The Man in the Hat | article | Check Your Balance: The Founding Fathers versus Mob Rule

   who can argue with Yogi Berra? I once heard NBC's Bob Costas relay a rarely told "Yogi-ism." A young pitcher on the New York Yankees staff wished to curry favor with the eventual Hall-of-Fame catcher. Knowing that Yogi was Jewish, he referred to a piece in that day's New York Times that announced that the new mayor of Dublin, Ireland was also Jewish. "Imagine, Yogi, the Lord Mayor of Dublin, a Jew!" Yogi reportedly turned his eyes skyward and smiled, "Only in America!"

    If America stands for any one thing, it stands for HOPE. People from foreign lands have been flocking to these shores with Hope in their hearts since before 1492. When Thomas Jefferson et al sat down to frame the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution, they continued to hope for a better future. Knowing that the future they were setting in place would be handled by human beings with all their foibles, they put the concept of Checks and Balances into place amidst the three branches of the new Federal Government: Executive, Legislative and Judicial. Just as video photographers must check their black balance and white balance to assure proper colors throughout the spectrum, our government of, by and for the People must keep its balances checked as well.

    In a country as polarized as the United States today, balance is a tricky proposition. There are forces looking to gain an upper hand and turn it into a death grip on those who would oppose them. They would use the means of the previously oppressed towards their ends of oppressing. What is a press corps owed by a few corporate interests to do?

    America holds out a Hope for civilized behavior. We hope that courtroom proceedings may find truer justice with more deliberation than a lynching mob. While the axiom that the Law is like sausage--you really don't want to see either one being made--may be true, it is preferable to the horror of Mob Rule. Especially if you are not part of the mob.

   More often than not, this is where our Judicial branch comes in. There have been isolated cases of bravery from the Executive Branch--none more so than the administration of Abraham Lincoln--but the court system's greatest challenge is to stem the tide of the fervor of the moment (particularly when that moment has been ingrained over time).

    It was an enlightened Supreme Court that struggled with and eventually overturned the segregationist Separate-but-Equal policies in the South. When then Governor George Wallace stood in front of the schoolhouse steps in Alabama, he not only had the power of his National Guard behind him, in his mind, he had the vindication of the majority of the white electorate. Now the Religious Right in that state fight to replace monuments of the Ten Commandments at their courthouse. They cite that this is the majority view; ignoring the Founding Fathers' cornerstone of Separation of Church and State. They argue against what they refer to as judicial tyranny.

   Constitutional scholar, Jonathan Turley told National Public Radio, "The great irony is that the finest moments of the judiciary always come when they're the most unpopular. We don't really need them during good times. We don't need them them when they're agreeing with what we want. They earn their keep when they actually turn us down, when they stand in front of the majority and say, 'You just can't do that. '"

   Yet in California some of the electorate, powered by the initiative process recently replaced a career politician with an action hero movie star. Court challenges were not timely nor powerful enough to block the historic recall election of October 2003. Though motions are still grinding through the justice system, a new administration is in place in Sacramento. Unlike the current occupant of the Oval Office, at least Arnold actually won an election.

    For a less political analogy--though no less controversial--we can look to recent developments in our National Pastime. All-time hit leader, Pete Rose has finally (partially) confessed to betting on baseball in hopes of attaining admittance to the Major League Baseball Hall of Fame. At the 1999 All-Star Game at Fenway Park in Boston, a majority of fans voted Rose to the All-Century Team. The applause when his name was announced was indeed the loudest and longest amid such greats as Hank Aaron, Willie Mays, and local Boston hero Ted Williams. Yet so far, the commissioners office has kept faith with the bravery of A. Bartlett Giamatti who banned Rose from the sport for life.

   Americans are a very forgiving people, but Pete Rose is the Richard Nixon of Baseball. Like Nixon, he would not admit to his misdeeds. In the present, he only slightly confesses in the interests of book sales.

   Baseball has another great ballplayer banned form the Hall. Unlike Pete Rose, he did not write a book to promote himself as he could not even read. In the 1919 World Series, "Shoeless" Joe Jackson's high batting average and errorless play in the field for the Chicago White Sox (later dubbed "The Black Sox" after the gambling scandal surfaced) showed no signs of throwing the games for the gamblers. (Recommended viewing is John Sayles' film, "Eight Men Out.") Jackson's only crime must be that he didn't rat out his teammates. While Rose's accomplishments on the field of play surely qualify him for Cooperstown, this writer could only imagine him considered for Baseball highest honor five years after the induction of "Shoeless" Joe.