Compare, if you will, the Republican leadership over the last while, in White House and Congress. The last Republican lawyer to make president was Gerald Ford. Instead: movie actor, spy chief, businessman, successively. Last election: an old soldier, and a PTA lady. Look back at the leaders of the so-called “Republican revolution” in Congress: Newt Gingrich, history professor; Tom Delay, pest exterminator; Dick Armey, economist; Bill Frist, heart surgeon. (And note what the Democrat lawyers did to get rid of them.)
Alas, when I turn to Canada, I see all-party government by lawyers; and the interminable legacy of the extremely lawyerly Liberal Party under that lawyer Pierre Trudeau. Moreover, beyond legislative politics (both here and in the U.S.), I review a continuous social revolution achieved by such lawyerly “reforms” as the Omnibus Bill of 1970; or Santa’s 1982 Charter of Rights and Freedoms. Our lawyers never nationalized banks. In every case, it seems to me, they changed the laws in order to change the people. (The precise opposite of democracy.)…
And this is the wisdom of all the policy czars that President Obama has appointed — his commando team of lawyers, many with highly controversial, radical left pasts. Superficially, they could be removed from office tomorrow. But if they can rewrite enough laws and regulations, in the smoke and confusion of brief moments in power, they will, in a deeper sense, remain in office for generations to come.
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