Tom Harkin is the junior senator from the state of Iowa. Harkin is a well-regarded fellow and has had presidential ambitions. Unfortunately those ambitions never got past the primary vote in the state of Iowa. But be that as it may, Harkin has an idea worth considering.
The idea has to do with naming a replacement for David Souter, the Associate Justice of the United States Supreme Court. In the past week or so, David Souter announced that in June, when the Supreme Court sessions end, he will retire and will return to the tranquility of his native state of New Hampshire.
Souter is an interesting fellow, having been named to the Supreme Court by George H. W. Bush in 1990. He was supposed to be a right-wing Republican on all issues, but in the final analysis his votes on the Supreme Court have fallen basically on the liberal side. And so he is cursed by people such as Rush Limbaugh, the Republican head man, as being biased. Souter has told his associates that he detests Washington D.C. At age 70, he proposes to spend his golden years in his home state. For whatever it is worth, Souter is a bachelor.
I worked in Washington for the better part of four years and found it to be a delightful experience. There were parties galore and interesting people everywhere one looked. But Justice Souter has made it clear that he detests the city of Washington, D.C. and wants to return to the hills and valleys of the great state of New Hampshire. And so at the end of June, when the Supreme Court term ends, Mr. Souter plans to retire.
Now enter Tom Harkin. Senator Harkin has an interesting proposal that deserves the attention of all of us. In naming the person to succeed Justice Souter, Harkin has suggested to the President that he name someone with “real life experience.” Harkin wants a person who has been knocked down a time or two and who has dusted himself off and gotten up and gone back to work. The chances that Souter’s replacement will be a fellow with real life experience is remote indeed but the suggestion has been made and I take it very seriously.
Harkin has told the President that he should look beyond naming a lawyer to the Supreme Court. Specifically, he says that the President should avoid naming a lawyer who received his training in an Ivy League school such as Yale or Harvard. Instead, he says that Souter’s replacement should be a person who has experienced “real life” in this country. I know that the chances of our naming such a person are surely remote. Nonetheless, I believe that this suggestion should be taken seriously because if for no other reason, I would consider myself a prime candidate.
Look at it this way. I was seven years old when the Hoover Depression started in 1929. During all of my school years, I attended school under Depression circumstances. Toward the end of that time, when I was 15, I started work in a Mobil gas filling station. Later I became an attendant at a Sinclair station followed by a stint in the same kind of work at a Standard Oil Company of Indiana location. What follows is that I know everything there is to know about the oil business.
When the Depression morphed into the Second World War, I enlisted in the American Army in the early summer of 1942. The Army found me so valuable that it did not discharge me until November of 1945. It could be argued that this experience as an enlisted man in World War II qualifies me as a military expert. If no one else advances that argument, I will do so myself.
In 1941, as an overlap operation with the filling station business, I took a job with the AT&T Company. I stayed with that company for 43 years, which I believe qualifies me to say that I know everything there is to know about the communications business. In 1984, I retired and started the golden years.
After nearly 25 years of retirement, I suggest that maybe I am an expert on retirement living. So if the President is looking for someone with real life experience over a prolonged period of time, I don’t see how he can overlook my qualifications.
If I were named to the Supreme Court, I might lead a movement to get rid of those black robes. Those robes convey a sense of gloom and need to be discarded.
Then I would upbraid Clarence Thomas and Antonin Scalia for the decisions that they have made over the last several years. For example, they denied back pay to a woman named Mrs. Ledbetter who had worked alongside of her male companions but was paid less. She did not realize that she was paid less than male workers and of course the company kept that matter a secret. When she finally filed a complaint, she apparently missed the six-month deadline for bringing this matter to the attention of the authorities by a few days. Scalia and Thomas concluded that being three days late would result in the dismissal of her complaint altogether. It would be my intention to denounce Clarence Thomas and Antonin Scalia publicly.
In my view, Senator Tom Harkin’s suggestion about real life experience ought to extend much beyond naming a Supreme Court candidate. For example, there will come a time when it will be necessary to name a new Pope. Using the real life experience criterion would seem to me to be a satisfactory requirement for the successor to the current Pope. As a man who has had 86 years of real life experience, I would modestly offer myself as a candidate for the head job in the Vatican. I know that there will be some people who will look askance at naming a non-believer to be the head of a major faith, but I believe that in time they will come to accept and to cheer my leadership of St. Peter’s flock.
By the same token, there is the matter of leading the Southern Baptists in this country. Their head man is called the Public Policy Chief, and that office is currently held by Richard Land. Under the Bush administration, Mr. Land had a tie to Karl Rove, the chief Presidential counselor. I assume that this tie has now been broken. In any case, if I were to be the head man of the Baptists, I would urge that their drinking alcoholic beverages should no longer be concealed. Southern Baptists lean heavily on Jack Daniels whiskey, which many of us consider much too strong. If I were the head man of the Baptists, I would serve cocktails at our gatherings and would introduce them to the virtues of wine and Scotch whiskey. I know that the Baptists consider wine an effeminate affectation but in time they may grow to love it.
And then there is the matter of our national sport, called baseball. The current Commissioner of Major League Baseball is Bud Selig, who is an obscure character but is paid, I believe, something on the order of $17 million per year. Paying Bud Selig $17 million is a gross miscarriage of financial responsibility.
If my real life experience resulted in my being Commissioner of Baseball, my first act would be to get rid of the designated hitter rule. That is an abomination and should never have happened. Then there is the matter that major league ball players cannot seek free agency until after they have six full years of service in the major leagues. It seems to me that this flies into the restraint of trade laws in this country and should be abandoned forthwith.
Then I would agree to take the job at a salary of only $10 million per year, thus saving major league baseball a total of $7 million. I know that it is a sacrifice to get along on $10 million per year, but I will give it a try.
Finally, the Obama administration has yet to name, as far as I know, the Surgeon General of the United States. I am here to suggest that my real life experience makes me a leading candidate for that job.
Look at it this way. There have been five or six scalp surgeries, which is the price that bald-headed men have to pay. To deal with my failing eyesight, in 20 years there have been all kinds of experiments and procedures that of course did not in the end succeed. There have been two open-heart surgeries, which followed a splicing together of my major intestines. Then there have been my extended procedures with the urology department in the medical group which we use. Finally, there have been ingrown toenails that have required a skilled podiatrist to take care of. I tell you all of this not to seek your pity for all of my travails. I simply tell you this because my real life experience of head to toe surgeries clearly qualifies me to be the Surgeon General of the United States.
I know that all of you will agree that my qualifications in terms of real life experience have resulted in being over-qualified for some of the jobs that I would be named to. But given my age, I have hopes that Senator Harkin’s suggestion will take effect quickly. And of all of the jobs which I am over-qualified to fill, I suspect that filling David Souter’s job on the Supreme Court would suit me best. In the first place, my lack of legal training is of no moment because in Washington D.C., lawyers abound. Getting help on legal matters would be of no importance whatsoever. On top of that, the Supreme Court sits only from October through June, with the months of July, August, and September being vacation time. In addition, the Supreme Court does not meet every day and follows a leisurely schedule, taking only 80 cases per year. This leisurely schedule would provide me with ample opportunities to write some of Ezra’s Essays. And, finally, I find that there are elevators in the Supreme Court garage that will take the jurists to their work locations as opposed to having to climb those 50 or 60 steps into their building at the front door.
So all that remains is for Mr. Obama to sign the papers naming me to succeed David Souter. And when he does that, I will sing Tom Harkin’s praise endlessly.
E. E. CARR
May 18, 2009
Essay 384
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Kevin’s commentary: I looked into Harkin a little bit more. Basically what he wanted to say was that he wants judges that won’t strike all his laws down; that is, someone who would “look at the laws Congress has passed and give Congress a little bit more room in terms of legislation.” He is afraid that someone who has spent too much time in a “law library” over the last few decades is probably going to be less likely to overlook things that are, you know, unconstitutional. Durn.
Of course he had to couch all of this in more pleasing language because he is a politician, so he chose something as vague as having “real life” experience. I was unaware that courts and law schools existed in a fake reality.