Judge Clarence Thomas, Judge Jack T. Camp and Anna Nicole Smith
Enablers of the month:
Virginia Thomas, who left a phone message for Anita Hill, asking her to apologize for testifying against her husband, Clarence Thomas, 19 years ago during his Supreme Court confirmation hearings. Hill told reporters she has no intention of apologizing for accusing Thomas of making lewd and harassing comments when they were colleagues in the 1980s because she simply “testified to the truth of [her] experience.” Considering the fact that according to Jeffrey Toobin in The New Yorker (November 12, 2007) Thomas admitted in his memoir, My Grandfather’s Son, to “using alcohol to deaden the pain and anger that dominated his life” until he “stopped drinking cold turkey during his tenure at the E.E.O.C.” (where he and Hill worked together), it’s likely that Thomas committed the acts. It’s even likely, if Thomas has the disease of alcoholism, that his denials are genuine and he doesn’t remember what he did or said (having possibly suffered blackouts) or recalls through self-favoring lenses (having regularly experienced euphoric recall). A former girlfriend of Thomas’s, lawyer Lillian McEwen, said while appearing on “Larry King Live” that when they first met Thomas “may” have been a “raving alcoholic” who used pornography to fulfill his sexual fantasies. If Thomas is an abstinent alcoholic, which the evidence suggests in compelling fashion, making lewd and lascivious remarks is about the least of what he could have been capable of. Justice Thomas: you would do the world a favor if, assuming this analysis is correct, you would admit to alcoholism and begin the process of recovery. You would admit to your wrongs and pay amends to those you harmed. In addition, as possibly the most free-market oriented Supreme Court justice, you just might help the libertarian cause by coming clean and explaining that alcoholism is a brain disease that caused you to act badly, some of the time.
Defense attorney Ellyn Garofalo, who claimed the acquittal of her client Dr. Sandeep Kapoor was “a victory for Anna Nicole Smith. This jury did not find she was an addict.” No, it was not a victory for Ms. Smith, Ms. Garofalo. As pointed out in the April-May 2007 TAR, she was quite the obvious addict. Smith’s long-time companion Howard K. Stern and psychiatrist Dr. Khristine Eroshevich were both convicted of conspiring to obtain controlled substances by fraud and by providing false names. You don’t need to conspire to obtain psychotropic drugs or provide false names in doing so if you are not an addict. The defense would not have wanted me in that jury box.
“I can’t believe he did this” of the month:
Federal U.S. District Judge Jack T. Camp, Jr., 67, charged with buying cocaine, illegal painkillers and other drugs from Stripper Sherry Ann Ramos, 27. Ramos, who was continually violating her parole by engaging in prostitution and using drugs, hoped to avoid jail by “delivering” a wayward federal judge via a sting set up by the FBI, which she appears to have done in spades. Camp, appointed to the federal bench in 1988 by President Reagan and earning senior judge status in 2008, has handled a number of high-profile drug cases and, therefore, sent people to prison for doing the sort of thing he is accused of doing. Those who know him used the usual phrases: “It’s so unbelievable,” “this is an inexplicable deviation of character,” “there’s no rational explanation,” and “it’s Jekyll and Hyde.” Of course, we know otherwise: his (alleged) behaviors are best explained by alcohol and other-drug addiction, which was probably long-standing, hidden though it may have been.
Fr. Jack Kearney said,
January 2, 2011 @ 12:47 pm
You may need to start a new award such as “How do they sleep at night?”; Garofalo can win for this month….