Sometimes it isn`t easy to follow the logic of this political campaign. Especially when it comes tumbling out of Dan Quayle.
Quayle is a lawyer, although he`s never really made a living at it. Since he had to use family clout just to get into a law school, it`s doubtful that he would have been a modern-day Clarence Darrow. His wife is a lawyer too.
But he doesn`t seem to like lawyers. Or maybe he secretly does, but he knows that they are an easy political target.
So he regularly flails them for filing too many lawsuits and asking for too much money and somehow messing up our legal system.
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Now it is true that we have a lot of litigation in America, far more than in most developed nations.
But what Quayle fails to talk about is why we have so many lawsuits.
There are corporations that sue each other. And the corporations can clutter up a courtroom for years on end. But you don`t hear Quayle ranting about the corporations and their lawyers. Not if he wants to be invited to a golf outing at some private club, he doesn`t.
Besides, the corporations aren`t the cause of our crowded court dockets, our great glut of lawsuits.
No, the single biggest flood of lawsuits, day in and day out, week after week, year after year, are suits filed by men and women who don`t want to be married to each other any more.
Divorce. That`s the single biggest source of litigation in America. What, you thought it was patent infringement?
If you are an adult, just look around at all of your friends, relatives and co-workers. Ask yourself how many of them have ever been in court, and if so, what brought them there.
There might be a personal injury case. Or maybe a traffic rap. But if you are a typical middle-class American with typical middle-class American friends, relatives and acquaintances, you know at least one, two, and probably more who have been divorced.
My guess is that at least one out of every four adults who has read this far has been divorced. And maybe more than once.
We have a high divorce rate in this country. And it would be even higher except that in recent decades young people took to living with each other before getting married. So when they split it didn`t require a judge. She took the stereo, he took the TV, they flipped for the cat, and adios forever.
Now, whose fault is it that we have so many divorces? The lawyers?
Of course not. Divorce lawyers don`t rap on doors of strangers and say:
”Hi, do you have domestic strife? If so, would you be interested in going to Splitsville? Here`s my card. Call night or day.”
No, what happens is a phone rings and a voice says: ”Betty, this is Janette, (sob) that philandering bastard did it again and I caught him. What`s the name of the guy you hired?”
Or: ”Charlie, I think the magic is gone. We haven`t talked in two months and I sleep on the sofa in the basement and she makes a puking sound whenever I`m in the same room. Is your cousin the lawyer still handling divorces?”
It`s also the nastiest form of litigation because it can have elements of shattered hopes, faded dreams, battles over property, and the worst part:
custody of children, visitation rights, and the use of kids as pawns and revenge weapons.
And in no other court proceeding-murder, included-is the truth more elusive. She says it`s all his fault, he says it`s all her fault, they both believe it, and in many court systems the only way the judges avoid going nuts, listening to so many lies, is to send both screechers to a court-appointed shrink to sift through the woolly caterpillars between their ears.
You don`t see corporate adversaries walking into courtrooms, whipping out guns, and blazing away. It`s almost always some distraught crazy who thought he got the shaft in a divorce.
So why doesn`t Quayle say that, instead of taking cheap shots at lawyers? Why didn`t he stand up at the convention and say: ”Now, let me talk about our legal system. Do you know what the real problem is? It is the millions of you, watching me on TV, who have hired lawyers to file the millions of divorce suits. And who have gone back to court time after time to demand more money. Or to fight over visitation rights. Or to make false charges of child abuse as a means of punishing the former spouse you now hate. It is you who are to blame.
”Yes, and you, the TV actor with the crew cut who just gave such a glowing introduction to my wife. You have been divorced three times. Shame, shame on you. And shame on us for letting you take part in this family value convention.”
Sure, Quayle could have said that. Then he could have gone back to his hometown in Indiana and lost a close race for constable.
And if he had said those things, he would have been unfair because he is in no position to judge why marriages end. People make mistakes, including marriages. Most divorces are preferable to two people making each other miserable and their kids neurotic. There`s not much family value in households where hate is the prevailing emotion.
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So Quayle ought to cut the bunk about lawyers. Lawyers don`t sue; people sue. And many of them are his supporters.
I mean, come on, a three-time loser introducing his wife?
And they make jokes about Woody Allen. Tsk, tsk.