Hubris is among the seven deadly sins. A society in freefall ignores hubris, callous indifference, and brazen unconcern for consequences.
The classic image of justice is that of a blindfolded individual with equally weighted scales. The decision excoriating Emmerich Newspapers is otherwise.
Occasionally I ask, “What was [he or she] thinking?” and the response will be “[He or she] wasn’t!”
The decision in — suggests that the judge was not thinking. It is not the first time that a judge in the Capital City proceeded without thinking.
A couple of judges — one on the Federal Court and one on the County Court — were routinely ridiculed for lacking fidelity to judicial decorum. Absence has not made hearts grow fonder. Indifference to basic standards is as well remembered afterwards as when the judges sat on the bench.
The judge issuing the opinion in this instance might be reelected notwithstanding limited shelf life for spoiled goods: Such patterns and practices invite challenges by ambitious individuals looking to defeat vulnerable incumbents. The incumbent is unlikely to enjoy praise for Solomonic wisdom.
In public life, one figurative bad apple can spoil the whole bunch.
What makes the misstep so egregious is its overlooking the landmark 1964 United States Supreme Court decision New York Times v. Sullivan, which stands as authority that public officials never enjoy the lack of scrutiny of the average citizen can expect.
President Franklin Roosevelt anticipated the same addressing criticism after a Coast Guard ship was sent to retrieve his Scottish Terrier Fala, inadvertently left on an island when the First Family was touring military installations in Alaska amidst World War II. At the Press Conference during which the President deftly deescalated the situation, he acknowledged that he as President, his wife Eleanor as First Lady, and his five children accepted criticism as going with the territory. Sullivan etched the thought into stone.
I have every reason in the world to fault New York Times v. Sullivan. After Aunt Joan and Uncle Jimmy bought their weekend home on Lake Martin, Aunt Joan mentioned that the house across the slough was inhabited by the widow of a former Commissioner in Montgomery, L.B. Sullivan. Although I never met Jo Sullivan, she was their close neighbor.
When I attended Virginia Durr’s 90th birthday celebration on Martha’s Vineyard subsequently, wonderful Rita Sabel and I sat on the unmade twin beds in the room that Rita and Kate Durr Elmore shared, chatting, on Sunday morning, while the Durr family was having family photographs made. Rita told me that Uncle Jimmy’s closest boyhood friends were her brother-in-law Jimmie Sabel and Rudy Nachman (who I never met although I attended a house party in Napa with one of his four daughters, three years earlier). Rudy Nachman represented L.B. Sullivan in his losing battle to collect damages for criticism.
(Alabama never constructed a Governor’s Mansion, purchasing two homes, sequentially, to serve as Executive Mansion. The first was the Sabel Mansion, built by Rita’s husband Mark’s paternal grandparents).
Common sense counsels not to risk one’s reputation repudiating settled jurisprudence.
The New York Times recently ran a story headlined, “Supreme Court Signals That Landmark Libel Ruling Is Secure”: principle seemingly more secure than the future of the judge issuing the opinion or the opinion on appeal.
I often note that the iconic song from “Casablanca” is prophetic: “The fundamental things apply as time goes by.” The Talking Heads Song “Once in a Lifetime” augments the thought: “Same as it ever was.”
The Mayor of Clarksdale appears to fantasize — as does a recent Governor of Mississippi and the current President of the United States — that one can be a public figure yet remain free from public scrutiny and criticism. He or she had best pursue other work if such is one’s desire.
One leaves one’s freedom from exacting examination at the door upon election to public office: “Same as it ever was.”
Jay Wiener is a Northsider
