Original printed byline: Hawkeye Z. Hoerr
Historical November–December 2012 article. Dates, prices, services and contacts describe the source period; current availability has not been established.
By the time you read this, the presidential election will be history. Assuming Florida doesn’t go waffle on us, we’ll know who the next chief executive is during the first week in November, maybe even on the seventh. Come December, the forty-fifth prez will be beyond the champagne and high-fives, and busy selecting cabinet officials and setting priorities for the next four years. So far, so good. And realistically, it may be that it doesn’t make all that much difference about whether we’re looking forward to the January 2013 swearing-in of President Obama or President Romney. Now, don’t get me wrong. I’m not suggesting that I lack a preference. I’m not even suggesting that the country wouldn’t be better off under one particular candidate. No, my biases are unbiased. Color me donkey all the way. What I am suggesting is that the challenges of the job don’t leave much wiggle-room. There’s less space to maneuver than in O.J.s glove. Starting from the outside in, our country’s foreign relations are a mess.
The Middle East is a tender-box: Iran is furiously working to develop an atomic bomb; the Arab spring will soon become the Arab summer; our ally Egypt is maybe not our ally, and the price of oil increasingly increases. China is now the world’s largest manufacturer, stealing our ideas and products and paying workers penurious wages. And we wonder why our jobs are going there!
Then there’s Europe; more accurately, then there’s the Euro. Sooner or later that gaggle of geese is going to fly in different directions, and we’ll pay the price. Oh yeah, don’t forget Central and South America. I’m sure there are problems there, too, I just can’t think of them right now. So the foreign policy options for #45 are limited. Guess what: it ain’t much better at home. Foreclosures have slowed but more homeowners are under water than Captain Nemo. Unemployment is too high, and would be even higher if we counted the folks who stopped looking for jobs. Schools are costing more and producing less. Even the Missouri History Museum gets into the act by overpaying for a property that no one wanted in the first place. Speaking of overpaying, the deficit yells at us, and that will only get louder. Who would have thunk that you can’t go to war and cut taxes without increasing the deficit? Prez Bush, #43, clearly thought that. Wise citizens that we are, gulp, we re-elected him. Yeah, go figure. Anyway, we’re going to be spending so much of our taxes to un-dig ourselves that we probably won’t even be able to buy a new shovel. It’s clear that he next president is going to inherit quite a mess, and that’s largely because the current president inherited quite a mess.
My bias will show here, I know, because “inherit” is the correct word. President Obama didn’t cause much, if any, of this. Rather, he has spent four years trying to clean up the mess of W’s eight years. It’s pretty clear that the mess of 2012 is less than the mess of 2008, but a mess is a mess. So with all of this, with such little opportunity to truly change things, what’s a president to do? Foreign policy options are limited as are domestic opportunities. Sure, the new prez can throw out opening pitches, pose in the Rose Garden, rose in the Pose Garden, and give speeches at the U.N.
But how can the prez shape the future? What can he do to bring his values to change our lives? Don’t give up, hope springs eternal: think Supreme Court!
The next prez is likely to appoint two or three, maybe even four, Supreme Court justices. There’s no guarantee, of course.
We never know when a Supreme will quit (think Diana Ross) or be overtaken by some unexpected event, like death. Still, my actuarial friends, actually, suggest that two appointments are likely, three are possible, and four aren’t out of the question.
The right replacements could tip the balance of the court back to the left, a position that is favored by every clear-thinking American. So, you clear thinkers, as a public service, In Your Ear offers some candidates for the impending openings on the Supreme Court. And forget all those people with J.D. behind their names! You see, I have a bias.
There are too many lawyers in the court room. Necessarily, they are tied up in nots, knots, what’s, and dots. Let’s step out of the box and appoint some people who are bright, logical, have rich life experiences, and will look out for the common woman and man. (By the way, you should know that high officials in D.C. often check The Times of Skinker-DeBaliviere to get a feel on what is happening in the heart of the country. There’s no guarantee that these suggestions will make it to the next prez’s ear, but readers will good memories will recall that it was in this column that Harry Truman was first suggested as a V.P. candidate for Franklin Roosevelt.) OK, so who? (Or is it whom???) Which person should prez #45 appoint when that vacancy on the Supreme Court pops us? Here’s Hawkeye’s list of noted notables: Joe Edwards.
The owner of Blueberry Hill and the Loop visionary would be a great addition! Regardless of where he stood on any issue, regardless of what he said, Joe would do wonders for the LOOK of the court. We’d see his beard and pony-tail, and his sandals would peek out from the robe. Can you imagine the look on Clarence Thomas’ face at Joe’s swearing in?
But beyond appearance, Joe’s head for decisions and his sense of culture would be wonderful for the court.
I want the justices thinking about affirmative action while sitting in Blueberry Hill.
I know that deciding on campaign financing would have to be better if done while playing darts. And don’t you love the idea of the nine judges entering their chambers while background music plays Maybelline? Vince Schoemehl. Vince was maybe the best mayor we ever had.
He was charismatic, aggressive, filled with big ideas, and worked to make the City a better place. Oh yeah, he wasn’t boring either. I’d like to see his entrepreneurial spirit being infused into the dialogue while the court deliberates. Sooner or later some case will get to the court which will cause school financing to be questioned. I’d love to hear Vince making the case that the quality of a child’s education shouldn’t be determined on whether she lives east or west of Skinker. Vince would shake them up for sure! Oprah. Think about it.
The justices would sit on a couple of giant couches, open up and let their inner-selves out, actively listen to one another, and they’d share books and recipes.
With this degree of harmony, all of their decisions would have to be better.
If not, they’d invite Tom Cruise to help counsel them. Albert Pujols. He’s a major league baseball star, but there’s more. Since the Supremes don’t run bases or swing at curveballs (other than metaphorical ones), you may be wondering why Albert would be good there. Simple: We need principled people on the court, those who are immune to avarice and greed, and that’s Albert.
After all, when he became a free-agent last winter, he told us “It’s not about the money.” He then refused scores of millions of dollars from the home team Cards so that he could go to L.A. for even more scores of millions of dollars. We’re not sure why he went, but we know it’s not about the money. That’s the kind of guy I want on the court, someone who is beyond greed. Besides, if he’s working in D.C., maybe he’d be amenable to loaning the federal government a hundred million dollars or so at a greatly reduced interest rate. Remember, it’s not about the money. How’s all that sound? Our new president does the best he can to work at problems that, really, have no solution.
But then, when the openings at the Supreme Court occur, he introduces Joe, Vince, Oprah, and Albert as his nominees.
I guarantee that the senate hearings would be so interesting, someone might actually watch C-Span.
Originally published in The Times of Skinker-DeBaliviere, November–December 2012.
Read this article in the original newspaper issue.
Original source: SD_Times2012_11.pdf, printed page(s) 8; PDF page(s) 8.
