Oh, responsibility
...?
By Molly Ivins, Star-Telegram.com
from the Web, February 17, 2006
AUSTIN, Feb.16 -- Of course
the jokes are flying all over Texas: "What's the fine for shooting a
lawyer?" and so forth. Dick Cheney shooting Harry Whittington is fraught,
as they say, with irony. It's not as though the ground in Texas is
littered with liberal Republicans. I think the vice president winged the
only one we've got.
Not that I accuse Whittington of being an actual liberal -- only by Texas
Republican standards, and that sets the bar about the height of a matchbook.
Nevertheless, Whittington is seriously civilized, particularly on the issues of
crime, punishment and prisons. He served on the Texas Board of Corrections
and on the bonding authority that builds prisons. As he has often said,
prisons do not curb crime -- they are hothouses for crime: "Prisons are to
crime what greenhouses are to plants."
When Whittington was the chairman of the Texas Public Finance Authority, he had
a devastating set of numbers on the demand for more, more, more prison beds.
As Whittington was wont to point out, the only thing that prisons are good for
is segregating violent people from the rest of society, and most of them belong
in psychiatric hospitals to begin with. The severity of sentences has no
effect on crime.
Texas still keeps the nonviolent, the retarded, senior citizens, etc., locked up
for ridiculous periods -- all at taxpayer expense. If we could ever get to
where we spend as much per pupil on education as we do per prisoner, this state
would take off like a rocket. In 2003, we spent nearly $15,000 per
prisoner, while average per-pupil spending was about $8,000.
I am not trying to make a big deal out of a simple hunting accident for partisan
purposes; I just thought it was a good chance to pay tribute to old Harry, a
thoroughly decent man. However, I was offended by the never-our-fault
White House spin team.
Cheney adviser Mary Matalin said of her boss, "He was not careless or incautious
[and did not] violate of any of the [rules]. He didn't do anything he
wasn't supposed to do." Of course he did, Ms. Matalin -- he shot Harry
Whittington.
Which brings us to one of the many paradoxes of the Bush administration, which
claims to be creating "the responsibility society." It's hard to think of
a crowd less likely to take responsibility for anything they have done or not
done than this bunch. They're certainly good at preaching responsibility
to others -- and blaming other people for everything that goes wrong on their
watch.
Of course the Cheney shooting was an accident. But is it an accident if
your home and your life are destroyed by the flood following a hurricane?
Especially if the flood was caused by failed levees -- a government
responsibility?
Is it an accident if you are born with a clubfoot and your parents are too poor
to pay for the operation to fix it? Is there any societal responsibility
in such a case?
Is it an accident when your manufacturing job gets shipped overseas and all you
can find to replace it is a low-wage job at the big-box store with no health
insurance, and your kid breaks his leg, and you can't pay the bill, so you have
to declare bankruptcy under a new law that leaves you broke for good, with no
chance of ever getting out of debt?
Or was all of that caused by deliberate government policy?
Cheney is much given to lecturing us about taking responsibility. When and
where does societal responsibility come in?
Cheney has a curious, shifting history on issues of blame and responsibility.
He was vice chairman of the congressional committee that spent 11 months
investigating the Iran-contra affair and author of its minority report. As
John W. Dean highlights in a recent essay, the 500-page majority report
concluded that the entire affair "was characterized by pervasive dishonesty and
inordinate secrecy." But Cheney's report said the Reagan administration's
repeated violations of the law were "mistakes ... were just that -- mistakes in
judgment and nothing more."
Those of you who saw Cheney's interview with Jim Lehrer last week might recall
the passage on Darfur that ended with this:
Lehrer: "And it's still happening. There's now 2 million people
homeless."
Cheney: "Still happening, correct."
Lehrer: "Hundreds of thousands of people have died, and -- so you're
satisfied the U.S. is doing everything it can do?"
Cheney: "I am satisfied we're doing everything we can do."
His head still tilts over more to the right when he lies.
Molly Ivins, based in Austin, writes for Creators Syndicate.
5777 W. Century Blvd., Suite 700, Los Angeles, CA 90045.
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