This post is about two female lawyers who often speak on television as experts in the labyrinth of contemporary "law" which often seems to have very little "order." Both have been significant state prosecutors and professors. For a while I kept confusing the two since their faces and manner are similar, quite UNlike the usual blonde bimbos we are used to as news presenters. They are deliberate, slow-speaking, conservative-seeming women -- not the nutty feverish apologists for the far right, but sensible moms and wives.
Joyce Vance https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joyce_Vance
Barbara McQuade https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barbara_McQuade
I'm not much of a feminist or #meToo person, because I am a PERSON, not a primarily female or gender-role bound example, though I value brains and good thinking. Later I'll reflect about this excellent link to research on such matters. https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-019-03014-4?utm_source=twitter&utm_medium=social&utm_content=organic&utm_campaign=NGMT_2_JNC_Nature
In the meantime, let me say that I've been successful in male-assigned roles, working with males. I've been less successful as a "sex bomb."
Vance and McQuade recently composed a thought experiment, an example of what an indictment of Rudolph Giuliani would look like. As the president's lawyer, purporting represent the country and relying on a long history as a political force and a more recent history as a clown, most law people agree that he ought to be brought within the terms of law and order, but no one wants to dirty job of doing it. These two women laid out a path in case someone gets brave and is entitled. Following is the link to what they produced. It would be a good idea to read the introduction as it explains that this is not a REAL indictment but a real one would probably be worse.
You'll see that there are three issues. First is the illegal forcing of Ukraine to attack Biden through withholding badly needed defense money, Conspiracy to Defraud the United States
Second, forcing the government of the Ukraine to say that they suspected Biden. Conspiracy to Commit Bribery.
Third, Contempt of Congress because of refusing to present documents demanded by Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence of the United States House of Representatives, the Committee on Foreign Affairs, and the Committee on Oversight and Reform.
Much more could be included, like his video-taped direct contradictions of himself, which amount to lying; his outrageous and unwarranted (without evidence) accusations; his long entwined relationship with Trump/Mafia over many years; and possibly his most recent antic which is claiming that indicting the FBI and CIA employees who identified and undertook the Mueller Report should be subject to criminal investigation, grand jury hearings, and indictment. He seems to think these should be done in reverse order. Indictment, first. Evidence later. This is one of his most Alice-in-Wonderland ideas.
Giuliani's "reality tunnel," a phrase to describe how a person defines and remembers their life, is very small-bore. Much of it is secret and full of relationships with criminals. I know the vid of him with Trump, pretending to be a female perfume tester, was a put-on and kidding around, but the images do cling. Whatever he was in the past, today he is just another aging, possibly demented, old white man who depends on being outrageous to confuse anyone who wants to hold him to account.
But this is really about two sensible no-bullshit women easily young enough to be his daughters. If only he really had daughters who could guide him. There's a considerable amount of poetic justice, excellent material for drama, in the two types, including the fact that one type is two women in rational agreement and the other is wildly and singularly preposterous.
Events like this, ambiguous and troubling oppositions with huge countrywide prospects, always create new famous figures that have little to do with the actual human lives involved -- much more to do with media stereotyping and shallow understandings. Giuliani seems to make so much more colorful story lines than two clear-headed lawyers. They don't appreciate the drollery and hilarity as much as their friend Rachel Maddow, who can't say "Lev and Igor" without a hint of amusement, even though their stories include things as melodramatic as the feds exploding the door off a safe to get at evidence. These two women seem low-key in their discipline in a way that respected male lawyers present, the kind of men we expect to become judges of fairness and wisdom. No "Judge Judy" antics. No weird hangups as in TV law shows.
They are a female version of Mueller's patience coming from strength, skill and knowledge. These are not traits rewarded or valued in today's American culture. They used to be. When I first joined the UU church, that's what most of the congregation was like. So were the other mainstream churches. Whacko entrepreneurs of magical wealth who screamed their clichés were for cable TV.
This whole thing is a challenge to sleepy, routine, and maybe quirky courts, esp in the Southern states. The ground is caving out from under Barr, who seems to have the idea that he is as untouchable as Trump thought he was. As its core, what's happening is housekeeping, keeping things clean and straight rather than making deals. These international money bozos don't seem to get that Internet transactions and computer bookkeeping has changed everything. Anyway, even Manafort's hand-written payment journal came to light from its dark safe.
We chortle over Hannah Arendt's "evil is banal" statement, but in truth almost all the footwork and grinning in this story have been pretty obvious in every school district or municipality or hospital that I've worked in. It's human stuff, wanting to be a big-shot and thinking adults can be fooled. But when the adults are women, they often know how to understand childish people trying to take shortcuts.
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