'Viper' Garland

I wonder if Attorney General Merrick Garland will be flattered or annoyed by this nickname?
Democratic strategist James Carville has a message for people who are doubting Merrick Garland: Just wait. 

"I mean, remember Merrick Garland is like a pit viper. He prosecuted the Oklahoma City bomber case, the Unabomber case, the Olympic bomber case."
The Olympic bomber case? That's news to me. I'd like to hear more about Garland's role in that, because the part affecting Richard Jewell was one of the most disgraceful acts in the history of Federal law enforcement. I did not see Garland's name in any of the relevant Wikipedia articles, which may mean that it's been scrubbed; but exactly what role did he play, I wonder?

As for the OKC bombing, there have been dire mutterings about it for years -- backed up by some apparently legitimate government documents: the source here is conspiracy-minded, but it's hard not to suspect one when you've got a document from the government asserting that the matter "should not be put to paper." Just yesterday I read that Garland had refused to approve a warrant in the Unabomber case, which might be evidence in his favor: I appreciate signs that a man is careful and not inclined to empower the government's agents without clarity. A fellow I know and respect found his treatment of the recent political violence from Antifa to be disqualifying, but one can make a similar argument here also. Maybe it's good not to rush too far ahead of the evidence.

Here's the Washington Post on the OKC bombing and Garland, for a mainstream media view. One way or the other, we'll be hearing a lot more about 'Viper' Garland in the coming weeks. 

Carville himself is from an older tradition of Democratic politics in which hard-edged nicknames were preferred. Hunter S. Thompson referred to him as a "hired gun" in his book about Bill Clinton's election, Better Than Sex: Confessions of a Political Junkie. Their continued close friendship suggests that Carville was flattered.

5 comments:

Texan99 said...

Surely he meant "pit bull"?

Assistant Village Idiot said...

I wonder if the calculations will change as election probabilities shift -as they always do. Both parties always have dire warnings for second terms for presidents, claiming that without having to be answerable to the electorate all bets will be off and they will run wild. It doesn't seem to happen. It's their first term that is more radical; as they settle in they revert to their lifelong political dealmaking ways. We had a change last time, as Trump always knew he was on the edge and might not get back in, so appointing judges seemed a good pushback for him. Biden must know at some level he might not be back, and pull the covers off his last two years. So whether Garland is unleashed may have something to do with that.

Dad29 said...

Garland was not 'careful.' He was collecting future-payable IOU's.

Grim said...

When I've heard Garland speak, his answers to questions about the law are always technically correct. He gave a careful answer the other day about the lawsuit against Idaho's abortion law, for example. Clearly we are not in agreement, he and I, about the desirability of abortion; but what he actually said was so correct I could find nothing to dispute with in it. (Specifically, he was asked why he was trying to use a DOJ lawsuit to overrule a SCOTUS ruling; he pointed out that he was not, in fact, doing that, but only asserting that the Supremacy Clause of the Constitution coupled with a Federal law mandating access to lifesaving care trumps the Idaho law on the issue when abortion is viably a form of medical access to lifesaving care.)

So I think he is careful in his thought process, whatever else he may be. Neither "pit viper" nor "pit bull" seems very appropriate as a nickname to me. Rather, I think of him as one of those shaven and clean-cut administrators whom CS Lewis describes as occupying 'the home office of Hell,' and whom GK Chesterton discusses in the last book of the Ballad of the White Horse as being the 'heathen come again.'

douglas said...

It is indeed bureaucrats who will be out end, and he is a near perfect manifestation of the category.