I have received some criticism about my petition to ban attorneys from serving in Congress or as President. It is not that I hate attorneys or that I think they all need to sample cement overshoes in the middle of the Atlantic. I have actually known a few attorneys I enjoyed being around. I have even known one who actually worked to reduce crime by starting the original Neighborhood Watch in Albuquerque, New Mexico. My prejudice is actually in the way they ply their profession.

            Being a good attorney is not synonymous with being honest, or having an interest in justice. District attorneys build their reputation not on justice, but on the number of convictions they make. Defense attorneys build their reputations on how many people they successfully defend. It is no longer true that the truth shall set you free. The winning side of any case is not necessarily the side which is right or just, but he side which prevaricates the truth enough to convince the jury or judge.  The saying used to be that it was not if you won or lost, it was how you played the game. Today, winning the case (game) has become more important than playing the game fair, and even more important than that of justice itself.  

            The most vivid example I can think of is OJ Simpson. Bloody glove and all, his attorneys managed to twist the truth enough to give jurors that thread of doubt to get him pronounced innocent. However, in the civil suit for wrongful death, he was found liable. He cannot be innocent and guilty at the same time, so which is it? Did his team of attorneys in the murder trial win an innocent verdict for a guilty man, or did the attorneys in the civil suit twist the truth enough to convince the jury that he had indeed committed murder? Either way you look at it, one of the teams of attorneys had to have prevaricated the truth enough to acquire a verdict from the jury that was wrong. When these people decide to get into politics, they bring their practices of prevaricating the truth, and attitudes of winning the game in any way they can rather than a sense of honesty and justice.

            This attitude shows through in the campaigns with the negative advertising, name-calling and the way they respond to the press when they try to get a straight answer. Recently Hillary Clinton, when cornered about spinning “her plan” for the “economic stimulus” package to mirror Obama’s she changed her answer three times. When the interviewer asked her what she was saying, she ended the interview by replying, “I’m not saying anything at all.”

            When it comes to integrity and false advertising, former President Clinton wins the top prize.  He ran a national ad campaign in the last week of his first presidential campaign stating the economy was the worst shape it had been in since “great depression.”  Somehow, Americans seemed to forget about the Jimmy Carter years where unemployment was pushing 10%, inflation was over 20% and interest rates were in the teens. He should have been prosecuted under the truth in advertising laws. Instead, this prevarication of the truth won him the election.

            This occupational requirement of prevaricating the truth, and making deals based upon those prevarications, becomes habit that prevents simple, straightforward negotiations on creating new law, amending of old ones, or in creating free trade agreements.  There is precedent in not allowing attorneys to hold office in Congress. It is the clause that prevents a convicted felon from holding office as President or in Congress. If our Founding Fathers saw fit to prohibit criminals from holding office, should it not be our duty to prevent habitual prevaricators from holding those offices as well?