Recap of the Week in Iowa City

Three really cool things happened this week in Iowa City:

1. Robert F. Kennedy Jr. came to the law school to talk about environmental issues and being stalked by a man in a ten gallon hat.

2. Madeline Albright came to speak to us about her diplomatic experiences and why she's supporting Hillary Clinton.

3. Free donuts were given out by my contracts professor at a make-up class.

I will discuss these events in reverse order. Incidentally, this also happens to be the order of importance:

1. Mmmm. Donuts

2. Robert F. Kennedy: A review in the present tense.

It is Sept. 12^th at 4:30 in the afternoon. His voice raspy, a weary RFK Jr. takes the stand and begins to speak. He is sorry, he says, that his voice is so weak, but earlier this morning he presented opening arguments for a case in West Virginia.

This morning. He says it nonchalantly, as if we, fellow members of the legal community, have commitments that are similarly taxing and thus can commiserate.

I think back to my activities of the morning: eating bran flakes, dressing myself, walking to school, realizing that I have forgotten a book, walking home, retrieving said book, writing emails, doing a crossword. I look down in shame and self loathing as I realize that my morning included exactly zero minutes of world saving litigation.

Kennedy 1, Gregory 0

After his humble apologies, he begins his spiel. Corporations are polluting, there are all sorts of great rules on the books to prevent this kind of pollution, but enforcement is lacking.

He then mentions what I consider to be the most interesting part of the discussion: the bounty provision. The provision was contained in a musty old 19^th century statute and provides private citizens the right to bring charges against polluters and reap half of the fines. In short, the bounty provision makes each and every one of us as powerful as U.S. Attorneys in enforcing these laws (even MORE powerful in some ways, considering that Alberto Gonzalez can’t whimsically dismiss us). I instantly feel empowered.

The effect of this rule has been astonishing, he says. Since Kennedy’s organization, the Hudson River keepers, began, they have brought 400 successful cases and recovered more than 4 billion dollars from polluting companies. The umbrella organization, the Water keeper Alliance, is the fastest growing environmental organization in North America.

He speaks of the corruption fueled ascendancy of the factory hog farm that took off in N.C. and how a broken media has refused to inform the world of the consequences of this high pollution industry. He issues the standard (and true) argument that TV makes no money from labor intensive news coverage and therefore has no incentive to produce it, opting instead for cheap celebrity gossip or football player trials coverage (John Deeth from Iowa City, a blogger with real coverage, covered this aspect of his 7:30 IMU speech very well). He notes to us: “we are the most entertained and least informed people on Earth.”

When I get home a news channel is dedicating its coverage for the hour to the Kathy Griffin Geebus comments.

I look down at my crossword and wonder: isn’t there some litigating I could be doing somewhere?

3. Madeleine Albright stumping for Hillary: A review in the past tense.

First things first. I read on Wikipedia before the event that Madeleine Albright can leg press 400 pounds. For reasons still unclear to me, this was not mentioned during the informal discussion.

Many other things were mentioned, however, as Dr. Albright sat and spoke with UI Law Professor Christopher Rossi for approximately 20 minutes before she took questions from the audience.

The topics covered the areas that one would generally expect: Iraq quagmire, needless squandering of international goodwill, Dubya policy slams, international cooperation and humility, etc.

At one point she read a beautiful passage from her book about the United States role internationally and drew a deservedly lengthy applause from the audience.

That America has some serious foreign policy challenges ahead of it was indisputable. The argument that these challenges would somehow be most thoroughly attended to by a Clinton presidency was not so clear. I think this was evident in the questions.

My favorite question of the evening came from a man in the back. It came almost directly after Dr. Albright had (as she has in the past) categorized Iraq as being a worse foreign policy disaster than Vietnam.

He wanted to know how Dr. Albright thought that his first two choices, Bill Richardson and Barack Obama, compare to Hillary in terms of foreign policy decision making ability and/or experience. He noted (always plug your candidates) that Richardson was her successor as Ambassador to the U.N., resisted the war from the start as governor, and ran for re-election in 2002 while maintaining this resistance. Obama, for his part, also resisted and spoke eloquently about the dangerous nature of the war, and ran for a seat in the U.S. Senate, blowing everyone out of the water in 2004. (By the way, at 70%, Obama won with the highest vote for a statewide office in ILLINOIS HISTORY. He’s THAT good).

The response?

Dr. Albright said proudly that she wasn’t going to criticize any of the other candidates, which drew a large round of applause. I found this odd, because he didn’t ask her to criticize the others, he asked her to compare Hillary to them. We don’t have to operate outside the bonds of politesse in order to compare the candidates on their relative merits. How else are we expected to make a rational decision? Isn’t this what they’re asking us to do?

She mentions that the others didn’t have to register a vote on the war, and that Senate vote was actually a nice political play until Bush screwed it up. She then intimates that she knows Hillary extremely well and is sure she would do an excellent job in her capacity as the shaper of our national policy. I agree. But there is nothing that she has said that would lead me to believe that she would do a MORE excellent job than others. This is what we are here for.

As an Obama supporter, I wondered how many people around me were actual card-signing Clinton supporters and how many had just showed up to hear the thoughts of one of our most respected foreign policy experts.

The two girls next to me both admitted to being Obama supporters, and a fellow law student that I ran into was also backing “the Bomb.” So, based on my COMPLETELY SCIENTIFIC AND UTTERLY INFALLIBLE statistical analysis: 100 % OF THE PEOPLE IN THE AUDIENCE WERE OBAMA SUPPORTERS, while at least half of the people (1/2) on the stage were.

Other noteworthy stuff:

Funniest comment by our speaker: Dr. Albright claimed that she invented a new strategy called “conference call diplomacy.” Adding that it was probably a kind of “girl thing,” that she brought to her role. I love it.

Most tragic moment: John Deeth, Iowa City blogger and professional journalist, couldn’t access the UI wireless and thus, couldn’t live blog the event. Let it be noted that Cornucopia, the Horn of Plenty sympathizes with his cause and feels that journalists and bloggers should be allowed access to UI wireless in order to cover events sponsored by the U of I.