To the rotten core

The Lipscomb trial took us where the News don't shine

A A A Comments By Jim Schutze Thursday, Feb 3 2000

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This is an especially rancid stink that goes back at least to the 1996 cocaine trial of Dallas Cowboys football player Michael Irvin. In the course of that trial, it was revealed that a group of Hispanic cops had been providing off-duty security for big drug parties at the topless clubs. It came up during the Irvin trial because one of the cops confessed to taking out a contract on Irvin's life.

Did we hear anything more about this? Was this ever settled? Did anyone ever suggest we might need to get to the bottom of this? Does it bother anyone that the government deliberately chose to leave this one element out of the Lipscomb trial? Are we at all worried about the fact that this matter seems to involve our new police chief, Terrell Bolton?

Henry Bargas

Dallas' upside-down moral political climate must have puzzled Panhandle jurors.

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Nope. Not if we read the News. Everything's fine in Pineapple Upside-down Town.

Things get very tangled here. Last week I asked Tom Melsheimer whether Lipscomb wasn't talking his way straight into the pen. I said, "Isn't it the case that, if Al took hat in hand, quit the council, and did mea culpa for the cameras, he could still get probation, but by giving the finger to the court and saying he did nothing wrong, he's forcing the judge to lock him up?"

Melsheimer indicated he thought that there could be possible merit in portions of my remarks. But then he said, "The way Mr. Lipscomb has approached this entire process is wholly inconsistent with the way the government painted him in the trial. He has not behaved like a pragmatic corrupt man. He has been wholly impractical and highly principled. He is saying, 'It would be unprincipled of me to step forward and say I did it solely to get a reduced sentence.'"

Mmmmm, yeah, maybe. Or how about this? Maybe he doesn't know the difference between right and wrong. And his excuse is: "I come from a town where nobody knows the difference. So what do you want from me?"

Something in the air here makes the moral compass whirl 'round and 'round. Sometimes it makes me want to put down my copy of the Morning News, go to the airport, fly away to a far city, walk up to people and just say: "OK, now, theft. Thumbs up, thumbs down?"

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