The Prisoner and the Politician, Part 2

(Part 1 below.)

4. Introduction, Part 2.

Part 1 juxtaposed two lives: a composite life-prisoner, and former House Speaker Newt Gingrich. The lifer committed a revolting murder. His undeserving victim paid the penultimate price, and her family suffers to this day. Gingrich is a prominent Republican leader, a hero to many, and he aspires to be President of the United States.

5. The prisoner and the politician: comparison.

Here’s the first three of a 10-point moral comparison of Gingrich and the lifer.
                   
                    a. Upbringing.

I feel sorrow for someone who grew up in cruel circumstances. A child should be loved and nurtured, not beaten and ignored. Clearly, my client’s upbringing doesn’t mitigate his crime. People who grow up under cruel circumstances can lead upright lives.  Few murder. But you have to have some sympathy for someone with such an unhappy early life.

By comparison, Gingrich enjoyed an advantaged upbringing. He had an intact home, regular contact with his natural father, and a step-father who did things like take him to the World War I battlefield of Verdun (where Gingrich had an early political epiphany). Gingrich enjoyed access to higher education.

Gingrich’s natural abilities enabled him to take advantage of these gifts. But they were gifts, and these early advantages make Gingrich unsympathetic in his moral failings -- his serial divorces and his flogging of truth in pursuit of political power. True, Gingrich has risen to impressive political heights. But, unlike my client, he did not have to construct a life on the loose soil of a deprived and afflicted childhood.

                        b. Trajectory.

The trajectory of my client’s moral life contrasts with Gingrich’s.
My client was a thief and a murder, and that will always be an element of his life story. But over years, my client has reshaped his soul. This is not a modest improvement like new paint on the wall. This is major: some walls going down; others going up; and ceiling windows to let in a lot more light. At some point, my client chose to lift himself out of depravity.

Maybe this was because of his encounter with religion; or his encounter with self-help courses; or his encounter with vocational training; or his stark recognition of the futility of the life of confinement that his crime brought him. The morally focusing effect of prison cannot be assumed, but it cannot be disregarded. But for whatever reason, or whatever combination of reasons, my client is a far better man today than he was when he committed his life crime.

Gingrich was once a brilliant man of ideas. Now he is a demagogue and a liar. He smears. His soul sinks even as his star rises.

c. Temptation.

My client is no saint. To my ear, he falls short of the complete truth when he describes his role in the murder that sent him to prison with a life sentence.

This is a blotch on his rehabilitation. But the temptation before him is freedom – the ability to leave a miserable life of confinement. He wants the simple things that we take for granted. He wants to be able to leave his home in the early evening to walk to a convenience store and buy twelve ounces of chilled orange juice. He wants to be able to eat at Burger King if he feels like Burger King, or Del Taco if he feels like Del Taco. He wants to be able to wade into the Pacific, or fish in a mountain lake.

The desire for freedom is a simple but powerful. If my client portrays himself as better than he was, it is because he addresses commissioners who will decide whether he stays confined or goes free. And he hopes that his minimizing will induce them to judge his past less harshly, so that he may walk as a free man among free people.

As to the recent cell-phone violation, my client suffered loneliness for his son. The cell phone was an instrument of reunion.

Gingrich’s wish is that, to the power and wealth that he already has, more may be added. He lies to weaken his opponents, so that he may rise above them.

                     6. Conclusion to Part 2.

The last part will discuss who pays for the failings of my client and Gingrich, and what those consequences are.