A Progressive Compromise For President

A Progressive Compromise For President

David G. Mills

Compromise. A word that makes every trial lawyer’s skin crawl. The image is that principles have been thrown out the window and expediency has ruled the day. Should I have advised my client to take that $50,000 offer when I thought there was a good chance a jury would have awarded $100,000? But what if the jury hadn’t done what I thought? What if a jury awarded zero?

Compromise. More often than not, both parties are not happy but realize it could have been worse, a lot worse.

But every once in awhile, a compromise turns out to be far better than expected. That structured settlement with its investment and tax implications might be better for my client than anything a jury or judge could have done for my client under the best of circumstances.

Sometimes you have no choice but to compromise, and when you know that is the case, it’s time to face it, and it’s time to start looking for ways to get the best deal you can. You treat it as an opportunity. Maybe the unexpected will happen and you will get that unexpectedly good deal after all, if you work at it.

Compromise. A word that makes every progressive’s skin crawl.

So now the progressive community is once again moaning and groaning, because realistically, its most favorite son has no chance; and, once again the progressive community will be forced to sit out the next election, make a wasted vote of principle, or cast a vote of unprincipled expediency.

Let me give the progressive community some free (if presumptuous) legal advice.

Before we give up, lets take a look at this situation and see what can be made of it. There are some real positives to work with here. Three of the leading candidates, Dean, Kerry and Gephardt, are probably each more liberal than any Democrat running for office (ones that had a chance anyway) since Kennedy. Each (I think) would tolerate, as a running mate, someone more liberal than he, if he believed it would help him win.

What if we had a progressive vice-president who was the antithesis of Dick Cheney? What if this person had enough influence (as did Cheney) to get the President to appoint the antithesis of John Ashcroft as Attorney General? Or the antithesis of Donald Rumsfeld, for Department of Defense? Or the antithesis of Carl Rove as Presidential advisor? And what if we had a real environmentalist head up the EPA? What if we could get one more liberal on the Supreme Court?

As a lawyer, I can tell you that many times the attorney being lead counsel in the courtroom is not the one who has put the case together. It is the attorney quietly sitting in the second chair who has prepared all the questions beforehand, who has lined up all the witnesses and prepped them, who has done all the legal arguments to the Court that the jury has never seen, and it is he who is the coach calling all the plays. The lead counsel is just the talking head.

How is that any different than what is going on in the White House now? How many of us knew about PNAC before the last election? PNAC is running the country and Cheney, the stealth VP, is it’s only elected member. Maybe it is time for progressives to take a page out of the PNAC playbook and beat PNAC at its own game.

To do it, yes, you have to be willing to compromise with a Dean, a Kerry, or a Gephardt. Any one of these candidates, with the help from progressives, could beat Bush, barring egregious election fraud. We might even get luckier. Maybe the ultimate presidential candidate turns out to be a closet progressive himself who barely takes any prodding.

But to do it, we need a stealth vice presidential candidate, just as Cheney was. My first thought would be to have a Jewish liberal who would stand up to Israel. But I leave this candidate up to the progressive community. I think we should be looking for that person now and pushing him or her on those candidates which have the best shot of winning. Then, I could see how a structured compromise could produce something far better than any of us would have ever expected, maybe even dreamed. Imagine an administration with seven or eight progressives in spots two through ten. As organized as the progressive community is on the internet, it could happen with a modest effort.

David G. Mills dmill@midsouth.rr.com is an attorney who practices law in Memphis, Tennessee. He is licensed in Texas and Tennessee. This article is copyright by David G. Mills and originally published by opednews.com but permission is granted for reprint in print, email, blog, or web media so long as this credit paragraph is attached.