Vermont governor reverses track on drug cases

Since I've been writing about this for about a month or so now, I thought I'd offer what seems to be the last of it. Governor Jim Douglas has announced that he's reversing his policy of skipping State's Attorney Robert Sand on major drug cases. The Governor's reasoning: he'd originally thought that instead of exercising discretion, Sand had a blanket policy of sending first time drug offenders with no history to a court-sponsored diversion program.

The governor's excuse is that when the story broke, he was misinformed. Seems he was encouraged by Sand's recent meetings with local (and Sand-supporting) law enforcement. It probably helped that the newspapers around were also flooded with letters chastising the governor as well as prominent folk like Vermont's former Chief Justice taking the governor to task, but if the governor wants to say he was misinformed, well, there you go.

As an interesting side note, kudos to the newspaper the Barre-Montpelier Times-Argus for the thoroughness of their coverage here. They pinpointed what actually may have been the cause for all the problems: a local TV station doing what television reporters often do, gloss over the facts. Compare WCAX's coverage on this with the earlier link. So much for checking your facts before going on air, eh WCAX?

General rants about the quality of television news coverage to be had in the comment thread. Buenas suerte!

Well played, waitress

The NYT Online posted a kinda-interesting article about the presidential campaigns rolling out rapid-response web sites to provide fact checking and rebut stories the campaigns deem offensive or inaccurate. Hillary Clinton's campaign has used it in relation to a story saying that she didn't leave a tip at an Iowa restaurant. Apparently this web site was deployed to counter the notion that Hillary is a cheapskate.

But that's not the best part of the story.

The best part of this article is waitress Anita Esterday's quote at the end: "There’s kids dying in the war, the price of oil right now — there’s better things in this world to be thinking about than who served Hillary Clinton at Maid-Rite and who got a tip and who didn’t get a tip." I hope, really, really hope that there are a lot of Iowans like Ms. Esterday. The folks in Iowa and New Hampshire have the pleasure of more or less choosing the Presidential nominees. As this article shows, instead of the war, the economy, energy, the environment, and a pile of other important issues, our candidates are worried about, well, bullshit. I hope that the rest of Iowa is as good as Ms. Esterday about separating the wheat from the chaff in this election season.

Pakistan and the rule of law

In case you hadn't heard, there's a revolt going on in Pakistan. General Musharraf has arrested justices of the Pakistani Supreme Court and other high courts and tried to reconsitute them with justices and judges who are loyal to him. It's like FDR's court-packing plan, but with home arrests instead of semi-retirement. In response, the nation's lawyers, along with some opposition party folks have taken to the streets and (as far as the lawyers go) have refused to practice before the reconstituted tribunals.

What gets me the most about all this is the way the American television media is treating this. I was at the gym last night on the treadmill watching CBS and Fox (someone was flipping channels, thank God they didn't turn it to CMT) as they discussed the revolts. The talking heads called this a revolt by reactionaries and revolutionaries and other like-sounding bad names. I thought to myself "how disingenuous can our media be?"

Really, folks, this is about the rule of law. The rule of law is a great thing: it makes our every day intereactions, from the times you have to talk to the police to the time you try to set up a 401(k) predictable and stable. That's good. Makes things more peaceful and businessmen will tell you its one of the keys to economic strength. Pakistan doesn't have it right now, and it doesn't have it because General Musharraf is afraid that people are going to go against him.

But, to listen to our media, these are a bunch of crazed hooligans and Islamofascists (another disingenuous term) running around Islamabad tearing the place up. It's lawyers fighting for what we have, and, as a lawyer, I would do the same if George Bush tried to replace Justice Ginsberg with Robert Bork and the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals with the board of Halliburton. I just wish our media would call it like it is.