Republicans Cast Their Lott

I’m concerned, as an American citizen, about the Republican Party’s mindset. If I were an actual Republican, I’d be even more concerned.

Just a few days after suffering one of the most thorough political routs this country has seen, the Republicans just voted in Sen. Trent Lott as their No. 2 man in the Senate. Was there something about the recent midterm elections they didn’t understand? Four years ago, those same Republicans voted to dump Lott as their Majority Leader because of remarks he made praising racial segregation in the South. Well, actually, they dumped him because of the furor over Lott’s comments more than for the comments themselves. Still, doing the right thing for the wrong reasons is good enough for me.

Now, just after the rest of the country joined those Republican Senators in dumping many other Republicans around the country, I’ll be damned if they didn’t just put the man back in a leadership position. Did Lott admit he was impaired, check himself into some sort of rehabilitation program, and get well, while no one was looking? That seems to be the modus operandi of disgraced political leaders these days.

The smarter Republicans will understand what the 2004 elections meant. The others have cast their Lott elsewhere, showing once again that you just can’t help some people.

Judge not. Oh, what the hell, go ahead and judge.

I just released my second novel, Running for the Bench (A Brief Political Comedy). You can buy it now on Amazon .

Modesty prevents me from telling you how good it is, but you should know that the novel is damn funny and insightful. I can tell you that the book is about a Dallas divorce attorney running for judge.

And this brings me to my non-personal-aggrandizement point. Why in the world do we elect judges? Those of you who have read my previous blogs (God bless you) might have recognized my left-leaning tendency, and Dallas County just elected 42 new countywide officeholders, each and every one of them a Democrat. It was an unprecedented clean sweep.

So, if there were any time for me to gloat and praise the wisdom of the voters, this would be the time. But it isn’t, and I’m not.

The fact is, the average citizen, not to mention the average lawyer, has no idea who these people are whom we’re putting into office. As in every judicial election, some good people were put in place along with some bad, and some good judges lost their spots along with some bad. And it’s all just a crapshoot.

It doesn’t make any logical sense to elect judges. In a republican (little “r”) form of democracy, like ours, we elect people to represent us in state legislatures and congress and so on, because each person can’t be present to deliberate and vote on each decision. But judges don’t “represent” us. They aren’t supposed to be swayed by us at all. A judge is supposed to do one thing: apply and interpret the law (okay, two things).

Even most lawyers don’t know the identity or qualifications of judicial candidates outside of their own specialty area of practice. It would be like me, a lawyer, voting for who the best doctor is, and using a political party affiliation to do it.

Okay, end of tirade. For now.

Buy the book. Please.

Big Mouth, Small Hands

Here's my quick-take sports opinion after watching the Cowboys lose a game to Washington that Dallas should have won. Perhaps Tony Romo should consider throwing toward Terrell Owens' mouth. It's always open. God knows hitting TO in his hands isn't good enough.