Johnny Cochran took the most important moral issues of the day and trivialized them with simple rhymes.
What should I use for this occasion?
If you are a cad, then when you die, I'll be glad....
Its ain't exactly Byron, but it will do for Johnnie Cochran.
Today's news was foreshadowed on Calblog a few month's back.
Many people (especially in the legal community), feel that Cochran is deserving of respect for his career choices. Many fellow lawyers feel that we should sing the praises of Johnny because he was a zealous advocate working within the system who got results. Many legal bloggers may feel this way too.
I ain't one of them.
I understand having respect for figures who happen to be on the wrong side of history.
Like many, I have a great deal of respect for many of the Southern Generals of the American Civil War.
I even have a great deal of respect for someone like
Erwin Rommel, the formidable German General of World War II who eventually took part in failed coup against Hitler.
But this kind of mixed-emotion admiration does not extend to Cochran who made his living by causing a great deal of emotional torture of the innocent and who felt that the succeeding in America's adversarial legal system was a greater moral imperative than the pursuit of justice.
It is sickening that he has inspired so many to become lawyers. It is no different than a new generation of criminals being inspired by John Gotti.
We called Fred Goldman at the radio station today to see if we wanted to speak out. He declined, saying that he had "nothing good to say" about this man. I understand Mr. Goldman wanting to take the high road, but I can't bring myself to bite my metaphorical keyboard-as-tongue in this instance.
I wonder during his last days if really thought he lived a life he could be proud of. I wonder if he deluded himself into thinking that he made a positive impact in this world? I just want to thank the Almighty that he didn't give me a life like this man's.
I don't know where Cochran is destined for in the afterlife. But if he is in Heaven, then the bar to getting in there is considerably lower than I would have thought.
Enough said.
[Update (not quite enough said after all): For those who think that I should cut Cochran's corpse some slack, perhaps you should reacquaint yourself with what Fred Goldman had to say about him during the O.J. Simpson trial. Be sure to play the audio cuts...]