Monday, September 18, 2006
There is an interesting study to be written about US Attorney Generals, I think. They seem to come in three basic flavors: Crook, Crony, and Parson. Maybe that's just two flavors, now that I think of it, and I suppose there have been AGs that were neither Crooked Cronies nor Parsons, but not many. To the IBA this week, in Chicago, and today at lunch the keynote speaker was Dick Thornburgh-- the guy that was Reagan's AG after Ed Meese. Thornburgh fits squarely in the Parson mode. His sermon this afternoon was on the importance of keeping our institutions free from corruption, and he favored us with three examples from his career. He was undersecretary general to the United Nations from 1992 to 1993, and felt that that institution was insufficiently zealous in guarding against corruption, leading to, inter alia, the Oil for Food scandal. Wouldn't have happened if they'd listened to Dick-- he told us so. He was also the court appointed examiner in the WorldCom bankruptcy proceedings, and he was filled with scorn for WorldCom's board, KPMG, and WorldCom's investment bankers. Fair enough, I'd say.
Finally, he favored us with a story about his experience on the independent panel set up by CBS to investigate the so-called Memogate controversy-- remember? Dan Rather and his producer didn't adequately authenticate documents about George W. Bush's military service.
One of my little pet peeves is the misuse of the phrase "begs the question". The Memogate scandal is a great example of what the expression is supposed to mean. The documents CBS used were fake, therefore Bush served honorably. Thornburgh stopped short of actually saying this, but just barely, and it was embarrassing to be in a room full of lawyers from all over the world who knew exactly what had happened, and exactly how the American electorate had been made chumps.
I wonder how long it will be before we Americans are restored to the position of respect we once had in the world. Quite a while, I think, when even a guy like Dick Thornburgh-- a guy a never liked, but who I never had any reason to think of as a dissembling son of a bitch-- uses Memogate as an example of the importance of integrity. How much more refreshing if he'd talked about the crisis in American democracy caused by the Supreme Court when it injected itself into the political process-- or about the decline in respect for the Supreme Court, caused by the same thing. There were a lot of lawyers from a lot of places that would have been interested in hearing what he had to say about that.
Finally, he favored us with a story about his experience on the independent panel set up by CBS to investigate the so-called Memogate controversy-- remember? Dan Rather and his producer didn't adequately authenticate documents about George W. Bush's military service.
One of my little pet peeves is the misuse of the phrase "begs the question". The Memogate scandal is a great example of what the expression is supposed to mean. The documents CBS used were fake, therefore Bush served honorably. Thornburgh stopped short of actually saying this, but just barely, and it was embarrassing to be in a room full of lawyers from all over the world who knew exactly what had happened, and exactly how the American electorate had been made chumps.
I wonder how long it will be before we Americans are restored to the position of respect we once had in the world. Quite a while, I think, when even a guy like Dick Thornburgh-- a guy a never liked, but who I never had any reason to think of as a dissembling son of a bitch-- uses Memogate as an example of the importance of integrity. How much more refreshing if he'd talked about the crisis in American democracy caused by the Supreme Court when it injected itself into the political process-- or about the decline in respect for the Supreme Court, caused by the same thing. There were a lot of lawyers from a lot of places that would have been interested in hearing what he had to say about that.
// posted by Bill @ 9:50 PM 
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