Historical mistakes

I watched a documentary last night on the My-Lai massacre. This morning, I was struck by the similarities of the results of legal action in that case with the results of the Columbia County OWI case of Rep. Jeff Wood, as was reported on the radio today, albeit on a much, much smaller and less horrific scale.

Please note that this is not a commentary on the massacre or the legal proceedings which followed it. This is also not to reflect my feelings about the massacre -- personally, I was horrified as I watched the program. I was too young to know anything about the incident when it occurred. I cried through the program and didn't sleep last night. My heart goes out to those who were part of that horror.

I merely want to comment on the irony of the repeated historical mistake as I see it. And maybe be a fortune teller while I'm at it.

The first person put on trial after news of the massacre had prompted an investigation (about two years later) was Lt. Calley. He was convicted of four charges of premeditated murder and sentenced to life. This created a great backlash of public opinion and eventually, the case was picked up for review by The Greatest Crook of The Time, Tricky Dick. In the end, Calley served four months in Leavenworth and was released to house arrest. The other defendants then were either acquitted or charges were quietly dropped. Case closed.

Today, Rep. Jeff Wood began serving a sentence of 45 days in one of his cases of OWI or driving under the influence (there are actually five I believe, past and present). Instead of stepping down and recognizing he has a disease which needs to be treated, Wood has consistently defended his position to remain in the Legislature (and the paycheck that goes with it) and refused to gracefully exit stage right. His fellow legislators made a lot of noise about expelling him.

But the Grand Political Machine picked up once again and Wood accepted a deal for 45 days in jail on Huber while his colleagues then voted to merely censure him instead of expelling him. the hot air in the chambers that day must have been enough to float the capitol building right out of the ground. Because that's all that was being made that day -- hot air.

If history repeats itself, this means that everyone else within the "Machine" is now safe as well. Our politicans are free to careen from one side of the road to the other in their overpriced, oversized SUVs and luxury vehicles without fear of retribution. God help the rest of us as we try to stay out of their way. And don't forget, they will still be pulling in their paychecks from all of us ordinary folks while they briefly sit in jail waiting for their compadres in the Machine to bail them out.

And Tricky Dick wasn't even here to supervise. Good job.

And I was too young to understand what President Nixon was up to at the time. Lesson learned.