Word: ginsburg
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...Most of the penitents who have rushed to confess to smoking dope have agreed that it is. "It was a mistake," said Babbitt. "I wish I hadn't," said Gore. "I hope that the young people of this country, including my own daughters, will learn from my mistake," said Ginsburg, withdrawing. Conversely, Columnist Tom Wicker, in a biting critique of the phony moralism and "sudden piety" of Ginsburg's attackers, felt compelled to preface his remarks about marijuana smokers by assuring his readers that "I am not now and never have been one of them." An odd credential to flash...
...F.D.R. have a drink during Prohibition? (He did.) Douglas Ginsburg, nominated for the Supreme Court, did the '60s' equivalent, and within two days of the revelation was crushed in a political avalanche. Most Americans tell pollsters they don't think past marijuana use should be a disqualification for high office, but polls don't make politics. Not many Americans would disqualify a presidential candidate for a bit of plagiarism either. That didn't help Joe Biden. It remains to be seen how much damage the marijuana issue will do to presidential candidates like Albert Gore and Bruce Babbitt. But there...
Polls or no polls, the fact is that marijuana use can jeopardize one's < chance for high office. We are stuck with the Ginsburg test, so we might as well think it through...
...what way did Ginsburg or Gore or Claiborne Pell (a one-time, four- puff penitent) do wrong? The most obvious answer is that they willfully broke a law. True. But if what is at stake is respect for law, why the agitation about this particular law out of the thousands on the books, out of the dozens that every non-monastic citizen has broken at one time or another. If law is the issue, then the press ought to be asking public figures not "Have you ever smoked marijuana?" but "Have you ever broken the law, any law?" We could...
...just narrow, but unconvincing. What if it had turned out that Ginsburg smoked dope only on camping trips to Alaska, where marijuana possession for private use is, under state law, entirely legal? Would Ginsburg still be a candidate for the Supreme Court? Not a chance...