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This week’s output will be devoted to tying up loose ends from previous
articles so that next month I can make a fresh beginning and in the in the fire of
returning spring my winter-garment of repentance fling. To show you what I
mean:
One of my articles was an impassioned plea to rescue the Supreme Court from
the temptations of Washington and plant it somewhere in Middle America where it
could get back in touch with the grass roots and the fresh air instead of the
decadent drawing rooms of the power brokers who throw all those really great
parties in D.C. Nobody listened, but right after that it was discovered that
Justice Scalia of the Court and Vice President Chaney had gone duck hunting
together, and what do you know, Chaney had a case before the court concerning an
energy study group he headed whose records were wanted by some people Chaney
didn’t want to have them. As a scandal it’s bush league compared to what we’
re used to out of Washington, but it does show the pitfalls that would be
avoided by moving the Court out of town to the heartland. If they were in Kansas
or Missouri or some such place Scalia would have done his shooting with the
leading banker or the parish priest or whoever and nobody would have cared
except the ducks. In Washington he encounters dangerous characters like Chaney and
right away he’s…Front Page! And all the time all he was thinking was that
he should be congratulated just for finding Chaney, who’s well known for his
Jean Valjean existence since 9/11.
Years ago it didn’t seem to matter if the justices hung out with government
officials, even though they were almost bound to have cases coming before the
Court. Everyone sues the government after all, so it’s a foregone conclusion
that this will happen. All the same I remember pictures of Dean Acheson and
Felix Frankfurter strolling to work together quite openly without any attempt to
hide their guilty relationship. Acheson, you see, was the Secretary of State
and Frankfurter was on the Court. They were Georgetown neighbors and
commuted to business together in the mornings. Possibly they even got together for a
drink or two in the evenings when at home. Those were innocent days, though,
and no one ever even suspected what they were up to, whatever it was.
A guy who didn’t get his picture taken with his friends was Justice William
O. Douglas, whom I’ve mentioned unfavorably before this. Douglas’s friends
were mostly lawyers, the best known of whom was Clark Clifford, who later became
Secretary of Defense. Before that he was the most famous lawyer in
Washington, with a perfect winning record in the Supreme Court. He hedged his bets in
the Court by lending Douglas thousands of dollars under the table which were
never repaid. Not in cash at any rate, but Clifford didn’t care about that.
He won his cases, you see. He was a believer in that old legal maxim that it’s
good to know the law, but it’s better to know the judge.
So back to Nature, Supreme Court. Green Acres for you. Forsake the corrupt
streets of the big city and get out there where America lives and the longhorn
cattle feed on the lowly jimpson weed. Well anyway get off the East Coast.
Don’t worry that nobody’ll be able to find you. The kind of people who bring
cases to the Court would find you if you set up housekeeping on the space
shuttle. As Abe Lincoln said when encouraging lawyers to compose disputes
instead of stirring them up "there will still be business enough".
Now we come to another topic that requires elaboration beyond what I was able
to give it in my first treatment. I wrote a little about Time magazine
naming the American servicemen as People of the Year with one woman representing
the female side of the U. S. contingent in Iraq. The story said she was a
medic which caused me to ask why was she pictured with a submachine gun cradled in
her arms instead of a wounded soldier?
I still don’t know the answer to this question, but as to one other which may
have occurred to some people, the story itself provided that. As the only
woman in her squad she is provided with a private room in the barracks instead
of bunking in with the rest of the troops. Her room is of course off limits to
them.
All right, I’m skeptical about this, but I’m not about to try to be funny
about it. I had the thought, but Iraq is no joke and no place to joke about. I
just hope the Army knows what it’s doing in this case and that it’s doing
the right thing. And I’ll say no more.
No more.
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