The Prisoner and the Politician, Part 3

(Parts 1 & 2 below)

7. Introduction, Part 3.

Part 1 compared two lives: a composite life-prisoner, and Newt Gingrich. Part 2 began to scrutinize the comparative virtues and vices of these men. Both have lied: Gingrich certainly, my client probably/maybe. Part 2 examined why.

8. The prisoner and the politician: comparison, continued.

 Let’s examine the comparative consequences of these character flaws, and other revelations.

d. The scope of their failings.Moral failings have consequences.

If my client lied about his knowledge of the murder of the house sitter, or his own participation in that crime, at least his lie had no scope. The commissioners and I were his audience, and we are few.

But Gingrich doesn’t lie to the few. He lies to a national audience. And he aspires to speak to the world as President of the United States with his unclean lips.

The scope of my client’s lies is minuscule. The scope of Gingrich’s lies is epic.

e. The effect of their failings.The consequences of my client’s – I suspect – minimization of his role in the murder is highly theoretical. A lie insults the dignity of the person lied to – here, the commissioners and me, whether we know of it or not. It has had no lingering effect.

When Gingrich lies, in addition to insulting the dignity of those he lies to, he deflects his audience from reality and molests their judgment. Based upon what Gingrich says, his credulous followers form opinions. Based on those opinions, they will choose candidates. And they will perpetuate his falsehoods among their friends and relations.

But almost worse than what Gingrich does to his credulous followers is what he does to his followers who penetrate his distortions. Because he is a hero to them, when they see him lie and rise, they are tempted to walk in his ways. This harms their integrity, and that potentially injures their personal and professional lives.

But Gingrich offends against more than his followers. He offends against the nation. Lies are toxic to our national lifeblood. On an individual level, any time we make an important decision – like whom to marry, where to invest our money – we crave accurate information. Who would marry if they knew that their would-be spouse was not kind, but cruel behind a mask of kindness? Who would invest their savings in a company, if they knew that the impressive company profits were only an accounting mirage? That's politics, too. America cannot sail itself to a safe and prosperous future under a delusion-based helm.

f. The burden of their failings.My client himself bears the burden his recent failing. He was caught with a cell phone, and he was denied parole. I have no doubt that he otherwise would have won release. As to his possible falsehoods, I feel no residual effect of this offense. Nor did the commissioners, if they were aware of it. I don’t think they shared my suspicion, because they said nothing. But minimization of personal responsibility for a crime is a fundamental reason for which commissioners deny parole.

Except in an eternal sense, Gingrich does not bear the burden of his recent failings; his followers and his country do. As Gingrich rises, we (potentially) fall.

g. Hypocrisy.My client is no hypocrite. He does not judge others harshly for what he himself does. He knows he has done evil. He hoped for mercy from the commissioners, but he was not dismayed when parole was denied. He did not complain about others who got parole who were, in his mind, less deserving.

Gingrich savages Democrats from his position of moral impoverishment. And as Speaker of the House, he famously made the case against Bill Clinton because of Monica Lewinsky. This, while he himself violated his vows to his second wife.

h. Goodwill.I don’t pretend that my client has affection for the commissioners who decide whether he goes free or stays in prison. But if nervousness is any indication, he fears them.

Gingrich possesses contempt for his followers. Contempt is the cause and effect of his falsehoods. Only contempt for his followers permits him to insult their dignity by lying to them instead of telling them the truth. And he necessarily must have contempt for people who cannot penetrate his transparent lies.


i. Humility and hubris.My client is humble. He doesn’t chafe under his daily routine, which is dictated by others. Others tell him when to rise, when to sleep; what to eat and when; what will be his occupation; what he may possess as property. He calmly accepted the decision denying him parole. He does not seek any lofty status in society. He just wants out. He knows he will always be under supervision, always be at risk for returning to prison. He accepts that.

Gingrich has wealth and power, and he seeks the highest power in politics. He considers his political rise more important than truth, and that is to say more important than God. Gingrich holds a bastard sense of entitlement to power – a sense of entitlement that overwhelms his fidelity to facts.

j. Future.If my client obtains his freedom, I have no doubt that he will lead a blameless life. For one thing, statistically, released lifers have a low recidivism rate. Also, after a deprived life, I expect the euphoria of freedom to choke out any depraved temptation that could cause his return to the futility of prison.

But it is hard to see a path to Gingrich’s rehabilitation. He has risen high in the world. He has the acclaim of millions. He has power, fame, and riches. And the consequence is pride. I see no catalyst that might alter the practices by which he has risen.


9. Conclusion.The life stories of my clients and Newt Gingrich are now being written. Some of my clients will achieve their freedom. Gingrich will rise, but I don’t know how high. But I predict this: in their small way, my freedom-gaining clients will lead good lives; and in his epic way, Gingrich will be a force for decline.

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.

The Prisoner and the Politician, Part 1

1. Introduction: life sentences.

I might prefer a prisoner to a politician.

In my law practice, many of my clients are lifers.  A lifer has been sentenced to prison for life. In California, a life sentence can be irrevocable, or it can come with the possibility of release – a.k.a. parole. All of my lifer clients have the possibility of parole. My duty is go with my clients before commissioners of the parole board and advocate for them. It is hard job, because parole is hard to obtain. It is harder for my clients than for me.

Most of my lifers are murderers. Some have killed multiple victims. One client killed a man, got released on parole, and then killed another man. Some of my clients committed lesser-but-still-grave offenses, such as kidnaping or intentional mayhem.

My friends wonder what it is like to interact with murderers. It feels very normal. Maybe that’s because they are on best behavior with me, but I don’t think so. Almost all of them have, at least to some degree, reformed. You can usually see this in their prison records: indifferent or hostile to prison rules coming in; increasing conformity to the rules as time goes by.

Recently, I watched a famous politician on the internet. I reacted to him in the way that my friends expect me to react to my clients. I was disgusted.  On reflection, I discovered that I feared my clients less, and respected them more, than this politician.

2. The prisoner and the politician: biographies.

That might sound hyperbolic. Let me justify my opinion by drawing a comparison between the prisoners and the politician. I’ll start by talking about their biographies.

a. The prisoner.For the privacy of my clients, I will not write about a particular prisoner, but about a realistic composite of several of them.

My client did not know his biological father. He was physically abused by his step-father. His mother did not protect him, in part because she was often drunk. He did poorly in school.

Because my client got along poorly with his mother and his step-father, during high school he moved in with a man he worked for. That man molested him.

In his late teens, my client burglarized a relative’s home. A house-sitter interrupted the burglary, and my client’s accomplice beat her to death. My client claims that he did not witness the beating, nor know about it until it was almost over. But perhaps he deliberately minimizes his knowledge of the crime or his involvement in it, or both.

My client has labored to rehabilitate himself during his decades in prison. He has taken many courses about anger and violence. He has regularly attended Alcoholics Anonymous and knows his 12-steps. He has acquired vocations in prison.

His early prison career was marked by many 115's – serious rules violations. Now, not so much. But he did within months of his parole hearing pick up a 115 for possession of contraband – a smuggled cell phone.

He had the cell phone because wanted to be able to talk unrestrictedly with his son. A correctional officer explained to me that cell phones are a security risk because any un-monitored prisoner contact with the outside is perilous; but that most prisoners who possess this contraband do so because they miss their families.

b. The politician.Newt Gingrich was formerly the powerful Speaker of the United States House of Representative. He is a likely candidate for the 2012 Republican nomination for President. He draws crowds for his speeches, and he commands the attention of the American press.

As for his upbringing, his parents were divorced when he was little, but his mother’s second husband, an Army officer, adopted him when he was five. He had regular contact with his natural father, a Navy officer.

After he graduated from high school, he followed his high school math teacher to Atlanta. While he studied at Emory University, he married her. After he graduated from Emory, he obtained a Ph.D. from Tulane University. His first job after finishing school was teaching.

After unsuccessful races for Congress, Gingrich was elected to his first term in 1978. During his first term, he divorced his cancer-stricken wife and married his second of three wives.

Gingrich at one time was considered a model for even Democrats for emulate – a man who percolated with brilliance. Presently, a new tactic eclipses his enunciation of brilliant ideas. His new public persona is less glittery with fresh ideas and more focused on scathing attacks, denunciations untethered to truth.

In typical fashion, Gingrich recently warned newly-confirmed Supreme Court Justice Elena Kagan away from deciding cases by examining sharia. (Sharia is the law code that derives from the Qur’an.) He threatened that she would not remain in office if she did. The imagined source of Kagan’s attraction to sharia apparently is that, as dean of Harvard Law, she accepted an endowment on behalf of the university. It came from a wealthy Saudi, and its purpose was to create four professorships at Harvard Law to study and teach Islamic finance.

Gingrich knows better. My own law professor taught comparative criminal law; this included study of the Soviet criminal-justice system. But that did not make him a communist. And I studied Greek mythology as a teenager. But I never sacrificed so much as an aphid to Zeus. You can study something – and Islamic finance is important in the world – without wanting it.

This is pure Gingrich in his present incarnation.

3. Part 1 conclusion.

In Part 2, I will begin to construct a 10-point comparison between my client and Gingrich, to say who is more admirable, or less dangerous.

Links

A Gingrich biography: http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/newt/boyernewt2.html
　
A report on a typical scathing speech by Gingrich, including his remarks about Kagel and sharia: http://blogs.abcnews.com/thenote/2010/09/newt-gingrich-kathleen-sebelius-behaving-in-the-spirit-of-soviet-tyranny.html

Kagel and sharia: http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/michaeltomasky/2010/aug/05/usa-islam-elena-kagan-sharia-nonsense: