Word: victimized
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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Murphy writes this biography as if it were a murder mystery, with the victim being Fortas' political life. In the end, he concludes, "The Rise and Ruin" of Fortas is the story of a murder-suicide. The strength of this massive work lies in the depth of detail offered and the grace and drama of the telling. Key incidents are hinted at then slyly tucked away by Murphy, only to be revealed at a later moment when the dramatic effect would be greater...
...ruin is thus not surprising, because there is a limit quite simply to what one can get away with. And if it is true that others got away with more or just as much and were never caught, that by no means implies that Fortas was a victim of ineptitude and not, in the lexicon of today, his own sleaze...
Murphy is most convincing when he tries to put the Fortas affair into a historical context, rather than a crassly political one. He notes that Fortas fell victim to what amounted to a swing of the pendulum in American politics, when the "whales" of the Senate saw their power pass away to a younger generation and when the liberalism of LBJ and JFK was replaced by a conservatism of which we may only now be seeing the last vestiges...
...fate of Robert Bork, who himself fell victim to the Senate after a similarly brusing confirmation battle in which his conservative views were treated with the same contempt that once met Fortas' liberal ideas, lingers in the background of this biography. Murphy makes the connection explicit in his preface and his epilogue. But a crucial difference remains...
...York, have already convened special commissions to consider ways to balance inequities in their systems by, among other things, hiring more blacks at all levels and holding seminars and other training programs to help sensitize white court officers to minority cultures. Programs have also begun to encourage victim-assistance workers to reach out to blacks and Hispanics, assuring them that they too are entitled to their day in court. It is only through such measures that minorities may begin to believe in equal justice...