A Letter to President Obama

Cowboy Ethics and Cowboy Values

QUOTE OF THE DAY:
Geography has made us neighbors. History has made us friends. Economics has made us partners, and necessity has made us allies. Those whom God has so joined together, let no man put asunder.
John F. Kennedy

 

HOW WELL I REMEMBER JFK CALLING THE RUSSIAN BLUFF

Jon’s history lesson for the day has done it to me again.  I should be finishing some important work right now, but when I read the item that reminds us that on this date in history, John Fitzgerald Kennedy began the famed blockade of Cuba, I couldn’t stand not remembering it in print.

For those of you not old enough to have lived through the years of “Camelot”, the John Fitzgerald Kennedy days, you cannot imagine the dramatic swing of emotion in this country.  We, as kids in our early twenties, had come through the end of a war that we knew was bad because our brothers were overseas, but we weren’t old enough yet to know how terribly close all of the civilized world came to destruction.

If Hitler had not chosen to invade Russia and lost his motorized army, left bogged in Russian mud with no petroleum to run, had he lasted long enough to perfect the intercontinental missiles that were being readied, freedom would have been on the bare edge of the cliff.  If Harry Truman had not had the nerve to use a bomb so horrible in order to shorten the war in the Pacific and save hundreds of thousands of  American lives, there is no telling how we would have been mired in a battle crippling to our way of life.

Then, we came through Korea and we were old enough to know that both China and Russia were so volatile as to endanger our peace on these shores.  Intercontinental missiles were now becoming better known and more feared.

After Korea, the Eisenhower years with John Foster Dulles as Secretary of State, kept us on the “brink of war”, and came to be known as the years of “brinksmanship diplomacy”.

On to the scene came the young Senator from Massachusetts with the terribly infectious smile, and the unruly lock of hair.  He and his young family, he a war hero, he and his family enjoying the out of doors in tag football, sailing, and swimming.  We heard his message of hope, of the true mission of this Nation in defending our freedom and offering a helping hand only to those who shared our belief and commitment to freedom.

During the campaign with Nixon, we enjoyed his smiling, witty replies to Nixon’s stock in trade political platitudes, then his responses based on hope and the traditions of this Nation---not from the political side but the human desire for freedom.

He was elected, and his inaugural speech thrilled a world---here was a man asking for us to sacrifice to restore America to the greatness which had once been respected around the world by all freedom seeking peoples, and feared by all those who would deprive people of freedom.   “Urban myth” perhaps, but stories have it that after that speech, a greater percentage of young graduates and young professionals turned to government service than ever before or since.  We do know that a huge number of professional people, and bright young people who went on to famed careers, chose to enter the Peace Corps and provide help to the underprivileged in this country and around the world.

Then, we learned that the Russians were preparing to ship intercontinental missiles to Cuba, where, just 90 miles off our southeastern shore the forces of  Fidel Castro were readying rocket sites.  Castro, the so-called and self-proclaimed liberator, was in fact more a tyrant than the corrupt government he displaced.  His hatred of the United States was multi-caused, but fierce.

Kennedy’s  ambassador to the United Nations, the best ever in our history, was Adlai Stevenson who had been a successful governor of Illinois, a far less successful candidate for president, but a dynamic and inspiring diplomat.  He laid out for the United Nations our proof, from intelligence reports to photos taken from our high flying surveillance planes showing the rocket sites, to information that the Russian navy was steaming toward Cuba with missiles.

By the time he finished, the world knew that we stood at a cross-roads to war and peace.  If we allowed the Russian navy to deliver the missiles, we were to be at the mercy of a madman,  within easy striking distance of our south and east.  If we stopped the Russians we ran the risk of war.

In one of his most dynamic speeches to the Nation, president Kennedy announced that he was blockading Cuba with the United States Navy.  He served deliberate, final and precise warning to Russia that we would not permit the Russian ships to pass our blockade.  I well remember the tenseness with which my wife, Lodice, and three of our law school friends and I as we watched the speech, and then talked of the consequences and results.  Of one thing we were certain,  the United States of America was taking a stand to protect its people, and was ready to go to pre-emptive war to avoid  invasion of our hemisphere.

The hours that followed, and throughout the next day, no one talked of anything but the blockade and what would the Russians do.  It was interesting to note that no one seemed to even consider what the United States would do.  Our president had made it clear---the die was cast.  We knew that he had no intention of allowing the Russians to deliver missiles to Cuba.  We didn’t doubt that he was ready to battle the Russian navy.

The only question we had was whether Khrushchev would challenge the young leader, or whether he would back down.  Two of my friends who had come to Chicago from England to attend the U. of Chicago, thought that Khrushchev would fight, would provoke war---some thought he would use it as an excuse to take on China at the same time.  But, then, England was always shaking in fear of what Russia might do.  Probably the experience of the  awful bombings that London took from the Nazi rockets, and the nearness of Russia caused that real fear.

But the rest of our group believed that the Russians would back down, that they would fear that China would take advantage of the situation to take on Russia on their common border if Russia and the United States fought.  Of course none of us knew what the president knew.  We didn’t know the things that were going on which have so vividly been portrayed in the movie “13 days”.  We were closer to actual war than perhaps any of us on the street really knew.  And, the question of which way the Chinese would jump was key.  No doubt that China would move one way or the other.  They perhaps were not ready, and as it has turned out, it was to their advantage to move their power along slowly.  But, at the moment no one knew for sure.

I can’t begin to tell you the tenseness that befell a city like Chicago.  People on the street stopped to watch any newscast that came on , watching on television sets in store windows.  We didn’t have thirteen dozen cable news stations fighting desperately for something to fill the screens 24/7.  It wasn’t as though one could just turn on a tv set and instantly get the so-called “up to the minute” news.  So, wherever you were, if a news bulletin came on, or wherever you were when a newscast came on, you stopped and watched.  We stopped that night in a favorite hamburger “joint” on 53^rd street in south Chicago, and when the Huntley-Brinkley NBC news came on, all talk stopped and we all watched, everyone in the shop including waitresses and cooks.  Lodice and I later talked about the cook pushing the burgers to the back of the grill and coming out in front to watch the news.

Then, the news came.  The Russian navy had turned back, refusing to confront the United States Navy.  In the law school, a PA announcement was made and cheers went up through the whole building.  Three friends and a professor and I were having coffee and could hear the cheers that just didn’t seem to want to end.  The chimes in Rockefeller Memorial Chapel began to herald the news.  Or so Lodice said.  She was much closer to the Chapel than we in the law school.

There was a pride that it is hard to express.  Our president, our  Navy, our military had stopped the Russians and sealed off the idiot in Cuba.  Little did we know that we should have had even more pride in the diplomats who were feverishly working the phones, pushing buttons, finding out the pulse of Khrushchev and getting the “right” message to him through the “right” people to convince him that our young president and this Republic would not back down.

Its been a long time since that time.  Its been a long time since I have felt such a high level of pride in this Republic, or high level of faith in our president.  Sarah the “great” Palin might call me un-American for saying that, but what she thinks is pride and what I think is pride are two completely different things.  I don’t have to be un-American to say that I haven’t had pride and faith in either of our last two presidents, and not much more in the one prior to that.  I think Ronald Reagan’s “Mr. Gorbachev, come here to this gate!  Mr. Gorbachev, open this gate!  Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall!”  is the last time.  When I heard that speech, I thought of JFK’s “Ich bin ein Berliner” speech that thrilled all of Europe, and I thought of  the Cuban blockade.  Reagan would have put the navy there; he would have stood his ground with Cuban supremacy in the balance.   

Since 1952, a  period of 56 years, in my mind, there have been only two presidents worthy of our forefathers: JFK and Reagan.  Hopefully, we now have another.  He has the opportunities; both Kennedy and Reagan sincerely believed that problems created opportunities.  If that is true, Barack Obama has the greatest opportunities in our history.  To show how little I believe partisan politics has to do with pride, success and our future, my favorites are a democrat and a republican—JFK and RR---so will Obama tip the scales to the “D” for me---for all our sakes I hope so.

"Do you realize the responsibility I carry? I'm the only person standing between Richard Nixon and the White House."
John F. Kennedy

 

 

ON THIS DATE IN HISTORY THE IMPEACHMENT OF NIXON BEGAN

As Jon’s history lesson for February 6 shows, on that date, in 1974, the House of Representatives began its effort to specify the counts of Impeachment to level against Richard Milhouse Nixon.

Nixon had been defeated by John Fitzgerald Kennedy in his first run for the presidency in 1960.  It was during that campaign that the refreshing Kennedy made the statement above, that he was the only man standing between Nixon and the Presidency.  Nixon had been vice president to President Dwight Eisenhower. 

Many voters were squeamish about the “dirty trick” type of campaigning that Nixon had engaged in during his early years running for national office in California.  He had leveled untrue claims that his opponent, well respected woman Senator, was communist.  The country was still worried about communism in those years in the early to mid 50’s, and his spurious claims were effective, while being deplorable. 

At one point in the campaign, as Nixon was running for the nomination, Eisenhower was asked to name something that Nixon had done as vice president that would qualify him to be president.  Ike’s answer was revealing:  “if you’ll give me a week or so, I might think of one.”

Kennedy prevented America from suffering the pangs of being represented by President Nixon.  But Nixon was not dead, and finally was elected in 1968,and re-elected in 1972.

Many of our readers are too young to remember the drama of that time.  Prior to the election of 1972, an election which Nixon would have won easily with very little effort, a gang of inept political thugs had burglarized the Democratic National Committee offices in the famed Watergate Hotel and Apartment complex in Washington.  Under the direction of a couple of hack ex-spies, who showed the creativity of the Katz-en-Jammer Kids or Laurel and Hardy or Bud Abbott and Lou Costello, a group of Cubans committed a burglary in very careless fashion.  What made the crime even more comical was that it was so unnecessary.  Nixon’s election over the wimpish Democrat was a certainty.  He actually won in a landslide.

The Cubans were discovered in the act by District of Columbia police, which in itself was a miracle in those days.  The police were alerted when a security officer found a piece of tape securing the lock on an access door.

The newspapers reported the burglary as an “oh yeah, here’s what else happened in the crime news last night” event.  The Washington Post gave it nodding recognition.

What was obvious to all, as the case was sifted through prior to arraignment, was that the Cubans had no earthly reason for burglarizing a political office of the Democratic Party.  Someone paid them to commit the crime.  But, nobody was talking.  Not publicly that is.  In the White House talk was beginning as the President’s henchmen---Chuck Colson, John Ehrlechman H.R. Haldeman and John Dean (the president’s counsel)--- began to worry that someone would talk and find that the money that paid the Cubans came from the Republican Campaign funds.

Ultimately, as revealed by tapes recorded and kept by Nixon himself, Dean announced to Nixon that there was a “cancer” in the White House, and Nixon ordered a cover up of the truth.  Throughout the cover-up, the United States Attorney in D.C., the Attorney General, John Mitchell, the F.B.I., the C.I.A., the I.R.S., and “All the President’s Men”(name of the award winning book by Woodward and Bernstein of the Washington Post) covered up the truth.

A mediocre trial judge in D.C., John Sirica, heard the first phases of the Cubans trial, smelled a rat, and refused to simply let the case go by him easily.  The Cubans had been paid to plead guilty and just serve their time.  But, Sirica had different thoughts.  He made it known that he was going to get to the bottom of the case and find the truth.  At some point, as the case languished in his court, and the stonewalling went on, he stumbled on the fact that there were White House tapes.  He ordered them turned over, Nixon exerted executive privilege, and the United States Supreme Court unanimously ruled against Nixon and upheld Sirica’s order to turn the tapes over to the court.

Thus began a comedy of errors as Nixon listened to the tapes, for the purpose of marking any national security issues.  During this time, a critical portion of one tape suddenly was erased.  Nixon’s loyal secretary tried to take the blame by saying that she accidentally erased the tape while transcribing.  The idiocy of the claim was demonstrated by a re-enactment which showed that she would have had to tie herself into a pretzel type contortion to make the mistake.

The drama included a week-end in which Nixon fired the Attorney General, and the next in line in the Justice Department because they would not resist the Court’s order.

This is a short summary of one of the most dramatic and thrilling political intrigues ever witnessed in this country.  I think I will now watch “Frost-Nixon” and maybe even read “All the President’s Men” again.  The story is fascinating.

One of the most interesting and mysterious elements of the case was the informant who provided information to Woodward and Bernstein of the Post.  Nicknamed “Deep Throat” by the two reporters to conceal his identity, the informant kept information coming which led Woodward and Bernstein to each continuing step to keep the case alive in the Press.  Of course, during recent years, the identity of Deep Throat was revealed as Mark Felt who was high in the F.B.I. at the time.

 John Dean, the President’s counsel, testified to save himself.  As always in a big case like this, the prosecutors can win if they can reach one big rat who wants to cave in and save himself.  Without such jump the ship crooks, most big cases would not be solved.

After the indictments of many in the administration, the impeachment proceedings began in the House Judiciary Committee. Those proceedings which commenced on this date, were the most watched congressional action in history.  The proceedings were covered during daytime hours, and then repeated at night for those workers who couldn’t view it during daytime hours.

Several names came to the fore as real American representatives.  Barbara Jordan, a Congresswoman from Texas, showed a tenacity that won her acclaim by the media, and by a large majority of the American people (as revealed by the polls).  She had a magnificent, oratory type voice—some said it was like the voice of God.  Her questions penetrated the attempts to avert the issue and the truth.  She became such a champion of the people that an effort was made to nominate her for the presidency.

Paul Sarbanes of Maryland also showed himself to be a sound lawyer during hearings.  Sarbanes was elected while my wife, Lodice, and I lived in Baltimore.  He was a young lawyer, fairly well a novice in local politics, when he took on Congressman Garmatz, a long term incumbent who was elected over and over and over by support (money and votes) from the Longshoremen’s Union and other Unions in the Baltimore area.  What he did in Congress was help all union causes, and the individual citizen could point to nothing he did to help the citizenry.  But, he was a shoo-in because of he money available to him. Sarbanes and his wife began a low-cost, door-to-door campaign, going to every house in the District asking for votes.  Having the wife of a candidate for Congress come to your front door in Baltimore asking for votes for her husband was a shock and it got our attention.  Sarbanes won in one of the biggest upsets in Maryland history.  Garmatz and the Unions were shocked.  The Impeachment proceedings offered Sarbanes the chance to prove himself, and he did it so well that he continued to be re-elected, then became Senator and retired undefeated from the Senate years later.

South Carolina’s James Mann weighed in with workman-like analysis, and made it clear that the South was not going to be safe for Nixon.  Southern democrat members of the committee shored up the message.

Finally, after the evidence was heard, and the members debated for four days, the vote was taken.  Six Republicans, from the middle west, the south and the east, joined the Democrats on the committee and voted 27-11 to send Articles of Impeachment to the full House for vote.

As Nixon’s henchmen scrambled to get a realistic handle on how many votes they had in the House, and it became clearer by the day that not enough Republicans would hide their heads in the sand and support Nixon, the dynamite struck.  One of the tapes was found to have the “smoking gun”, the conversation in which Nixon told Haldeman that the F.B.I. had to be told that the Watergate case could “go no further”.  The cover-up was proved, and Nixon was persuaded to resign rather than lose the Impeachment fight in both the House and then the trial in the Senate.

So, in disgrace, Nixon, resigned and avoided an impeachment and conviction which were inevitable.  This time the man with 9 political lives ran out of luck.  Most Americans thought that he was finished in politics several years earlier when he lost the election for governor of California to democrat Pat Brown.  Nixon appeared on television, looking haggard and unshaven, and gave a rambling, confused concession speech in which he assured America that the media “wouldn’t have Dick Nixon to kick around any more”.  He appeared to be dead.

But, during the next few years he went to every corner of America to help every Republican who asked his help in raising funds and in campaigns.  He worked from the bottom up and regained the debt of the professionals in the party.  Then, helped out by the disastrous course of the Viet Nam war, he defeated a demoralized Democratic party to become President in 1968 (defeating Hubert Humphrey, Lyndon Johnson’s Vice President who couldn’t escape the administration’s handling of the war).  He won re-election in overwhelming fashion in 1972, only to fall to the depths of political hell in 1974.

And, his path to that hell began on February 6, in 1974.

 

  Our associated author, Patrick Dorinson today has analyzed the tax situation in California.  His analysis is something that readers in every state should consider; because in each state this year, the legislatures will be facing much the same issue.  Hopefully, more rather than fewer legislators will heed the advice of Patrick and face the issue as seriously has he has discussed it here.  And, once again, he, and we, resort to the words of Ronald Reagan who was the last good sense spokesman for fiscal responsibility and the national good of this Nation.

 

Inherit the Wind

By Patrick Dorinson

Created 02/04/2009 - 10:09

“He who troubleth his own house shall inherit the wind and the fool shall be servant to the wise of heart.” --Proverbs 11:29

“A House divided against itself cannot stand.” --Abraham Lincoln

In recent days, some members of the Assembly Republican caucus have faced withering criticism because they said they would consider tax increases if coupled with a hard spending cap and permanent spending cuts, along with concessions relaxing some labor and environmental laws to act as a stimulus for the beleaguered economy. Mind you, they said they would consider increases and have not actually voted on any.

Radio talk show hosts are calling for the Republicans’ heads on spikes and feeding their listeners red meat flavored with the names of these members. They are threatened with bullying tactics and cries of ending their careers.

Others have proposed resolutions to change the party’s by-laws to censure and even campaign against Republicans who vote for any tax increase. These resolutions would be brought before the delegates to the California Republican Party at the convention at the end of the month in Sacramento.

Let’s get one thing straight. I am not a fan of higher taxes and I think California has become Taxifornia. And like many of my fellow Californians, I am in no mood to continue funding wasteful spending and unnecessary government programs. I am also tired of budgets that take months to craft, are full of accounting gimmicks and are out of balance even before the ink on the Governor’s signature is dry after he signs them.

But I have also worked inside government at both the federal and state levels. I know how hard it is to cut spending and eliminate programs. One of the reasons it is so difficult is that, over the years, politicians have successfully granted entitlements to every strata of society. From welfare for the poorest to college loans for the middle class and tax breaks for business, when the budget knife is unsheathed, their advocates and lobbyists descend upon the Capitol and scream, “Cut somewhere else!”

This is not as simple as Republicans refusing to raise taxes and the Democrats refusing to cut spending. I wish it was that simple. This is about California finally beginning the long overdue process of reforming how the state takes money in and how it spends it. That is what Republicans are fighting for, while Democrats are merely trying to maintain the status quo.

We will never have a better opportunity to do that than right now. And while the delay in finding a solution is decried by some in the media and Democratic special interests and might cause some temporary pain, it will be worth it if we can at last bring some sanity to this ridiculous annual budget dance and bring some change we all can believe in.

In the past at budget time, Democrats, who have been in the majority for years, and Governors of both parties, have always hoped that in the end they could get the necessary Republican votes to cobble together the two thirds majority needed to pass a budget. They would go after termed out legislators, sometimes offering cushy jobs or seats on unnecessary commissions and boards in exchange for their aye vote.

But this year has been different.

Under the tenacious and principled leadership of Republican leaders, Mike Villines in the Assembly and Dave Cogdill in the Senate, Republicans have stood their ground against the Spendocrats at this fiscal Thermopylae. They have bought time so the voters could see the absolute financial mess the majority has foisted on California, and they are also trying to wring concessions from the majority like a spending cap, permanent spending cuts and reasonable changes to environmental and labor laws so that we can begin the arduous process of rebuilding our long neglected infrastructure. They are demonstrating how to be an effective opposition party.

They seem to be on the verge of getting some meaningful concessions from the Democrats and should be commended for their efforts. If they can get these concessions, it will be a victory that can be built upon in the coming years. This is the very tactic that Democrats have used effectively for years, and one Ronald Reagan himself believed in.

The days of the Democrats using their Soviet style negotiating tactics of “what’s ours is ours, what’s yours, we’ll negotiate” are over.

That is why it is so troubling that some Republicans feel the need to punish legislators like freshman Assemblyman Anthony Adams.

I don’t know Anthony, but from what I have heard he is a bright, earnest, energetic young man who has chosen a career in politics and government. He has worked at the San Bernardino County Board of Supervisors in various capacities so he knows the difficult choices that local governments must make during these tough times.

He will soon be asked to make one of those difficult choices himself. If some have their way, he will be signing his own political suicide note.

But by threatening to excommunicate him from the Republican Party, we are eating our seed corn. Sacrificing a new member with a bright future for making a tough and lonely decision is self-defeating.

Is this the purpose of the California Republican Party--to be the arbiters of ideological purity and the Inquisition responsible for the purging of members for perceived heretical acts?

If that is the case, we will see the continuing decline in our membership, and instead of meeting under Ronald Reagan’s “big tent” we will be meeting in a pup tent. Politics is about addition, not subtraction.

Political parties exist to win elections. Period. That is what we should be focusing on.

Rather than pushing punitive measures against our Republican legislators who have the heavy responsibility of making tough choices, how about spending our time at convention with planning for the 2010 election cycle? Things like voter registration, strengthening our grassroots, raising money, upgrading our technology, reaching out to new voters and positioning ourselves for victory.

How about discussing 2012? How we will compete when we will have new districts not drawn by the Legislature but by a new process that the voters passed in 2008?

How about spending our time putting together a Contract with California that outlines a new direction for our state with new ideas on how it is governed?

How about examining how we can bring new voters into our tent and not finding ways to keep them out?

These things and more are what we should be talking about at the Convention later this month, rather than cannibalizing ourselves to the delight of the Democrats.

If these kind of rules were in effect in 1967, Ronald Reagan would have been censured.

Why, you ask?

Early in 1967, newly elected Governor Ronald Reagan, who in 1966 had campaigned against new taxes to put California’s fiscal house in order, reached the conclusion that he could not close the budget gap without new taxes. Upon assuming office, he saw that the problems he had inherited were just too great and he had to change his position.

That April, he traveled to the Lafayette Hotel in Long Beach and addressed the conservative California Republican Assembly, California’s oldest Republican volunteer organization. They had been very supportive in his successful campaign and were angry that he had changed his mind on taxes.

Reagan gave an eloquent and detailed explanation of what he was going to do and why he felt he had to do so. He also told them of the Creative Society that he had campaigned on that would unleash the power of the people and their entrepreneurial spirit.

In the second part of the speech, he talked politics. It is here that he talks about his vision of the Republican Party as a “big tent”.

Read these words of Reagan, and they could have been written yesterday. It is exactly how we need to think today as we rebuild our party and open it to attract new members.

“We must keep the door open – offering our party as the only practical answer for those who, overall, are individualists. And because this is the great common denominator – this dedication to the belief in man’s aspirations as an individual – we cannot offer them a narrow sectarian party in which all must swear allegiance to prescribed commandments.

Such a party can be highly disciplined, but it does not win elections. This kind of party soon disappears in a blaze of glorious defeat, and it never puts into practice its basic tenets, no matter how noble they may be.

The Republican Party, both in this state and nationally, is a broad party. There is room in our tent for many views; indeed, the divergence of views is one of our strengths. Let no one, however, interpret this to mean compromise of basic philosophy or that we will be all things to all people for political expediency.”

Read the whole speech here [1].

For me, this speech is what it means to be a Republican.

And I encourage every Republican to read this speech before we rush to judgment, punish our own members and give succor to our opponents.

Patrick Dorinson

ON THIS DATE O.J. SIMPSON WAS HELD CIVILLY LIABLE FOR MURDER

 

 

After O.J. was acquitted on two counts of first degree murder, he was sued for wrongful death under the United States Civil Rights Act.  On this date in history, the jury found against O.J. finding him liable for the deaths of his wife and a delivery boy from a bar-lounge and restaurant.  Whether the delivery boy was a lover of the wife has never been settled one way or the other.  Even if so, neither of them should have been murdered.

 

But, they were, and O.J. was the only person ever put on trial for the murders.  The outcome of the murder trial is an example of how the criminal justice system doesn’t work.  And, I don’t mean because he was acquitted.  I mean because it demonstrates how the people are not represented by competent counsel.   How people with money can get a higher quality of “justice” than those without money.

 

The prosecutors,  Chris Darden, and Marcia  Armstrong

                               , were outgunned from the start.  Marcia was so ego-struck by being on national television each day, and Darden was so uncomfortable being played down to by Johnny Cochrane that he was clay in Johnny’s hands.  Neither of the prosecutors had done their homework.  Every line of attack the defense took against the lead detectives should have been thought out ahead of time, and the witnesses should have dealt with the flaws and vulnerabilities during direct examination so that the defense could not pry it out of them on cross, as though they tried to hide the flaws.

 

I watched the trial every day that I could, and those days when I missed the episodes I picked them up at night on replays.  When the defense started on the blood stained gloves and the horrible evidence record of the blood samples and exhibits, I knew that the prosecutors had badly managed and badly underestimated the defense.  The problems should have been brought forth in the direct examination by the prosecutors.  They weren/t and then the defense could maintain that the officers tried to hide the discrepancies from the jury. 

 

Those discrepancies came into dramatic light when the Fuhriman history in prejudice against Blacks came into play.  How the prosecutors wouldn’t or couldn’t have known of his use of anti-Black conversation privately and in public just simply escaped me at the time and still to this day eludes my ability to reason.  If the defense could dredge up that talk, so could the prosecutors have done so.  Either they were so enamored of their case that they forgot an axiom of prosecuting a criminal case, or they weren’t aware of it:  “Don’t let the defense take the offensive on matters peripheral to innocence or guilt.”

You’d better know, as a prosecutor, whether your witnesses have any albatrosses hanging around----the defense, if good, will find out, and you better know it first.  Then, you either have to avoid  using the witness, or you have to find a way to get the albatross into evidence during direct testimony and answer it at the same time by having he witness explain how his albatross did not and could not influence and guide his testimony.  Fuhriman was never able to do so after his anti=Black rhetoric was brought out on cross.

The sloppy way that the evidence was gathered and maintained was never able to be overcome by the prosecution who let it all come in on cross rather than dealing with it in direct.

 

Then, the final blow.  For two or three days, Johnny had goaded Darden about the glove not fitting, that the state had not offered any proof that the glove was O.J.’s.  I knew where he was headed and I told my wife, Lodice, that if Darden took the bait, he would ask OJ to try it on.  I knew that would be the end for the state, because any trial lawyer should be aware of what blood sampling does to a glove.  It shrinks it in size.  The chemicals that are used just plain shrink the size of the glove.  And, on top of that is the fact that the defendant can stretch out his fingers as he tries on the glove.  And, if the prosecution challenges the finger stretch, the defense is prepared to ask, “Mr. Simpson, is that the way you put on gloves?”  The prepared answer is “Yes sir, it is.  I always try on new gloves with my fingers stretched, because that is my normal way of putting on gloves.”  The judge then overrules the prosecution’s objection, and the jury believes that the state didn’t want them to see how the glove does not fit.

 

So, the state was doomed if it presented the glove to be tried on.  If the prosecution felt that it would be hurt by not offering the glove to be tried on, it could present a witness who could testify that trying on the glove would be no relevant proof, since the glove would have shrunk in size during the testing.

 

But, Darden, bedeviled by Cochrane to the point of not being able to think straight, apparently, yielded to the goading, and offered up the glove to be tried on.  I called Lodice and said “O.J.         will be acquitted, he’s trying on the glove that won’t fit.”  As I watched along with millions of other viewers, O.J. stretched out his fingers, grimaced as he tried to pull the glove over his fingers, grimaced more as he tried again, and finally shrugged and said it wouldn’t fit.

 

And, arose Johnny’s famous “If it doesn’t fit, you must acquit”!!!!!

They did acquit.  And, once again, regardless of guilt, justice was served----Justice, and you know the rest---my ass!

 

The decision had no relationship to justice.  It related directly to the skill of the attorneys who had the facts to manipulate into argument form, and the defense, paid for with huge amounts of money, was best at the game.

 

After O.J. was acquitted, and then sued in the civil case, the plaintiffs were not represented by the lesser skilled members of the LA district attorney’s office; the attorneys were skilled plaintiffs attorneys used to winning, used to making sure they were prepared and ready to counter any move the defense made.  And, on the same facts as presented in the criminal case, but presented in a much skillful, prepared, anticipatory manner, O.J. was found liable.

 

What happened in the criminal case is so usual in California (especially LA) and other states that it should have come as no surprise.  Hardly ever is a D.A.’s office represented by lawyers as skilled as highly paid defense attorneys; the assistant D.A. is getting experience, and when he has enough, he leaves and goes into the moneyed world of the law.  Darden and Armstrong were well past the age of just getting experience, so one had to believe until learning otherwise that they were not the brightest lights on the street corner.  And, during the trial it became clear that the assumption of lack of skill would have been well founded.

 

Oh well.  I heard a great chorus from the White communities in Idaho and across the nation that “the jury was crazy”,  and “how could the jurors live with themselves.”  But, all the naysayers didn’t have to take the oath to apply the law and the facts to reaching their verdict, and to take the oath that they would hold the defendant not guilty unless the state proved him guilty beyond a reasonable doubt.  The jury did its job correctly.  They rendered a terribly unpopular verdict because the state did not do its duty  and prosecute in such a way that conviction is the result.

 

What would it take to make the prosecutor’ offices able to compete with the best of the defense attorneys?  Simple, pay them enough that you can keep people of talent and skill and experience in the prosecutor’s offices.  Pay them as much as they would make in private practice, so that the people would be adequately represented in criminal court.

 

That won’t happen.  Every government agency I have ever worked for, or consulted with, treats the prosecutor like a leper when it comes to paying assistants.  So, the skilled and distinctive prosecutors will leave after gaining experience with the court house system, and proceed to beat the prosecutors every time they have a client who will spend enough to allow them to prepare properly.  Thus, with O.J. who finally met up with the “system” for the first hard time in the civil trial where the families of the two victims were represented by civil counsel as skilled as the defense.

 

In Justice My Ass, the book, I have some stories which illustrate the difference in cases where the defense is better prepared, or just plain better in trial practice than the prosecution.  Hope to have it out soon.

QUOTE OF THE DAY FEB 4 2009:
A nation that is afraid to let its people judge the truth and falsehood in an open market is a nation that is afraid of its people.
John F. Kennedy

Michael Phelps Threatened by Sheriff

Michael Phelps has "suffered" enough indignity from this whole bong smoking business already, having already been forced to admit that he was the guy ripping tubes. Right? I mean, we can let him walk away with less endorsement money, all the while realizing how stupid his mistake was ... right?

Wrong.  Leon Lott, the Richland County, South Carolina sheriff, wants to charge Phelps with a crime.

Lott had this to say:"This case is no different than any other case," Lott said yesterday. "This one might be a lot easier since we have photographs of someone using drugs and a partial confession. It's a relatively easy case once we can determine where the crime occurred."

 

As i already stated earlier i am not sure what the uproar is about, this happens all the time and nothing really happens. Santonio holmes catches passes, darryl Strawberry kept hitting home runs, and O.J. kept playing golf (until storming a hotel room with his homemade S.W.A.T team).

Let's wait untill the next Olympics and see if anyone remembers any of this including Richland County sheriff, Leon Lett.

Obama Blames Self for Daschle Drop Out

QUOTE OF THE DAY FEB 2 2009:
"A woman is the only thing I am afraid of that I know will not hurt me."
Abraham Lincoln

Michael Phelps Admits Smoking Weed Picture Was Indeed Him

I guess i'm not as shocked as everyone else because I have seen it for many years, supreme athletes using an illegal substance that all their agents and Gatorade commercials preach that they don't. I am honestly numb to it.

 

It was just 3 short months ago that Santonio Holmes was arrested for marijuana possession and look at him now, M.V.P. of the biggest

event in sports today, a great performance and all is forgiven or should i say forgotten.

 

When Phelps wins his quadrillionth gold medal and does his next Corn Flakes cover I am certain he will be forgiven and his illegal acts will be forgotten amid the chants of U.S.A!-U.S.A!

    CORRECTION----BIG MISTAKE IN SPORTS REPORT ON JACKIE R.

            Boy oh boy did I make a mistake which a 12 year old pointed out to me----obviously Jackie Robinson of the Dodgers did not play shortstop.  He played second base, while PeeWee Reese played shortstop.  Later in his career, Jackie played some third base, and then finally at the first base corner.

I think the way I slipped up is that when I saw that the data on Ernie Banks was so wrong, the preparer calling him a first baseman when he was the greatest shortstop in Cubs history, I was focused on the shortstop position and mindlessly listed Jackie as ss.  I can’t count the number of times I heard the old southern tones of Red Barber, the Dodger announcer before Vin Scully took over saying “ground ball to short,  reese flips to robinson and the force”  Any ground ball to the left or right side with a runner on first was always a force and/or double play.  There have been some great ss-2b combinations, but one could not be ridiculed for putting Pee Wee and Jackie right in there with them.

          Guess I had better check my articles one last time before hitting “submit”.  And, it would be in my favorite of all sports that I would make a mistake.  Yes, I love baseball----at the ball park, not on tv.

Did anyone other than me have a Jackie Robinson doll?  I had one, and it is in the sound protective hands of son Andy now.

CAN UNDERDOG CARDINALS BEAT THE TOUGH STEELERS

So, the gamblers have picked the Steelers by as much as a touchdown, and on the surface that seems like the safe bet.  Not only the “safe” bet, but the only bet.

Maybe so.  But,being an old Baltimore Colt fan who just voted for John Unitas as the greatest quarterback in this Blog’s football debate, I well remember, with a hurt as great today as then, Super Bowl III.  The Colts were heavily favored, not just by 7.  A brash, egotistical young quarterback from Alabama, led the Jets into that Super Bowl.  And, he had the audacity to predict and guarantee a win over the mighty Colts.

“Broadway Joe” Namath, “Joe Willie”, the darling of the jet set in New York, who sported a fur coat and a new model-type girl on his arm every week, predicted and guaranteed that he could beat the blue-collar, tough man’s football team—the Colts.

We laughed in Baltimore, and we predicted that the Colt defense would wreak havoc on Joe Willie because of his brashness.  We wondered aloud and endlessly how this loud mouth, fur bound guy ever managed to play for Bear Bryant at Alabama.  Obviously, he wasn’t the playboy, big mouth there that he had become in New York.

Well, the Colts lost to the Jets, for the first loss by the National Football Conference in the Super Bowl series to the American Football Conference.  Lodice had fixed a great buffet for our friends that day, and we enjoyed food and drink as we joked and waited for the vaunted Colt defensive line led by Billie Joe Smith to get to Namath and jolt him back to reality.  But as time went by, and Namath didn’t get hit, hit, and hit, the mood began to shift.  Then, injured John Unitas took off his jacket and started warming up on the sideline.  The cameras picked up that fact, and we cheered unabashedly.  This was it, Number 19 was up, and was going to give it a try.  We had seen him win too many games in a comeback, injured or not.  I remember my friend Roger, hugged Lodice and said “the friendly skies of Unitas”---those were the words on a large banner that fans hung on the wall of the upper deck in Baltimore’s Memorial Stadium.

Well, John did manage to lead one charge to a touchdown giving us some hope, down now only 9 points, with plenty of time left.  But, he wasn’t yet 100 percent, some of his passes were errant, there was no protection against the Jet defense, and the Colt defense couldn’t stop the clock eating offense of the Jets.

The Colts lost; I refuse to this day to believe that the Jets won, rather, the Colts lost.  In fact, I still believe that the defensive line had money at stake and in effect threw the game.

So, don’t bet the farm on the Steelers at 7 points, or even 6.5.  It all depends on which team wants this win the most.  The Cardinals have plenty of offensive and defensive tools----unlike the Jets of that third SB.  They could win this game----but most assuredly could beat the spread if it stays at a touchdown.  If the Colts could lose to the Jets in that SB III, the Steelers could lose to the Cardinals today.  To have that happen, the Steelers will have to lose as did the Colts; I don’t think the Cardinals can win, but the Steelers can lose.

I am sorry to say that I don’t remember many of the Superbowls.  Some of them have been boring beyond belief.  A few have been close.  Fewer even have been interesting.  I don’t think the Super Bowl was ever designed for the fans who support their team through hard times and good throughout the regular season.

I did see and remember well the first Super Bowl, when the Packers beat the Chiefs.  What do I remember about that win, was that it was so easy for the Pack that we all wondered again whether an AFC team would ever win this thing.  Curt Gowdy was the announcer.  Curt had covered AFC games all season.  When, during the late part of the first half Max McGhee, the veteran Packer receiver, had to replace Boyd Dowler at receiver because Dowler got up limping, Gowdy predicted that this could be a big break for the Chiefs.  Those of us who had watched the Packers play the Colts through the years, laughed and said “yeah they’re hurt with McGhee in there”. Too many times, during radio and television coverage of “away” games in Green Bay we had heard the very stoic tone of Ray Stone, voice of the Packers, call the play:  “Star is back, looking, McGhee, touchdown.”

Three or four plays later, McGhee floated right into a Starr pass and into the end zone.  I couldn’t believe that an announcer for the AFC didn’t even know the personnel of the best team in the NFC.

I remember no other thing about Super Bowl II other than the fact that the Packers once again beat the Chiefs, with apparently no super effort needed.

Then, after III where the Colts lost the momentum for the NFC, I can’t remember many individual games.  I do remember that one year on Super Bowl Sunday, I was in a hotel bar in San Antonio to watch the game.  I was there for a national conference of Law Enforcement Planning Commissions.  This was way back in my drinking days. Dallas, with Roger Staubaugh, was playing Pittsburgh with Terry Bradshaw.  I hated the Cowboys, even though I liked Staubaugh.  So, when the Steelers scored on a pass to Swann, I said a loud “yes”.  Then, when silence hit the room, I realized again where I was.  I looked around at the three guys sitting up the bar from me, and they didn’t look friendly.  So, I lamely said “Oh, I’m for Dallas, but I’ve got money on the game and just need the points right.”  One of them laughed and said to the bartender,”give our friend a good Pearl beer.”  I thanked him, glad that the crisis had passed.  I took a drink of that Pearl beer and almost choked it was so bad.  The buyer said “how do you like our Pearl beer?”  I said, “oh its really good.”  The guys laughed and told the bartender, “now give him a real beer.”  That’s what I remember, have no idea how the game turned out.

That Pearl was the nastiest tasting beer I ever tried.  Later, Lodice bought me a six pack of “Billy Beer”, the beer named for President Carter’s brother Billy who was best known for his beer drinking capacity and his habit of urinating in public in and around DC.  I took a drink and said “Lord, this is as bad as Pearl beer”.  I looked at the label and, sure enough, it showed that Billy Beer was bottled by the Pearl Brewing Company.

I can remember a few performances in Super Bowls, but could no more give you the kind of details about Super Bowls that I remember from older Colts games, Packers games, and Chicago Bear games than I could fly without an airplane.  Some of those old games, I can remember specific drives and the plays that went into those drives.  Not for the Super Bowl.

So, I will put my money on the Steelers because I just can’t see how they can lose, and will eat good food and enjoy conversation with grandkids and friends.  This time next year, I will be able to tell you who lost, but that will be it.

Oh, one other reason for taking the Steelers is the excitement that I saw in Mike Tomlin’s aunt who was in the lounge in Baltimore rooting for Pittsburgh when they beat the Ravens for the right to go to the Super Bowl.  She was so loudly cheering for the Steelers that it really upset me.  Then when she told my sister and I that she was Tomlin’s aunt, I forgave her for desecrating a Baltimore bar.  Tomlin is the youngest coach ever to get to a Super Bowl.  It is a year for youth, witnessed by Obama’s victory with youthful votes.  So, Mike Tomlin, supported by his emotional aunt, will be in the winner’s circle.

YESTERDAY GREAT DAY FOR SPORTS IN AMERICA

Jon’s history lesson yesterday sure brought back some memories of great sports figures that played during my early days---stars that I got to see, in person, on television and in the newsreels which played at the movie houses every week-end.  Turns out that January 31 is the birthday of the great Jackie Robinson, first Black player in the major leagues.  Also birthday of the great Ernie Banks, hall of fame shortstop for the Chicago Cubs,known as “Mr.Cub”. A third hall of famer also born on the 31^st was Nolan Ryan, fireballer who threw 7 no hitters during his career. And, on the 31^st in the year 1941, the “Brown Bomber” Joe Louis won a knock-out victory to defend his title as the heavy weight champion of the boxing world.

Jackie Robinson starred in football, basketball, track and baseball at UCLA.  He was one of the greatest collegiate players, and probably the most all around talented that ever played in this country.  His coaches thought that football was his finest sport, but baseball was his love.  So, he signed a contract with the Brooklyn Dodgers owned by the historically great Branch Rickey. 

Jackie went to the minor leagues, and in the southern teams where he spent his training time, he ate alone, slept alone, and sat alone in train stations because he was Black.  These were the days of segregation, and the fact that this young Black was a fine baseball player made no difference.  He was not exempt from the hatefulness of white fans, white players and the symbols of segregation.  He was such an outstanding player that Rickey knew that he would need to be elevated to the major league. 

He had known that from the beginning, and had been looking for a great young Black player to be the first to break the color barrier.  That player had to be special,not only a great and spirited player, but a man of great character and strong resolve who could “keep his cool” in the face of horrible prejudice and bias.  Jackie was that player.  He came to the Dodgers and became their greatest shortstop.  Aggressive on the bases and in the field, he eventually won over the Brooklyn fans and those in most of the cities in which he played.  After awhile stadiums around the league filled with fans who wanted to see Jackie play,not shout insults at him.  Most of the Dodger players came to accept him as an equal before the first season was over.  Rickey made it known that anyone on the team who couldn’t accept playing with him would no longer be a Dodger. 

But, the fans in Brooklyn and around the league were vicious in their shouted insults, in their threats of death and injury to him and his wife.  The fans in Brooklyn came around faster than fans around the league, because they liked to win, and Jackie won for them. 

I saw Jackie Robinson play only in the newsreels that were shown on week-ends in the movie houses.  I can still see those black and white, jerky images of him swooping down the third base line, sliding into home plate with another steal of home. I can still see that wide sweep at first base, his look toward the ball and then the lighting of the jets as he rounded second, headed for a triple. 

He was one of my first idols.  And, he was the first player that proved up what my grandfather, Bogan Cash Kelly, often told me in my young days in South Carolina.  “Big-Daddy” loved baseball.  He would literally stop anywhere, anytime and watch a pick-up game.  There were no reserved seats at the semi-pro ball park in Hartsville, S.C., but Big Daddy’s seat right behind home plate, right next to the PA announcer was always vacant when we got to the park.  On Wednesday afternoons, everything in Hartsville, except Eli Saleebi’s Candy Kitchen, closed up so that people could recover a little from the heat in order to make it through until Sunday. 

On those afternoons, Big Daddy would take me with him to Columbia to the farmer’s market where he bought his produce for his grocery store’s specials for the weekend.  And, every Wednesday, a group of Blacks who had the afternoon off played a pick up game on an old field back of the high school. We stopped to watch.  There was also a group who played in a field along the highway from Columbia---not a baseball field,just a field with no bases, no backstop, no bats and balls---just a big stick or two to use as bats and either rocks or balls of string wound tightly. 

As we watched these games, almost every week Big Daddy would say to me “Freddie, someday these colored boys will play in the big leagues.”  I don’t know that I even knew the significance of what he was saying until much later in life.  But, he was right and didn’t stay healthy and alive long enough to enjoy their play in the big leagues as he did in the old fields of Hartsville, South Carolina.

“Mr. Cub”, Ernie Banks is listed in the data that Jon posted as a first baseman.  That was true at the end of his career.  But, he was the Cubs shortstop for years, one of the most graceful of all shortstops.  He walked incessantly at his position, moving back andforth to ready himself for each play.  What a player, and what a hitter.  Tragic is it that such a great ballplayer never got to play in the world series, but the rest of the loveable Cubs didn’t match his abilities.  But, he played in all star games, continually named by the fans to the National League shortstop position.  As with Jackie Robinson, I saw him only in the newseels because there was no television in the Boise Valley where we lived, and we didn’t have a tv set even after it was available in the area.  Unlike Jackie who ran with jet like speed, Ernie rounded the bases in a lope that moved him from base to base a lot quicker than it appeared when you were watching him lope.  During the last period of his career, when his speed was reduced with age, he moved to first base so that the Cubs could keep his bat in the line-up, but it’s a shame that some data collector didn’t know that Mr. Cub was the Cubs’ greatest shortstop and one of the National League’s and all of baseballs’ greatest shortstops.

Nolan Ryan was a masterful fast ball pitcher.  Strike out king year after year, he pitched 7 no hitters, something that no one else ever has and probably now never will.  Ryan came on the scene so much later that I did get to see him play on television.  He was a quick pitcher; no messing around with the bill of his cap, tucking in his shirt, tugging at his pants leagues, messing with the resin bag, scratching at the rubber on the pitcher’s mound.  He went to the mound, looked at the sign from the catcher and threw.  The ball went back to him, he looked and threw.

And, in boxing, Joe Louis, another one of my idols.  The “Brown Bomber” from Detroit was a great heavyweight.  He could box as well as hit.  When he fought, a newsreel was made of the fight, showing each round, with the time between rounds cut out.  Most of them were short because whenever a fighter tried to come to him to fight inside, the fight ended with a Louis knockout.  We listened to his fights on the radio.  I remember the night that he was to fight an Argentine heavyweight in the defense ofhis title.  Mom had supper over with early so that dad could listen to the fight.  Right after supper, a Japanese farmer who was a good friend of my dad and a regular customer at his garage, knocked on the door and wanted dad to listen to a “knock” in his car’s engine.  The fight was just about to begin, the ring announcer, the immortal Don Dunphy, was announcing the fighers.  Dad went out to listen to the knock, told his friend to bring the car down to the garage the next day, and hurried back into the house to hear the fight.  As he came back in the referee was counting the mandatory 10 count on the third knockdown of the first round of the fight.  Once we were on the way to South Carolina for vacation on the day that he was scheduled to fight Billy Conn.  Dad had packed tent and camping gear so that if we got caught where we didn’t know whether we could hear the fight, we could stop, camp and listen to the fight on the radio.  That’s what happened, and we camped right outside Salt Lake City and heard the fight.  He captured the attention of America and the whole world when he took on and defeated Max Schmelling, the pride of Hitler’s Nazi regime.  Schmelling had defeated Joe earlier,and Hitler was boasting the superiority of the German genes over those of the Black fighter for the re-match.  Schmelling was humbled by the power of both of Joe Louis’ hands, and the free world breathed a sigh of relief.

Also intriguing in Jon’s scope of history is that on January 31, the Senate approved establishment of the 13^th Amendment which ended slavery.  Much is left to do in the nature of race relations, but because of Robinson, Banks, and Louis, the fields of baseball and boxing offer a traditional opening for young Black players.