CRAZY AL

Speculative History by Yori Yanover

“Mr. President, the Chief Justice is on the line,” said the White House receptionist.

Chief Justice John Paul Stevens was not a man given to outbursts of joy

“Thank you, Doris,” said the president, who made a point of learning by heart the names of his entire staff. He picked up the receiver. It was time for his last tango with the departing Jurist.

Chief Justice John Paul Stevens was not a man given to outbursts of joy. But it was obvious the call from the chief executive lifted his spirits considerably. In many ways he had come to see the president’s and his own careers as intertwined. The president too admitted that he owed his victory to the Chief.

Some critics claimed Stevens valued formality over substance to such an extent, that he played bridge in a suit and bow tie, always ate dinner in a jacket (even when dinner was a late-night takeout), and insisted on being addressed as Mr. Chief Justice by everyone except his wife, Maryann.

Despite the criticism of many of his individual decisions, it was universally accepted that under Chief Justice Stevens’ command the US Supreme Court enjoyed a period of immense popularity. Stevens maneuvered his colleagues with skill and strength of character, creating a court that was neither aggressively activist, nor aloof and withdrawn from the needs of the nation.

His critics predicted he would be eaten alive by Justices Scalia and Thomas. Instead Stevens managed to isolate these two roaring lions of the Right from their traditional allies on the court, O’Connor and Kennedy. In two years Scalia began to sound more conciliatory than ever, and Thomas was turning to his experience as a Black man in America to reconnect with the court’s mainstream.

Not a bad couple years’ work for the oldest Chief Justice in US history…

Now 87 and certainly feeling the burden of his years, Stevens was stepping down, leaving behind a legacy of a good natured civic responsibility unmatched by any of his predecessors. He may not have been a great reformer like Earl Warren, but what he lacked in intellectual prominence he more than made up for in common sense and compassion.

There was going to be yet another farewell party tonight. Stevens liked parties, particularly those honoring him personally. He liked to think that by revering him, the people were showing their affection for the judicial branch of government, perhaps the most misunderstood of the three branches.

Was President Al Gore better at his job than his rival, George W. Bush, would have been?

When he was appointed to the high court in 1975, by President Ford, Stevens was considered a moderate Republican. But as the makeup of the court changed, he found himself among the more liberal justices.

The late fall of the year 2000 had been a trying time for the nation. Two baby boomer presidential candidates locked horns over election results in the state of Florida. The country was split down the middle, with Democrats demanding a recount and Republicans warning that a recount would be tantamount to stealing the election.

The Florida Supreme Court (a heavily Democratic body, in a state with a Republican majority in the legislator and a Republican governor who happened to be the brother of the GOP presidential candidate) decided, not to anyone’s surprise, that a recount of a few thousand suspect ballots in Dade County was, indeed, called for. The Republicans appealed to the US Supreme Court even as the Florida gavel was hitting the Justice’s desk down in Tallahassee. Speculations ran wild.

There was no doubt about the decisions by the trio of William H. Rehnquist, Antonin Scalia, and Clarence Thomas. They hated the Democratic candidate, Vice President Al Gore, almost as much as they did his boss, President Bill Clinton. There was also little doubt about the opinions of Justices David H. Souter, Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Stephen G. Breyer. The swing votes belonged to Justices Sandra Day O'Connor, Anthony M. Kennedy, and John Paul Stevens.

And then, with the December 12^th midnight deadline growing near, the fates intervened and Chief Justice Rehnquist died at 8 pm, after a long and painful bout with thyroid cancer. President Clinton showed his statesmanship that night, issuing an emergency appointment of Justice Stevens to head the eight-member court. Clinton’s choice was applauded by many, who respected the president’s decision to forgo the appointment of an obvious pro-Gore choice.

The result, it turned out, worked very well for the combative Democratic candidate. The new Chief Justice decided the impaired high court did not possess the authority to intervene in an obvious case of states’ rights. The Florida Court’s decision was upheld and the recount continued, effectively terminating the Bush camp’s hopes for a victory.

“Mr. President, what a pleasure to hear from you,” said Stevens.

“Likewise, Mr. Chief Justice,” said President Al Gore. He genuinely liked the old man, although he didn’t entertain many illusions about his capacity in the brains department. But Stevens was useful to the Gore administration, and that’s all that counted.

“So, tomorrow is the big day,” the president continued. “I admit I would have preferred Justice Ginsburg to take your place, but I accept respectfully the choice of Justice Souter. After all, with O’Connor’s departure I still get to appoint two new justices in my first term in office…”

“Yes, Mr. President,” confirmed Stevens. “I’m sure you’ll be careful to nominate persons acceptable to both sides of the aisle. None too extreme…”

“Let me put it this way, Mr. Chief Justice—former Senator Carol Mosley-Braun is not on my short list,” said the president and both men laughed.

Was President Al Gore better at his job than his rival, George W. Bush, would have been? Democrats answered in the affirmative, Republicans were still gritting their teeth, insisting Gore stole the presidency. It seemed that white-male rage was never going to go out of style.

Although Al Gore was no Bill Clinton, and despite the fact that the economy had experienced a severe downturn after the bursting of the technology bubble (which Gore tried to pin on Clinton), who knows if Governor Bush would have handled things more skillfully? As Americans watched the country’s surpluses turning into deficits, they couldn’t help wondering if Bush’s promise to slash a trillion dollars in taxes as soon as he took office would not have ended in a more severe economic failure.

“You’ve been saying some nice things about me lately, I’m very grateful,” the president told Stevens.

As he was leaving office, Justice Stevens had pointed in several interviews to a glowing aspect of the Gore presidency: The caring for the environment. True to his word, President Gore led the drive to apply the 1997 Kyoto Agreement on greenhouse gas reductions, enlisting the United States in the universal struggle to clean up the planet.

Perhaps he shouldn’t have shown so much zeal in beginning the cleanup with the airline industry, which was not doing so well anyway in the new recession. But Gore decided to take on airplane pollution, citing studies which showed commuter jets were inflicting the gravest harm on the ozone layer.

Gore resolved to make an example of the airlines, whom he blamed for a litany of “Crimes Against the Planet.” And to show the country he meant business, Gore announced he would shut down any airport in which more than fifty percent of the planes failed to meet the standards set by environmental inspections.

Gore’s critics suggested he chose Boston’s Logan Airport for this kind of public humiliation because Massachusetts was a staunch Democratic bastion and therefore not likely to turn redstate. But regardless of the president’s political calculations, the lesson of Logan was learned, and the fact that throughout the month of September, 2001, Bostoners were forced to use only cars, busses and trains, put the fear of God in the hearts of airline industry executives, who began to comply with the demands of “Crazy Al.” This quickly resulted in cleaner air and even a reduction in reports of several types of cancer.

National security was another area where retiring Chief Justice Stevens gave Gore a lot of credit. “Yes, we have enemies within,” Stevens said later that very evening, at the retirement party some affluent New York friends threw him at Windows on the World, in Lower Manhattan. “But with the right kind of intelligence, we can stop them. The record shows that in the end, civilized democracies overcome the threats of the barbarians at their gates.”

The retiring Chief Justice was referring, of course, to the concentrated attempt made, in early September, 2001, by fundamentalist Muslims to hijack passenger planes and fly them into major U.S. landmarks, including the very building where he was speaking, the World Trade Center. He failed to mention that critics within the Gore Administration suggested the terror plot failed not because US security was much improved, but because Logan Airport, the most under-guarded facility in the nation, had been closed down. But, naturally, every administration breeds its own inevitable skeptics.

President Al Gore hung up the phone and began to prepare for his next meeting. It was a Saudi official he knew well, and who had recently been appointed chief of his government’s special office for scientific research. Like their Iranian neighbors, the Saudis were extremely interested in purchasing nuclear power plants for peaceful use. But while the Iranians turned to Russia for their technology, the Saudis preferred to deal with their traditional American allies.

The door opened and President Gore rose to shake hands with his visitor.

“Mr. Bin Laden, what a pleasure to see you again,” he exclaimed.