Lildis

(Lildis', Lildat)

Already Gone

When The Eagles were both at their height and on the verge of breaking up a famous exchange occurred on-stage during one of their concerts when Glen Frey told guitarist Don Felder “When we get offstage, I’m gonna kick your ass…”.  What might be less well known was the set of events leading up to the confrontation.  Frey was enraged that prior to the concert (which was a benefit for then California Senator Alan Cranston) Felder had replied to the Senator’s expression of thanks with a somewhat sardonic “You’re welcome Senator…I guess”.  Frey found it disrespectful.  Felder didn’t give a shit how Frey found it.

I have to say – although I admire Cranston (who had the foresight to sue Adolf Hitler before WWII) I kind of agree with Felder, who was a bit sick of the band being booked to play benefits for causes and people before anyone checked with the entire group to see if they agreed with the cause or the person.  Jerry Brown, No Nukes, Save the Snail Darter….whatever – the presumption that everyone was OK with this choice without checking was unfair.  So – the title of this commentary is in honor of Mr. Felder’s “I guess”, and the classic Eagle’s song of the same name – and it is aimed directly at the heart of the Democratic party. 

As predicted here months ago the Massachusetts nominee for Governor, the inexecrable Martha Coakley, brought the party to defeat, a result that given both her professional and electoral record was thoroughly predictable.  (I’m tempted to use the word “inexorable” just to contrast it with “inexecrable” and send my two or three readers scrambling to the dictionary – but – well I guess I just did).  Coakley is contemptibly incompetent but even worse were the stale efforts of people who should have known better to bring her to the forefront once again.  Are you really telling me that all the powers that be who backed this candidacy had concluded, after a diligent search through the enormous talent pool available, that Martha Coakley was the best choice as nominee, let alone as Governor?  Are you kidding me?

The truth is that anyone who expects some degree of prior consultation from the associations they are part of – be it a political party, a labor union, a veterans organization or a community group – played the role of Don Felder in this scenario while the higher ups were the Glen Freys.  There is no way to conclude that Coakley got to where she was other than through the crass manipulation of an unthinking machine.  Her pol pals sent her money, she squeaked through a primary against minimal competition and then got beat, yet again, as the Democratic nominee in the most Democratic state in the union.  Thanks for the nominee party hacks – I guess. 

The message here is that no one appreciates presumptions – and the person (aside from Massachusett’s politicos) who needs to most heed this message is one H. Rodham Clinton.  It is quite possible that no non-incumbent has ever had a firmer grip on the term “presumptive nominee” than Hillary does right now.  Sit on that presumption at your peril Madame Secretary.  Her inexplicable decision to campaign for Coakley aside there is no way that Hillary Clinton should see this mid-term election as anything other than a warning to avoid thinking that reliance upon an existing machine is the way to ultimate victory.  Trust me Mrs. Clinton - new blood, new ideas, new people and new thinking will be required in even what may appear to be the safest of campaigns, or - you could end up eating lunch all by yourself.

 Let the Pigeons Loose!

The 2014 mid term elections are now over and that means that everyone can get back to doing what they really wanted to do all along – worry about the 2016 Presidential election.  This is a game that typically begins earlier every year, receding recently at a pace that will actually break the space time barrier and have colonial pundits in 1776 ruminating about the chances of Chelsea Clinton’s election in 2036 against an as-yet-to be-determined member of the Adams or Bush family. 

In anticipation of this madness moving to the forefront of the political calendar I’ve undertaken a review of the following books, reading through each of them at a glacial pace and attempting to collate the similarities and differences between the races they cover and the current political climate.  I’m trying to see what can we learn about the past and apply to the future from:

Presidential Campaigns	Paul Boller
See How They Ran	Gil Troy
Crapshoot – Rolling the Dice on the Vice Presidency	Jules Witcover
They Also Ran	Irving Stone
Marathon – Race for the White House 1976	Jack Germond and Jules Witcover
What it Takes - 1988	Richard Ben Cramer
Whose Broad Stripes and Bright Stars? - 1988	Jack Germond and Jules Witcover
The Making of the President 1960	Theodore White
The Making of the President 1964	Theodore White
The Making of the President 1972	Theodore White
The Selling of the President 1968	Joe McGinniss
An American Melodrama – the Presidential Election of 1968	Lewis Chester, Godfrey Hodgson, Bruce Page
Portrait of an Election - 1980	Elizabeth Drew
Mad as Hell – Revolt at the Ballot Box 1992	Jack Germond and Jules Witcover
Upside Down and Inside Out – 1992	James Ceaser and Andrew Busch
The Choice – How Clinton Won - 1996	Bob Woodward
The Betrayal of America - 2000	Vincent Bugliosi
The Battle for the White House and the Soul of America 2008	Carole Coleman
Redemption Song  2008	Niall Stanage
Game Change 2008	Mark Halperin, John Heilemann
Collision 2012	Dan Balz

Side Note:  I know you’re asking - what could make any rational human being subject himself to this type of exercise.  Answer – I’m a member of that sub-species “Politico Junkiensis” and actually love these sorts of books.  Ever since reading “Making of the President 1960” in junior high I’ve been hooked.

Back to the main question – what can we learn about the potential race in 2016 from prior elections?  Well – here’s an excerpt of the kind of things that will be included in the article I’m writing:

The fact that there again doesn’t seem to be a major vice-presidential connection to the race may connote a trend.

From 1960 until 2008 virtually every presidential election that didn’t include an incumbent involved some relationship to a sitting or former Vice President.  Even those races that did involve an incumbent President often included a former Vice Presidential nominee.  The Vice Presidency, once a political dead end, had become the most direct route to the Presidency (including a non-elective element such as through death or resignation).  This is a major theme of Jules Witcover’s book Crapshoot – Rolling the Dice on the Vice Presidency – (re-published and updated as “The American Vice Presidency” presumably because “Crapshoot” was deemed too harsh). Witcover’s point was that the process of choosing the Vice President was incredibly flawed given that they often become President.  Basically it comes down to one guy, under stress, choosing a running mate on the basis of whether he’ll help win one or two States in the election that’s coming up – when what should occur is a sober reflection on the person who is best qualified to become President.  I actually think that it is a bit harsh to tar all the selections for Veep with one brush, but there are some legitimate concerns when the process churns out a Dan Quayle or John Edwards.  These guys (at least until recently) do actually end up having the inside track to the Presidency or the presidential nomination.  You can even go back to 1948, when Roosevelt’s Veep (Truman) ran for the Presidency following a near complete term as President.  Following a brief interlude Eisenhower’s VP (Nixon) ran for the Presidency three times, Kennedy’s second in command (Johnson) ran in his own right in 1964 (after ascending to the Presidency), his VP (Humphrey) ran in 1968, Nixon’s final VP (Ford) ran in 1976, Ford’s running mate, Bob Dole, eventually secured a nomination for himself, Carter’s VP (Mondale) was the 1984 Democratic nominee, of course Reagan’s VP (Bush 1) ran for President and Clinton’s VP Al Gore would probably point out that he actually won the popular vote in 2000 as a sitting Vice President (maybe you’ve heard of that – it was in all the papers).  In fact, (discounting Alben Barkley, who was deemed too old to nominate, at age 74, in 1948), every sitting Vice President since 1944 has run for President in his own right except for Spiro Agnew, who was a convicted felon, Nelson Rockefeller, who was never elected and served less than half a term, and Dan Quayle, who was Dan Quayle.

But since Gore the Vice Presidency, and its nomination, has not been nearly as direct a route to the Presidency (or your party’s nomination for the Presidency).  Dick Cheney, though influential in the administration, was never even mentioned as a possible Presidential candidate.  John Edwards, John Kerry’s running mate, imploded when he attempted to secure the Democratic nomination and Joe Biden does not seem likely to even run.  Only Paul Ryan’s potential candidacy holds much connection to a Vice Presidential nomination, and he hardly appears a frontrunner at this point in time.  This means then that going back to 2004 we could have four consecutive elections in which the major party’s nominees have not been either a former Vice President or Vice Presidential nominee for the first time since 1900.  But get this - from James Madison’s election until 1900 no Vice President or Vice Presidential nominee had ever ascended to the Presidency via election.  The Vice Presidency was as clear a political dead end as there could be.  So are we returning to the days when the second seat is the reward for a race well run – but not an invite to return to the starting line?  Maybe not anything that drastic but I do think that the tendency now is to see the Vice President’s role less as a potential electoral successor than as a functionary of the current administration.  In other words – since Gore and Cheney made the job substantive there seems less inclination to see the position as a means to an end, and instead view it as an end in itself.  Possibly not a bad thing – but certainly a new way of looking at the job.

 Here’s the Story…

If you grew up in the same era I did you will have read the above caption and already have the tune running through your head and the words “…of a man named Brady…” on your lips.  And it will probably be stuck there for the entire day.

Sorry.

But this Lildis section is about a man named Brady – Tom Brady.  Brady’s story has often been interwoven with that of a man named Manning (I’m talking the Peyton variety here) and I just wanted to interject a bit of reality into the debate about who is the “greater” quarterback.  Let me get my slide rule and calculator out here while I refer to my digitized QB analysis tool…

Ahhh screw it … it’s Brady.

Brady wins this debate not only because he’s won more than double the number of games when the two play against each other, or because he has three times as many rings, or because his wife is better looking (sorry Mrs. Manning).  It’s because he has consistently done more with less than any player in NFL history.  Peyton Manning is a great quarterback but Tom Brady is a greater football player – and that makes him, by however slight a margin, a better quarterback than Manning.  Brady knows how to run a quarterback sneak better, knows how to utilise a limited (sometimes substantially limited) receiving corp better, runs a better game plan, a better no-huddle, makes better use of his opponents weaknesses while hiding his own and, conversely, maximizes (sometimes to an almost unbelievable extent) the strengths of his own team while frustratingly negating the strengths of his opponents.  He works harder than any other player on the team, has overcome more obstacles than any prior 199^th draft pick and wins no matter what gets in his way.  Yes – he is helped by a coach who focusses on doing pretty much all of those things too – but lots of coaches have had good quarterbacks – they just haven’t had Tom Brady.

I must admit - I am biased – I’ve been a Patriots fan since I knew there was such a thing as football.  But I think that shouldn’t be seen as too substantial a prejudice.  I was a Patriot’s fan but I will be the first to tell you that, bar a few glorious seasons, the Patriots sucked in the years BT (Before Tom).  Our greatest player was an offensive lineman.  Nothing wrong with that.  But let’s just say that while he belongs on the list Jerry Kramer probably isn’t going to be the first name called out in the roster of Packer’s greats.  Same with Mike Webster for the Steelers.  All-time great teams are always associated with all time great quarterbacks.  Right now Tom Brady stands as a symbol of the Patriots' franchise in the same way that Bart Starr, Roger Staubach and Terry Bradshaw represent their teams.  Peyton Manning doesn’t mean that for the Colts or the Broncos.  (Say hello John Unitas and John Elway).   This doesn’t mean Manning isn’t great – but he is not transcendent in the way Brady has been. 

Look – football is about what you do with the tools you are given.  Put Peyton Manning and Tom Brady in adjoining prison cells with only a rock hammer and a few scraps of paper and wood and you’ll come back in a couple days to find Manning has built himself a very comfortable bed and set of shelves. 

Brady will be long gone.

Water Water Everywhere

For he gives his sunlight to both the evil and the good, and he sends rain on the
just and the unjust alike.

Matthew 5:45

 “It means parents will be given only enough free water for their children to take one shower and flush the toilet once each day. Everything else will have to be paid for.”

Ireland 2014

Ireland is a wonderful green country that gets that way because it rains here.

A lot.

Despite this abundance of Dihydrogen Monoxide families in Ireland are soon going to be charged, on average, about €500 per year ($700) for the privilege of using our most abundant natural resource.  Now I’m (for the most part) a free market advocate but I think this stinks to high heaven.  There are (or at least should be) certain things that a government provides for its citizens without making a commodity out of it.  This goes back to the earliest days of civilisation, when wandering family units came down from the trees to join together into tribes.  In addition to the security that this offered evidence suggests that people joined together to collectively share resources without “ownership” being asserted over the item in question.

In fact most early governments formed to share three main items, food, shelter and water.  We’ve pretty much given up on the “Food and Shelter” end of things.  There are reminders of the days when those services were shared (think of the joint agricultural use that “Boston Common” once represented, or the Native American “Long House” for shelter) but almost all governments have continued to provide water to their citizens without imposing a system that means if you are wealthier you get to use more of it.  The poorest farmer could come in from a day in the fields and relax with a long, hot shower without worrying about whether he was taking food out of his kids' mouth (yes, I know he had to pay for the electricity or gas to heat the water, but the H2O itself was his to use).  More to the point – his position as regards water was no different from the millionaire down the road.  Sure, the millionaire could also take a long shower, and put an enclosed swimming pool in his house, liberally give water to his pet llamas and irrigate his orchids under a greenhouse roof.  The point is – there was no need for the farmer or the millionaire to begrudge the other his use of water.  Each came by their right to use water by virtue of being a citizen of the state, not because one could afford it and the other couldn’t.

If this sounds a bit “socialist” – well, let’s be honest - it is.  Nonetheless it seems to have worked well for plenty of capitalist western democracies for the last 250 years or so.  Water was the one great equaliser, the one shared resource, the thing that God above dropped on the just and unjust alike – and humanity had seemingly agreed to keep it that way.  That is – until the recent movement to impose “fairness” by charging people for their water usage.  Now – if you are rich, you can buy more water and if you’re poor – let ‘em drink Guinness.

In America this would (and has, where water charges apply) lead to a very visible split between the water haves and have nots.  As usual the burden of that split falls most heavily on the middle class and poor.  The middle class, who once used to dream of a house with a pool – now have to re-think the dream.  The sight of kids running through a sprinkler?  Now it would be seen in only the better class’s front garden.  Washing your car?  Probably more likely to be done regularly for a Beamer than a Ford, no matter how much you love your vehicle.  Still, the majority of the United States employ a water tariff system that charges everyone for the use of water equally (and if one were to add in those areas that charge residential users equally as opposed to industrial users the percentage goes up).

In Ireland the split between the (rich) wets and the (poor) dries is not quite as “up front”.  You don’t have to water lawns here – it rains enough.  Hardly anyone has an outdoor pool, washing your car when it’ll be racing through puddles in an hour or so is somewhat pointless – you get the picture.  Water usage is pretty much an indoor sport.  So why then, in a country where both the just and unjust are likely to get soaked if they stick their head out the window is water now being commoditised?  Why are the poor and middle class being forced to choose between flushing and brushing?

The reason has almost nothing to do with water scarcity and just about everything to do with water management. Ireland has refused to invest in its water carrying infrastructure.  Its aquifer is pathetic for a country that experiences the amount of rainfall it sees.  The water mains leak like sieves (probably worse than sieves) and a huge percentage of the water is lost before it reaches the user.  Of course, in many instances the water that makes it through the system is hardly worth keeping.  In recent years Galway, Roscommon and other areas have had to rely on bottled water because the local water is toxic.  How the hell does this happen?

Remember what I said about the situation "stinking to high heaven".  In many ways that can be taken quite literally. Ireland is dotted throughout with what are called “holy wells”.  These are spots associated with saints that seem to miraculously spout water from rocks or the bare ground.  You can fill a hollow statue with this water, bless the sick with this water, wash a poor sinner’s feet with this water – you can do a lot of things with it – just – don’t try to drink it.  Ireland has a wonderful practice of having the farmers keep their cattle in “slatted sheds” through the winter.  The cows produce what cows produce best (hint – it ain’t milk) and the waste is funnelled into “slurry tanks” under the shed.  In spring you have to clear the tank, so farmers spray a winter’s worth of shit onto their fields. The farming methods used create so much toxic runoff that some of what should be the most pristine lakes in the world are impossible to swim in, let alone drink.  You can’t entirely blame the farmers – this is the only option given them, although some degree of planning could probably convert the methane and waste into energy and fertiliser.  But there is no such program available. The rain that falls on an Irish field makes it green and then goes away, without serving any other useful purpose.  It seeps, poisoned with e.coli and other vile substances into lakes, rivers, groundwater reserves and holy wells.  As a result a water “crisis” has developed – but what it actually represents is a crisis of political will and leadership – and the Irish people are paying for it.

I know a little of which I speak.  For four years, while going to college, I worked in the water department of Springfield Massachusetts helping maintain their filter beds.  The method used was “slow sand filtration” among the most energy efficient and cheapest means of creating clean water.  It is a perfect system for a non-drought susceptible region because it uses the power of constant water supply to create clean water – the pressure of incoming water drives water through the sand and into the mains.  The sand is then recycled and cleaned through the use of the system’s own water pressure, making use of such items as water guns, separators, “box cleansers” and sand chutes. It’s actually very ingenious and is used in many third world countries which don’t want to use other energy sources to clean their water.  Ireland should set up regional feeder systems on the same principle.  The fact that it does not means that one of the wettest countries in the world has trouble getting clean water to its citizen’s on a regular basis.  It also means that an already overburdened populace is now being hit with an entirely regressive water tax.

Ireland should be ashamed that it has ever come to this.  I have vacationed on Gran Canaria, where huge numbers of tourists compete with residents and a large agricultural industry for the island’s water.  Somehow – they manage to sustain everything despite a near desert climate and no appreciable river systems.  They do this because they account for every drop of rain that falls on the island and also make use of the sea.  By comparison, Ireland, to use as apt an expression as I can possibly think of, simply pisses its water resource away. I’m not so naive as to think that the system of charging for water can simply be repealed at this point – to a certain extent we’re stuck with it.  But politicians and the citizenry should vow to make the primary goal of the water charge system the extinction of the water charge system.  A certain percentage of each year’s take should be set aside for the creation of a viable infrastructure which will, through the use of regional filtration plants and manmade catch basins result in renewable, potable water for all.  If set timelines are not achieved then water rationing, rather than increased charges, should be instituted.  The business of making an already overtaxed citizenry pay even more for something that, at a minimum, the government should be able to make equally available, is not an acceptable solution.  Water charges should become a temporary catalyst for a long-term solution to the water problems of Ireland, not a perpetual element of Irish life.  Then maybe the just and the unjust alike can get back to doing what they do best about the rain.

Complaining about it.

THE SINS OF MARTHA COAKLEY

In 2010, when the unthinkable happened and the Massachusetts Senate seat that had been held by Edward Kennedy went to Republican Scott Brown, Democrats in Massachusetts re-grouped, found themselves a non-traditional, new and fresh candidate in Elizabeth Warren and defeated Brown when the seat next came up for election.  Scott Brown now wanders the streets of New Hampshire telling voters there how he is really one of them.  Problem solved, lesson learned, at least as far as the Democrats were concerned.

Right?

Not so fast.  Democrats will tell you that the aforementioned non-traditional, new and fresh candidate has worked out exceedingly well.  But what they neglect to understand is that in order for a candidate to be non-traditional, new and fresh they have to replace someone who is conventional, old and stale.  How do we know they’ve neglected to understand this basic fact?  Because people, there is a very good chance they are about to recycle that tired old model yet again.  Look out – Martha Coakley is back.

Of course, Coakley never really went away – she used her “base” to retain her position as Attorney General and remains an elected official.  Voters overlooked the disaster of her Senate campaign, which nearly destroyed (and certainly gravely damaged) many of the primary legislative goals of the party she purports to represent, and maintained the status quo.  That’s OK – voters tend to do that.  But now Coakley is attempting to ascend to the Governor’s chair, to make herself the chief executive of the Commonwealth and Democrats (as well as all Massachusetts voters) are again being asked to validate the career and legacy of Martha Coakley.  

Why would they?

Martha Coakley is a candidate who combines the worst aspects of the Massachusetts Democratic Party - slavish adherence to the “hackocracy” and a tendency to treat every candidate as anointed rather than elected.  But more than this – Coakley’s short and miserable campaign for the Senate revealed a candidate so flawed, so offensive and so inept that she managed to single-handedly derail a political movement that had, up until her appearance, seemed so capable of delivering on its message of hope.  The truly sad part is that before nominating Coakley for the Senate this was all available for review – and before anointing her the nominee for the Governorship it was still out there, plain as day, for all to see. 

Martha Coakley has a history that makes her uniquely vulnerable as a candidate.  As to whether this also makes her a bad person – that’s an individual choice, but it is pretty clear how the vast majority of Massachusetts voters came to view her when she was on the big stage.  Here, for consideration, is a recap of some of the lowlights of the career of the woman who managed to add the words “abandon all” to the Obama “HOPE” posters.

1.  Fells Acres
    
   In 1984 a four year old boy attending a day care center known as “Fells Acres” wet himself while taking a nap.  He was changed in to some dry clothes by a man named Gerald Amirault, whose family owned and operated the 19 year old center.  Later that year, this same boy was found playing with a cousin in a sexually suggestive manner.  This led some of his relatives, including an uncle who had himself been sexually molested as a child, to question the boy and come to the conclusion that he had been molested by Amirault.
    
   Police were notified and Amirault was arrested.  The authorities, conducting what was a typical investigation for the time, held group meetings with parents from the Fells Acres center and advised them to question their children carefully to see if any evidence of abuse emerged.
    
   None did – at least initially.  But, following questioning that can, (at an absolute minimum), be called leading and is more accurately described as bizarre, some of the children began to tell stories of ritual abuse. This included being raped with lobsters and butcher knives, being tied naked to trees in public, and being beaten by several of Amirault’s family members.  Despite the fact that no physical evidence of such abuse was ever found, that many of the children involved contradicted their own testimony, that the methods used for interviewing the children were clearly coercive and that the many teachers who worked for Fells Acres were not only unable to verify the childrens’ accounts but directly contradicted them - Gerald Amirault was convicted of the abuse charges and sent to prison for 30-40 years.  In a separate trial Amirault’s 65 year-old mother and 32 year old sister were likewise convicted.
    
   The Fells Acres case became one of the prime examples of the “witch hunt” atmosphere concerning child sexual abuse that sprang up during the 1980’s.  Dorothy Rabinowitz, a Pulitzer Prize winning journalist, made the case famous in a series of articles pointing out the absurdities surrounding the trials and convictions of the Amiraults.  As the hysteria died out and rational thought set in most people, aside from those with a vested interest in perpetuating the myth of the convictions, came to view the continued imprisonment of the Amiraults as a travesty.
    
   Who were those vested interests?  Well – enter Martha Coakley.  The Amiraults were prosecuted by the Middlesex County District Attorney’s office under the leadership of then D.A. Scott Harshbarger.  Harshbarger, in what might again be safely labelled an immense understatement, had extensive political ambitions.  He peopled the DA’s office with appointees beholden to him, one of whom was Martha Coakley.  Harshbarger was later elected Attorney General and went on to run (unsuccessfully) for Governor.  Martha Coakley was, at the same time, running for Harshbarger’s old DA’s job.  As part of the inner circle of the Middlesex County DA’s office she was well aware of the fact that any criticism of that office for its handling of the Fell’s Acres case would reflect poorly on her.  Accordingly, when it became apparent that Cheryl Lafave, Gerald Amirault’s sister, would have to be let out of prison Coakley negotiated one of the more bizarre parole agreement’s in history.  In order to protect the DA’s office from adverse publicity Coakley assented to LaFave’s release so long as she refrained from doing television interviews.  That way there would be no chance of a wrongly convicted individual constantly re-hashing the facts of the case (and the District Attorney’s involvement) on television.  Prosecutors were likewise barred from giving television interviews – but this was to Coakley’s advantage because, when she was asked about the case in front of a camera she could dodge the inquiry by falling back on the old “I’m restricted from speaking about that under court order” ploy.  However, because the case was so shaky, unlike most probation cases Lafave was allowed to assert her innocence on radio and in print (most parolee’s must admit guilt).
    
   So to Gerald Amirault.  His case had been tried in front of a different judge and so he still languished in prison.  In his case the conviction went before the Massachusetts Parole Board which voted 5-0 to commute his sentence and release him from jail.  If this release went through it would not be subject to the gag rule that Coakley had imposed on the other defendant and so she determined to quash the recommendation.  Pulling out all the stops Coakley appeared on talk shows, pressured elected officials and even arranged press conferences for selected children who claimed they were victims of Fell’s Acres abuse.  Under this pressure the Massachusetts Governor, Jane Swift, refused to sanction the unanimous recommendation.  As a result of Coakley’s intransigence Amirault remained in prison three more years – but Coakley’s ploy worked and her political star remained undimmed. 
    
   Incidentally, if you think this is the only instance where Coakley went out of her way to keep innocent people behind bars, think again.  Not only are there other examples, hell, they even made a movie about one of them - Conviction, starring Hilary Swank (not as Martha) in which Coakley’s real life role in keeping a wrongly convicted man in jail is central to the plot.  But at least Coakley is erring on the side of being tough on crime – or is she?
    
2. Selective Prosecution
    
   Coakley’s defense for her actions in the Amirault case has always been that she was not acting out of any private concerns but simply was defending “the children”.  While it may have been that her actions all just coincidentally happened to forward her career, that was merely an adjunct to her true, altruistic, purposes.
    
   Really?
    
   In October 2005 a 23 month old girl was found in agony by her mother. Her private regions had been penetrated and burned by a hot instrument, probably a curling iron.  It was determined by police that the child’s uncle had been alone with her on the day, and at the time, the rape occurred.   On questioning he stated words to the effect that he couldn’t “take” another child.  Despite these admissions the uncle, who was a police officer in a city within Middlesex County, was not pursued or charged by the Middlesex District Attorney’s office, headed, at that time, by Martha Coakley.  In January, with no action having been taken by the DA, Larry Frisoli, an attorney for the family of the toddler, threatened to bring a citizen’s criminal complaint against the accused officer.  In response Coakley promised to bring the matter before a grand jury.  However, by July no such action had taken place and Frisoli’s patience reached its end.  He brought his criminal complaint and decided he would run against Coakley for Attorney General.  Now alarmed, Coakley’s office rammed the case through the grand jury and indicted the officer on two rape and two assault charges, thus protecting Coakley from claims of inaction just in time for the election. However, in a decision that, again, was nothing short of bizarre (a word often associated with Coakley’s actions) the DA’s office agreed to release the officer on personal recognizance and sought no bail whatsoever.  Fifteen months later, by which time Coakley had become Attorney General, a new DA finally tried and convicted Keith Winfield of the brutal rape of his niece. 
    
   As a DA seeking higher office it was Coakley’s firm desire to maintain good relations with the local police.  Prosecuting a brother officer, no matter how heinous the charges, doesn’t always achieve that end.  So, where was Martha Coakley when it came to protecting a child who had been so clearly assaulted?  She was hiding behind the legalese argument that a person who her office alleged had raped a two year old child with a scalding hot iron was not a “danger to the public”.  The poor infant who was assaulted will wear the scars of that torture for her life – but evidently Martha didn’t want to be seen as “too aggressive” in her prosecution.  Was this a consistent position or only one she took when it served her ends?  One need only examine Coakley’s most infamous case to find the answer to that question.
    
   III.           Overcharging
    
   Before getting in to the specifics of Coakley’s best known prosecution, it might be best to take some time to consider what might well be the most glaring deficiency of the American legal system.  Let’s start with a hypothetical.
    
   Your name is Ahmet Ali.  You are a cab driver in New York City.  One day, after lunch, you enter your cab munching on a pickle.  One of those big old deli style gherkins.  You start down a busy street and, as you come up on someone who appears to be waving you down, you glance out your window and thus miss one of those common New York City potholes.  When the cab hits said pothole things go a bit crazy.  You lose control of the cab, careen across the sidewalk and end up lodged in the revolving door of a fancy hotel.  Let’s complicate things a bit – let’s say that at the time of the accident a major conference is underway at the UN and a number of diplomats are staying at just this hotel.
    
   Back to the accident.  Thankfully no one is hurt but the next day all the papers have pictures of your cab wedged in to the revolving door while panicked security officers with guns pointed at you are approaching from each side, and you sit there with your hands up and enormous pickle clenched firmly in your mouth.
    
   A few days later you get a summons to appear in court where you are charged with reckless driving.  You try to explain to the DA assigned to the case that it was the pothole that caused the accident but he tells you to get a lawyer.  You do this.  You figure that this is America, you’ll tell a judge or jury at trial what happened and you’ll be acquitted.  The lawyer seems to agree – he says that even if you are convicted the most you would likely get is a fine.  That would be bad – you’d lose your taxi licence – but at least you can go to the courts and get a fair trial.
    
   But the DA doesn’t want to try the pickle case.  He wants to clear his desk.  He understands that everyone is supposed to be entitled to a fair trial – but hey – the court system is clogged, the guy was eating a pickle while driving – he should plead.  So instead of accepting the fact that the two sides disagree and letting the courts settle things he takes a different route.  The next day your lawyer calls with a bit of bad news – you have now been charged with drunk driving as well.  The conversation then goes like this:
    
   “But I wasn’t drinking – no one’s even mentioned that before”.
    
   “The DA say’s that the arresting officer’s report notes a sharp odor coming off you and that you stated yourself that you had just come from Joe’s Pub and Grill”.
    
   “I had a pickle smeared all over my face – of course there was a sharp odor – and I always eat at Joe’s – I love the burgers – but I don’t drink, I’m a practicing Muslim.”
    
   “The DA says that the fact of the odor, combined with having just left a licenced premises together with the erratic driving allows him to sustain a charge of drunk driving.  Personally – I just think he wants to see if he can make us plead to the reckless driving charge.”
    
   And so it goes – your lawyer goes back to the DA with the rejection of the plea.  But he also explains to you that if the DA somehow manages to convince a jury that there was drunk driving involved, something that can happen, you could now end up in jail for a period.  In fact, you could end up in prison for longer than someone who actually was drunk driving and pled guilty, because the system is rigged to hand out stiffer sentences to those who have the temerity to insist on what is supposed to be their right – a trial.
    
   But you are angry now and decide that you will insist on just that – a trial.  So your lawyer informs the DA and one week later calls you up again.
    
   “I have some more bad news – the charge of terrorism has been added to the list.”
    
   It seems that the fact that you were a Muslim made the DA realize that a drunk driving charge might be hard to prove if you were actively practicing a religion that banned alcohol.  So he checked you out.  He pulled the records of the mosque you attend and it seems the membership there includes some fairly radical types – and there are video tapes of you in attendance while they speak at a meeting.  The DA now thinks he can convince a jury that it is a bit too much of a coincidence that your cab ended up driving in to the lobby of a hotel filled with diplomats.
    
   After venting a bit about how crazy it is that anyone could even think this you tell your lawyer that you didn’t chose the mosque for political reasons – it just happened to be the one closest to your home.  And you don’t associate with the radicals (you call them the “nut jobs”) and only went to what you thought was an anti-discrimination meeting not knowing they were even speaking.  How could you possibly end up being called a terrorist for hitting a pothole while eating a pickle?  “Let’s fight this!” you say.
    
   Then your lawyer tells you the facts of life.
    
   Your name is Ahmet Ali, and in New York, the American city most traumatised by terrorism, you drove your cab into a hotel lobby filled with diplomats.  There are pictures of you submitting at gunpoint to security personnel, you attended rallies with Muslim radicals, and, yes, you were driving and eating a pickle at the same time.  Can a DA inflate these facts into a terrorism conviction?  Possibly – but admittedly not likely.  Nonetheless – it is possible – and, by the way – “do you happen to know the penalty for a conviction in such a case?”
    
   “No” you say “what is it?”
    
   So he tells you – it’s life, life!, in prison.  Life, against the payment of a $1,500 fine and loss of your taxi licence.  Life.
    
   And that is how you end up $1,500 poorer, unemployed, but much wiser.
    
   But this doesn’t really happen does it?  Prosecutors don’t knowingly overcharge just to wring a plea bargain out of defendants when the stakes are so high – do they?
    
   Now we’ll talk about the Louise Woodward case.
    
   In February of 1997 an ambulance was called to the house of Sunil and Deborah Eappen by au pair Louise Woodward.  Young Matthew Eappen, a baby in Woodward’s care, had become unresponsive and seemed very sick.  Woodward was questioned (and, according to police, stated that she had shaken the baby and “dropped” him on to a pile of towels).  She is arrested and the next day pleads not guilty to the battery of Matthew.  Immediately the case begins to get massive press coverage.  Five days after the initial charge of battery – Matthew Eappen dies.
    
   At this point the DA’s office had some choices to make.  When one human being dies at the hands of another the law puts the homicide in to a number of categories.  These vary somewhat but basically break down as follows:  Justifiable, Accidental, Unintentional, Malicious and Premeditated Malicious. 
    
   “Justifiable” homicide is typically applied to self defence or the defence of others.  Obviously that wasn’t what happened to Matthew Eappen.  “Accidental” homicide doesn’t necessarily mean an accident happened in the traditional sense (for example, an automobile accident where a driver kills another while speeding is not an “accidental” death – it is perhaps unintentional, perhaps reckless).  Instead “accident” is more properly understood to mean an instance such as where a vase is toppled off a tall shelf and freakishly falls on someone’s head, killing them.  There was no intent to kill, no intent to harm – not even the conscious knowledge that the event would lead to death.  This type of incident is usually seen as “excusable” and thus is more of a defence than a charge.  Louise Woodward might use it to clear herself, but it did not enter in to the prosecution's deliberations other than, perhaps, when considering whether to charge her at all.  “Involuntary” homicide, sometimes simply called “manslaughter” other times “involuntary manslaughter” requires “wanton or reckless” conduct leading to the death of another, or the battery of another where you did not intend to kill.  This is distinguished from “voluntary manslaughter” by the element of intent.  The typical example is where a spouse finds their partner in an act of adultery, loses control, and kills.  There is no reflection, no time taken to consider what was done, no “malice aforethought” in the legal sense.  One might say “no malice? – someone just got killed!”  But “malice” is more properly thought of as “reflection” – a manslaughter occurs when the killing takes place so soon after a provocation that there is no “cooling off” period.
    
   Once you are out of the manslaughter realm you are in to the area of “murder”.  Murder in the second degree, in Massachusetts, is a common law crime - it is differentiated from murder in the first degree by the element of pre-meditation.  The differences might best be understood by running through some of the variations on the scenario outlined in the example previously given.

1.  Mr. X walks in to the house and finds his wife in flagrante with the gardener.  As he turns to run from the house in shame and disgust his wife rushes after him, begging forgiveness.  At the top of the stairs she clings to him and he shoves her away causing her to fall down the stairs and break her neck.  Involuntary manslaughter – it was reckless to shove someone down stairs but he didn’t want to kill his wife or necessarily even harm her – he was exiting the scene.  But she did die as the result of his actions.
2. Same scenario – Mr. X, in the heat of the moment picks up a heavy lamp and crashes it down on the gardener’s head, killing him.  Voluntary manslaughter – X wanted to kill (or at least cause great harm which could reasonably lead to death) but did so in a moment of passion.
3. Same scenario – Mr. X, after seeing the adulterous act, runs from the house and circles the block twice.  Ten minutes later, after his second trip around, he spies the gardener leaving his house.  He runs up, grabs a brick, and beats the man dead.  Murder Two – intent to kill and plenty of malice, (because there had been a cooling off period), but there was no planning – the murder weapon was improvised and the meeting was random.
4. Finally – the same scenario again.  Mr. X sees the adulterous act but slips unnoticed back out of the house.  Two weeks later he invites the gardener to the house on some pretense.  He then drugs the couple, ties them to the bed and tortures them to death.
    
   Ladies and gentlemen – that is murder in the first degree.
    
   Any rational person reading through the facts of the Woodward case would have to conclude that it was not a murder case.  In point of fact – the DA’s office reached this same conclusion initially when they charged Louise Woodward with battery and not “attempted murder”. 
    
   Enter Martha Coakley.  When the time came for charges to be brought following Matthew Eappen’s death Martha was the face of the prosecution, holding forth at press briefings and, almost secondarily, the courts of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts.  Faced with the possibility of having to actually try the case however the DA’s office obviously decided  that the best way forward was to follow the path of maximum force – so, despite having no legal basis upon which to sustain the claim, Louise Woodward was charged with murder in the first degree.
    
   As would become painfully clear over the coming trial this was the worst kind of overcharging.  It was the real world equivalent of charging the cabbie with terrorism.  Remember – murder one requires premeditation and malice – the husband who drugs the wife and her lover two weeks after discovering the affair and then tortures them slowly to death.  In the Woodward case the prosecution was now essentially alleging that not only did Louise Woodward want Matthew Eappen to die – she planned how to do it.
    
   Of course, it was entirely possible that in a moment of rage, frustration or recklessness Woodward had done something that led to Matthew Eappen’s death.  This would have led to a charge of manslaughter – but it would also have most likely led to a trial.  What was really going on here was not a prosecutor attempting to be “tough on crime” or stepping up to become a crusader against a particular criminal class (unless baby-dropping nannies were now being treated as the equivalent of gang-bangers).  No – what Coakley was doing was attempting to bludgeon her way to a guilty plea – because she was afraid she didn’t have the chops to try a real case.  The DA’s office was hoping to have the usual scenario play out, where the threat of something as disproportionate as a mandatory life sentence (required for any murder conviction in Massachusetts)  would force the defendant to accept, at the very least, a guilty plea for voluntary manslaughter.
    
   There was only one problem with this.  The defendant was insistent on pursuing her right to a trial.  This is the great difficulty with overcharging and plea-bargaining.  As much as it sounds “efficient” to allow prosecutors to incentivize guilty pleas by bringing unwarranted draconian charges – it really is “justice by fear”.  What, in its most basic analysis, is the difference between scaring someone into a guilty plea by facing them with an option of life in prison or scaring them in to the same confession by putting a gun to their head?  Also – what do you do if you threaten to bring an unsustainable charge and the defendant doesn’t scare?
    
   What happened in the Woodward case was that the DA’s office, led by Coakley, embarked on an embarrassing farce of a public relations campaign rather than a trial.  Louise Woodward was not so much tried as demonized – and the effort, though patently absurd, was effective.  In closing arguments the best the prosecution could come up with was to describe Woodward as an “aspiring actress”, as if an interest in the theater was a hanging offense.  Coakley and the DA’s office sneered and obfuscated throughout the trial – but never came close to proving a murder case.  Woodward’s defense team, taking a calculated gamble, (which proved incorrect) that the jury would see through this nonsense, refused to allow the jury to be instructed on the lesser charge of manslaughter (which they could do, since the prosecution had never tried the case on that basis).  Their reasoning was that defense strategy had been altered by the prosecution’s overcharge – therefore compromising the ability to construct that defense.  Think about it – if a prosecutor tells you that you’re going on trial for drunk driving – and doesn’t try to convict you of reckless driving, why would you allow the jury to consider reckless driving when the DA is unable to show at trial that you ever took a drink in your life?
    
   So the case went to the jury, which was faced with a terrible quandary.  They knew that an innocent child was dead, but because the overcharging and incompetence of the prosecution had painted them in to a corner they either had to let Louise Woodward walk free or convict her of murder and hope that the system would, somehow, work things out.  They chose the latter course and convicted Woodward of second degree murder, a crime which, based on the evidence at trial, she could never have been said to have committed.
    
   When the verdict was read out all hell broke loose in the courtroom.  Woodward dissolved in tears, gasping out “how could they do this – I’m innocent”.  The jury looked as if they were ready to vomit from the strain.  Reporters who had followed the case incredulously attempted to explain how this result jibed with the facts (it didn’t).  Unbelievably, Martha Coakley and the Middlesex’s District Attorney’s office had managed to make a person whose possible lack of adequate care had led to the death of a child in to a figure of sympathy.
    
   The situation created an enormous difficulty for the judge, who, under Massachusetts law had a duty to review a verdict and overturn it if it is clearly lacking in a legal basis, which this one was.  The judge could have punted and let the verdict be overturned on appeal, but to his credit he immediately stepped in and reduced the verdict to one of involuntary manslaughter.  Despite the fact that the overall impact of this was to let the DA’s office off the hook for their own incompetence Martha and the gang roundly criticized the judge for doing their job for them.
    
   Overzealous publicity hungry prosecutors like Martha Coakley will often say, as a defense for overcharging, that it is their duty to “aggressively seek the most severe conviction the jury will sustain”.  This is ridiculous.  If it were true every southern DA who brought conspiracy charges against civil rights protestors would have been perfectly justified in saying “they were just doing their job”.  After all – the all-white juries they tried cases in front of would (and did) convict every time.  Juries often sustain verdicts simply on the basis that there appears to have been a wrong and someone must be punished.  In truth, a prosecutor is an agent of the government and should only seek a conviction for a crime they actually believe occurred.  When charges are increased (or, for that matter, decreased) in an attempt to avoid the “inconvenience” of a trial the system is compromised.  Is a certain amount of this necessary or acceptable?  Probably so, but, as numerous commentators point out, and as the Woodward case so amply demonstrated, things have gotten completely out of control.  Overcharging (and its close accomplices, mandatory sentences and asset forfeiture) are geared towards steering people away from their constitutional right to a fair trial.  That is, in the big picture, not a good thing.
    
   But it certainly was a good thing for Martha Coakley.  The Woodward trial, as embarrassing to justice as it may have been, was the making of Martha.  She was in front of cameras all the time, raised her profile enormously, and, because the judge quickly put the improper verdict aside the DA’s office avoided the kind of scrutiny one would have expected.  Out of disaster grew a career.

This then was the candidate that the Massachusetts Democratic party chose to put forward as its nominee for the seat vacated by the late Senator Edward Kennedy.  A person who, it could be argued, kept innocent people in prison, who ignored the suffering of victims when it suited her purposes, whose best known case was an advertisement for the greatest flaws in the criminal justice system.  Coakley would, of course, resist these characterizations, but should this person have been the standard bearer for the hopes of the electorate not just in Massachusetts but throughout the country?

Of course not.  But thus is it ever in Massachusetts Democratic politics.  What was so completely overlooked in the run up to the special Senate election was the fact that, in statewide races with perceived national importance (putting aside AG, Auditor, Secretary of State, etc), Democrats get fairly regularly beaten in Massachusetts.  Correction – party machine Democrats get fairly regularly beaten.  The Deval Patricks and Elizabeth Warrens of the world show that less traditional choices do OK.  This is because the nominees in those losing races are consistently drafted from the barrel of candidates who are closely tied to the power structure.  The Mark Roosevelts (lost to Bill Weld), the Scott Harshbargers (lost to Paul Celluci) and Shannon O’Brien’s (lost to Mitt Romney) of the world should have tipped everyone off that dipping in to the Middlesex County machine to dredge out Martha Coakley wasn’t that smart a move.  Nonetheless – Coakley received overwhelming traditional support in her campaign and was sent off to do battle under the widespread impression that there was no way she could screw things up.

 

She screwed things up.

 

It is pointless to go through the litany of gaffes Coakley committed in that campaign.  Suffice to say that if you misspell your own state’s name in your campaign literature, if you publicly prefer a fundraiser in Washington to greeting voters at Fenway Park (you’re a candidate in Boston for crying out loud!), if you take a week’s vacation less than three weeks before the most important election of your life – you can’t expect to be elected.  You can expect to fumble away the single safest seat in the United States Senate – and that is exactly what happened.

 

So why would anyone countenance turning the gubernatorial nomination over to Coakley?  There are already warning signs that trouble is stirring.  Coakley was defeated at the State Convention by national figure Steven Grossman.  Grassroots voters once again sent the message that they prefer this type of candidate to the long time state based figure.  Deval Patrick – two time winner of the Governor’s seat – had no history of holding elective office in Massachusetts.  Elizabeth Warren was the same – she was a national figure rather than a party hack.  Massachusetts is a place where long time lower office holders are more closely associated with going to jail than with higher office.  Coakley may not be criminal but she certainly isn’t an outsider when it comes to Massachusetts politics.  Still, in statewide polls the numbers show Coakley winning a plurality of the votes, mainly on the back of party loyalists.  If she wins, and the Republicans muster a competent candidate, things could get very sticky.

 

But, most importantly, even if she were to somehow win the election – is this the person that you want in the Governor's office?  The reason for Coakley’s continuing power lies in the stubbornness of the Democratic machine.  She was their candidate in 2010 and they still can’t believe they were that wrong.  So, again, large factions of the party wish to anoint Coakley Governor.  The problem, as before, is that candidates must be elected, and Coakley seems to have trouble pulling that act off on the big stage.  Perhaps the best solution is not to place her on that stage again.




Postscript - Hate to be an "I told you so" but... Since this article was originally posted Coakley did indeed go on to scrape through the primary and emerge as the Democratic nominee for governor.  She has, as of this date (24 October), managed to parlay this position as the lead Democrat in arguably the most Democratic state in the nation into a nine point deficit in the most recent polls.  Despite this consistent and unending evidence that Coakley is a bad candidate not suited to this type office party regulars, including the presumptive nominee for the Presidency, row in behind her because she's "one of us".  Look folks - she's really "one of them", the hangers on, the hacks, the coat carriers.  Let's face facts - every once in a while a candidate with a "D" after their name comes along that should be assigned that designation as a grade, not as your choice for high office.  In Martha's case it should probably be an "F".  Can she still win?  Maybe.  Should she? 


C'mon.