush will have to dust off that old rhetoric about being elected to serve all the people and see how it works now.
Let’s say the slate is clean and it’s a brand new day. Let me be the first to reach across party lines, not as an opinionated partisan, but as a potential partner, as a uniter, not a divider.
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This week’s story is a fable, and since this is an age of instant gratification, I’ll give you the moral up front: honesty is always the best policy.
Here’s the story: Once upon a time, a nation at war discovered one of its chemical weapons, Agent Orange, was not just killing trees and non-combatants, but also American soldiers. The top brass in the military and government had to decide between doing right by its veterans or protecting the financial interests of Dow and Monsanto, the companies that made Agent Orange. The government decided to screw the veterans, because after all, the only people who were exposed were the ones who were not able to dodge the draft or hide out in National Guard units, the way future presidents did. One little lie can’t hurt, can it?
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Ignore the little guy at your peril. In 2000, the only presidential candidate who bothered to visit Vermont was John McCain. Vermont was too small, only three electoral votes, too predictable, the first – and for a while the only – state won by Al Gore on election night. It just wasn’t worth anyone’s time to swing through here.
Two thousand is also the year Jim Jeffords was re-elected to the Senate, and it wasn’t pretty. Republican Jim handled his Democratic opponent easily enough, but it was the state’s Republicans, most of whom are well to the senator’s right, who caused him the most grief, some razzing him on Election Night.
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“Nothing is either good or bad, only wishing makes it so.” It’s an adage that fits snugly around Monday’s Supreme Court ruling on medical marijuana.
At first glance, it seems to be bad news: the court votes eight to nothing (with one recusal) to prohibit the distribution of marijuana for medical purposes. It’s well-known that many doctors recommend the use of marijuana for patients with AIDS, cancer and other illnesses. Marijuana use can fight nausea and increase appetite, some say it eases glaucoma by relieving pressure on the eyes. Now, it seems, people who are suffering may have a harder time finding relief. That’s bad news. The good news is that the Supreme Court ruling is limited to the distribution of marijuana and court watchers say the larger question of medical marijuana use remains unaddressed.
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Consider Gerald R. Ford, our nation’s 38th president. The only man to sit in the Oval Office who was elected to neither the presidency nor the vice presidency. His tenure was fourth shortest, only William Henry Harrison, Zachary Taylor and James Garfield served fewer days, and they all died in office, Mr. Taylor from eating too many cucumbers.
And yet – history may not have finished writing Mr. Ford’s legacy. During the recent presidential transition, one hundred and some odd days ago, the popular sentiment on the Sunday morning talk shows was that the “adults” were taking charge of the administration again. The new guys were considered “adults” because they had served in previous administrations, some as far back as the Ford administration.
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There are people, judges and law school professors and tee vee pundits, mostly, who would have us believe the law is a thing apart from everyday society – above mere politics and fashion and moved only by logic, precedent and justice.
But it’s not so. The statutes our legislatures pass and the decisions our courts render are a reflection of the contemporary world. The Dred Scott decision, which said an escaped slave would find refuge nowhere in America, could only have come in the context of 1857, and so it was with Plessy v. Ferguson, Brown v. the Topeka Board of Education and Roe v. Wade.
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Greenpeace Goes to Hell
Like anyone else in this late industrial age, I know several people with cancer. One friend reports that people seem shy about using the “c” word in her presence, so they resort to euphemisms; they ask about her “health” or her “condition.” For these people, perhaps even the word “cancer” is too much, perhaps they fear mentioning the word will invoke the disease. A century ago, people had similar fears of using the word “devil.” Our superstitions don’t change, only the words we fear to say.
If cancer is our new devil, then perhaps Louisiana is hell. Greenpeace, the environmental group unafraid to speak unpopular words, has a slogan for Louisiana: Cancer Starts Here. The stretch of the Mississippi between Baton Rouge and New Orleans is called “Chemical Corridor” by some and “Cancer Alley” by others, the difference depending on whether the one has gotten rich or gotten cancer from the chemicals.
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