Maybe It Wasn't An Accident

I got a lead on this from The New York Post, of all places, and I thought I should follow up. I’m glad I did.

Others have noted the fact that Dick Cheney’s recent gun mishap is a perfect metaphor for the entire Bush-Cheney presidency, but I haven’t found anyone yet who has noted that Cheney’s choice of a victim in this stupid, reckless accident turns out to be a man who stands in complete opposition to everything about this reckless, selfish, naïve and hopelessly corrupt administration.

Harry Whittington, quite simply, is everything Bushco will never be; chiefly, a tireless, dogged advocate for the basic rights of everyday people with a thorough understanding of right and wrong. Upon doing a bit of investigating, I found that he has spent a majority of his life fighting battles against bureaucracies of varying degrees and, as noted from this link, cleaning up at least one mess handed to him by none other than former Texas governor George W. Bush.

In the Austin Chronicle story about Travis County District Court Judge John Dietz’s decision that Bush would not have to testify in a whistle-blower lawsuit filed by Eliza May of the Texas Funeral Service Commission from September 1999, you see some familiar names and, I would argue, familiar patterns of behavior.

You have former Texas Attorney General (now U.S. Senator) John Cornyn pontificating in a fashion similar to that of the Alito hearings in Bush’s defense. You have Bush campaign manager (and former head of FEMA who hired Mike “Horsey Time” Brown, Joe Allbaugh) being named in May’s suit also. You also have Dubya himself claiming no knowledge of illegal activity and calling May’s lawsuit (in which $445,000 in fines against the funeral company regulated by May’s agency is in question) “frivolous” (I don’t know about you, but nearly half a mil is pretty substantial to me, though I guess that’s chump change for the Bush clan), and you have the head of the funeral company tied to the Bush family by way of sizeable campaign donations.

This excerpt of the story should sound familiar.

May's lawyers allege that Bush did not tell the truth when he filed an affidavit earlier this month saying that he has "had no conversations with SCI officials, agents, or representatives" about the state's investigation into the funeral home giant. Since that time, Bush's statement has been contradicted several times.

Something else that struck me about this was the reason why May’s request to have Bush testify was denied.

(Judge Dietz) cited Texas case law which requires that before plaintiffs are allowed to depose heads of corporations and other entities, they must show that person has information that is not available from other, lower-ranking people in the company. Cornyn argued that the same, or higher, standard should apply to the governor. Dietz agreed.

I’ll admit that I’m hardly a “legal eagle,” but what kind of stupid law is that? I’m sure the logic is that that sort of thing is supposed to be found out at the “discovery” phase, but suppose it isn’t somehow? Why is that the plaintiff’s fault? “Frontier justice” indeed.

Well, Harry Whittington was called in to make sure SCI complied with TFSC codes, and here is more from the story.

The appointment of Whittington appears to be a good move. A well-respected lawyer, Whittington has served on other controversial state positions in the past…

Whittington said his motivation for taking the job comes both from his age and his desire to serve the public. "I know it's a challenge," he said. "But we have 150,000 people dying every year in Texas. That's a lot of funerals, and my generation is getting closer to them every day. It's a big part of our lives that needs to be dealt with."

The story accessible here from the Texas American-Statesman has more on Whittington, who also served on the state’s prison board. An excerpt from the story follows:

In 1981, Whittington pushed a plan to reduce prison overcrowding by moving nonviolent inmates with mental retardation to separate state institutions. It was a bold new idea that clashed with the prevailing build-more-prisons mentality; Estelle likened it to mixing thugs with the general public.

Whittington was dismayed by prison officials' ignorance about mental retardation, perhaps because the subject is so close to his heart. One of his four daughters is mentally retarded. He felt that the condition contributed to inmates getting into jail and that those inmates, who are outmatched in prison, deserved a chance to fare better. He persuaded the board to open a separate unit.

At the time, the state was embroiled in a long-running prison-reform lawsuit filed by inmate David Ruiz in 1972. The suit, which stretched well into the 1990s, showed state prison officials as an unchecked, unregulated authority presiding over shockingly brutal conditions. The case led to unprecedented judicial control over the prisons and a revamping of the state's incarceration practices.

The lawsuit also targeted the practice of "tenders," a cruel, unofficial system of inmates disciplining other inmates. State officials held firm that no such system existed.

As the lawsuit unfolded, and Whittington kept digging, he and others realized top officials were lying. He arranged a key meeting to get state officials to fess up to State Attorney General Mark White, pestered lawmakers to help straighten out the mess and lined up allies until the truth slowly emerged.

Estelle lost his credibility and resigned in 1983. Few people question that Whittington was a prime catalyst in toppling that regime.

Whittington, according to the American-Statesman story, also “faced off against bond lawyers who had a stranglehold on Texas’s lucrative debt business” (as I noted at another time, everything we’re living with now has already been done in Texas, which Molly Ivins has called “the breeding ground for bad government”), and “won a court ruling that invalidated a 1959 bond election allowing Austin to use federal money to condemn and redevelop blighted homes. The judge found that ineligible voters had cast ballots, something Whittington had suspected.”

This tells you more about him.

His dignified presence belies a fierce competitive spirit and antipathy toward government power…”My nature is, if you have a cause and feel like you're right on the law, you'd be letting yourself down to just cave in."

In short, Harry Whittington sounds like my kind of guy. Sure he’s a Republican, but he’s one in the traditional centrist mode that we haven’t seen on the national stage since the days of Robert Michel, Barry Goldwater, and others of their type.

And this is the guy that Dick Cheney filled full of buckshot (and Whittington, by the way, was NEVER “just fine,” despite Bushco propaganda. He was in intensive care for a time, and some of the pellets are so tiny that they can never be removed from his skin).

Update: If “just fine” in Bush-ese means “almost died,” then yeah…Whittington is doing great (I don't know anyone who's had a "minor" heart attack).

Yeah, I made a joke out of Cheney’s stupid accident, and others including Jon Stewart have come up with some great lines. But I’m sure we can all agree that this is no way for a man like Harry Whittington to be brought into the national spotlight, and we all hope and pray for his speedy recovery.

Update 1 2/15: Molly Ivins is the perfect individual to provide more on this.

Update 2 2/15: This is actually funny and pathetic at the same time (hat tip to The Daily Kos).