John Grisham's new novel, "The Appeal," appears just in time to show the world yet another example of how Greed works to undermine Good in the pursuit of legal justice for ordinary citizens with extraordinary complaints in a democratic society.
In Mississippi, just such a real-life, dazzling court case is getting under way . As usual, it depends on whose politics one prefers as to whether Greed seems worse in the High-Profile Defendants (friendly to Democrats) or the High-Profile Investigators/Plaintiffs (friendly to the Republican Governor and Bush Administration). And what of Good? Good left town, apparently.
I refer, of course, to recent legal indictments against prominent lawyer Richard "Dickie" Scruggs of Oxford, MS. Democrats know him as former U.S. Republican Senator Trent Lott's brother-in-law and one among several successful originators of precedent-setting, public-and- private-wealth-generating, victorious lawsuits against Big Tobacco, Big Asbestos and potentially against Big Insurance--the latter for its failures to pay claims to thousands of victims of the Katrina hurricane. A Robin Hood of sorts in the minds of some Mississippians and an Enemy of Big Business in the minds of others.
Republicans know Scruggs as a wealthy Democrat lawyer who--with his young lawyer son and some other well known Mississippi attorneys--is said to have tried bribing a Mississippi judge by offering him $40,000 for his reelection campaign in exchange for a favorable ruling in a certain case. Several indicted Scruggs friends have already plead guilty, apparently to gain lighter sentences. Scruggs and his son have plead not guilty. They face trial in a few weeks.
Republicans likewise know Scruggs as the brother-in-law of former U.S. Republican Senator Trent Lott. To some in the GOP, particularly at the state and national party levels, as well as outside the formal party--say, in the Wall Street Journal and the Bush Administration--the Lott connection is something of an indictment within itself. Why? Because they see Lott as too big a conciliator. He was Senate Majority Leader when across-aisle deliberations in Congress during the Clinton impeachment helped to spare removal of Clinton himself.
Thus, questions, suspicions and accusations on all sides are rampant. The Mississippi Bar is aghast and scrambling to defend itself against appearances that some of its "best and brightest" are crooks and criminals like so many others in the Big Politics and Big Money Game.
So what are We the People doing? Wondering at it all and especially wondering where our best chances lie when we head to the voting booths in November to pick the next U.S. president. This much we know: John Grisham is a Hillary guy, Sen. Ted Kennedy favors Obama, and Yours Truly is thinking John Edwards looks best of 'em all right now. Tomorrow, of course, I could change my mind. Can't see past Right Now right now.
1 comment:
Now that Dickie Scruggs has plead guilty to conspiracy thus avoiding his scheduled 3-31-08 trial, unfortunately we won't get to hear Trent Lott's testimony. Looking at the timelines of this scandal, don't you think there is something very political going on with Lott's sudden "resignation" and the Scruggs' indictment as well as those of all the other lawyers caught up in this sting?
Seems to me that much more than power, greed, and money are at play in this strange case.
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