{"id":4660,"date":"2008-08-12T02:53:26","date_gmt":"2008-08-12T10:13:14","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.amptoons.com\/blog\/archives\/2008\/08\/12\/throw-mr-obama-and-mrs-mccain-in-jail\/"},"modified":"2008-08-12T02:53:26","modified_gmt":"2008-08-12T10:13:14","slug":"throw-mr-obama-and-mrs-mccain-in-jail","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/?p=4660","title":{"rendered":"Throw Mr. Obama and Mrs. McCain In Jail"},"content":{"rendered":"

From Johann Hari<\/a>:<\/p>\n

On January 20th 2009, either the president of the United States will be a man who used to snort coke to ease his blues, or the First Lady will be a former drug addict who stole from charity to get her next fix. In this presidential campaign, there are dozens of issues that have failed to flicker into the debate, but the most striking is the failing, flailing ‘War on Drugs.’ Isn’t it a sign of how unwinnable this ‘war’ is that, if it was actually enforced evenly, either Barack Obama or Cindy McCain would have to skip the inauguration — because they’d be in jail?<\/p>\n

At least their time in the slammer would feature some familiar faces: they could share a cell with Bill Clinton, George W. Bush, and some 46 percent of the US population.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

(Has Bush actually admitted to illegal drug use? I thought he “no commented” it.)<\/p>\n

Obama was never officially charged — if he had been, he wouldn’t have had a political career. Cindy McCain was caught, but she was also rich, white and well-connected, so she never faced any punishment worse than humiliation. From a 1994 article in the Phoenix New Times<\/a>:<\/p>\n

“If she were charged in state court–and there is an offense that fits her case to a T–she’s looking at Class 3 felonies,” says one defense attorney. “If we assume conservatively that there were six separate counts, her liability in state court is astronomical. She could have been looking at ten to 20 years, with a presumptive sentence of 11.25 years and two-thirds served before she would be eligible for parole.<\/p>\n

“If I had a client named Jos\u00e9 Lopez, I’m not so sure we wouldn’t be looking at that.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

But because it was Cindy McCain, strings were pulled and her case was softballed in Federal courts.<\/p>\n

Hari suggests some debate questions: “Before this campaign is out, Obama needs to be asked: do you really think you should be in jail? McCain needs to be asked: do you really think your wife should be in jail?”<\/p>\n

I’d love it if the press was willing to press the candidates this way, but it’s unlikely.<\/p>\n

Nor would either candidate say what they should — which is no, Cindy and Barry didn’t deserve to go to jail, ((Ignoring for now Mrs. McCain’s drug-related crimes such as theft and forgery)) and neither do other non-violent drug offenders. But neither candidate will; even if one or both of them privately realize that the drug war has been a horrible failure, the dynamics of running for President make taking an intelligent position on drug use virtually impossible.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

From Johann Hari: On January 20th 2009, either the president of the United States will be a man who used to snort coke to ease his blues, or the First Lady will be a former drug addict who stole from … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4660","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-elections-and-politics"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4660","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=4660"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4660\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":14502,"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4660\/revisions\/14502"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=4660"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=4660"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=4660"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}