ME

My photo
I am retired from government, law enforcement, politics and all other pointless endeavors. I eat when I am hungry and sleep when I am tired.

Tuesday, October 22, 2019

ARE WE ALL EUROPEANS NOW?

President Trump now finds himself in a European conundrum where winning office is only a probationary status pending establishment legal proceedings in countries like Italy and France.

Assassination by lawyer using every jot and tittle of the law and legal procedure is not completely new in the USA, but it now seems to have taken hold. We need to take note of this departure from American norms.  Americans in the past were not tolerant of legal niggling after elections. Neither was the legal community.  There was a recognition that aspects of American governance, like the Electoral College, Congressional redistricting and the like, were properly political.  Within a system designed by the founders for men and not angels, some leeway was to be expected. Wheeling and dealing are to some extent inevitable in governance. If this rises to high crimes and misdemeanors, investigation and prosecution are warranted. Below that level, there is always the next election.  Certainly, sub-rosa investigations of corruption and other wrongdoing were expected.  But such investigations were for the purpose of gathering ammunition for the next election. We now have organized scalp hunting of elected officials as a permanent coup. Trump finds himself in company with Silvio Berlusconi, Jacques Chirac and too many Israeli worthies to count.

If all this justice-seeking were a reflection of some genuine and even-handed love of virtue among its practitioners, that would be respectable if tiresome.  But it is not.  It reflects the reduction of law into mere tactics.  It's simply political war levied against election winners by agents of the administrative state and the left. I see no reason to believe they will ever stop until they get a President they are prepared to accept. 

A good rule in human affairs is, never back your opponent into a corner.  By launching assaults on elected leaders for corrupt practices no worse than your own, you convince large segments of the population that voting for candidates who represent them is pointless.  Convincing millions that the system is rigged, is asking for alternative means of public action.  Petty corruption has been and is part of public life. Everyone knows this.  If every election from now on is the starting gun for a race to indict, we will soon be beyond the realm of electoral politics altogether. 

1 comment: