Hey, Dan,
I didn’t say you were insensitive. I was just trying to get a rise out of you! It looks like we agree on Larry Tribe and Mario Menendez, and even about the prosecutorial overkill that most Americans (including Clinton) seem to notice only when it happens to them. But why has U.S. drug policy taken a back seat in the media this year–or rather, ended up in the trunk? I know there’s an obvious answer: No one wants to fan drug abuse, especially politicians. But no matter how much money we throw at Colombia, the white powders are here to stay.
Case in point: A story in today’s Times by Christopher Wren, about the rise of heroin use by suburban teenagers. Wren, as you’ll remember, covered the drug beat for the Times through the mid-1990s. But right after New Year’s, his byline practically disappeared. My sources say Joe Lelyveld has promised to replace him, but just hasn’t gotten around to it yet. That’s too bad. It’s a great beat, and Wren had it down. He can be conventional–in today’s story, he quotes the usual suspects (Phoenix House’s Mitch Rosenthal, Columbia’s Herb Kleber). But he has a nice touch. He ends with this vignette about a 20-year-old from Long Island. “Ms. Troisi said her parents learned about her addiction after she sold her father’s vintage Gibson guitar for $600 to buy heroin. ‘It was the only time my mom said she ever saw my dad cry,’ she said.”
Since you’re amenable to talking drugs, here’s another nugget from today’s Times, courtesy of Sam Dillon. (Contrary to what I’ve written in the past, he’s not all bad.) The story: Jorge Miranda, a senior aide to Mexico’s attorney general, is responsible for “keeping track of huge quantities of cash, real estate, airplanes and other properties the government has seized from drug traffickers.” But Miranda’s been missing for two weeks. And his boss committed suicide last month. Sounds like a great movie plot, no? Unfortunately, this is Mexico, a country that Clinton continues to certify for its “cooperation” in the drug war.
Finally, I’m glad you brought up Ken Starr, the guy who drove the Independent Counsel Law into the ground. I just started reading Truth at Any Cost, a new book by Susan Schmidt and Michael Weisskopf, which purports to be a “sympathetic” portrait of Starr (click here to read an excerpt). On Page 2, they show him exploding at a dinner party, when “old friends began poking fun at his public image as a Bible-toting Puritan.” I’m tempted to make fun of Starr, too–and see if I can get a rise out of him.
Cynthia
