North Star Writers Group

Paris Hilton, much like Martha Stewart, is a person we love to hate. It was hard to muster much sympathy for the latter during her trial and five-month prison term, just as it now is tough to feel much pity for the former, despite reports that the socialite is “traumatized” at the thought of a 45-day jail sentence that has now been cut in half.

Suck it up and gut it out, rich bitch, we think to ourselves. You brought this on yourself.

And so each woman did. Both made unwise choices with unpalatable consequences.

Both of them are also cheap – and above all, safe – targets for smug, finger-wagging disapproval and snickering.

The duo’s treatment before the law is a stark reminder of those far more powerful and thus less safe to criticize, and who have yet to face any accountability for actions that have far more widespread and disastrous repercussions in this world.

Let’s start where the buck is supposed to stop. It’s long past time to hold President Bush’s feet to legal fire for invading a country that had nothing to do with the attacks of 9/11 and for lying about the reasons to do so. Where are all of Saddam Hussein’s weapons of mass destruction? Why has Mr. Bush attended not one soldier’s funeral or even met the coffins on their return to this country?

It’s way past time for Vice President Cheney to face a reckoning for ordering his aides to cherry-pick intelligence about Iraq to suit a preconceived invasion agenda and then for orchestrating a smear campaign against a man who had the audacity to expose some of the lies. Where is that Niger uranium ore that Saddam reportedly sought? What did Mr. Cheney and those oil company executives discuss during their secret meetings in 2001? Does it have anything to do with the oil law that the Bush administration is desperately trying to shove down an Iraqi Parliament’s increasingly unwilling throat?

It’s high time for former Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld to pay some price for ignoring the generals who warned against invading Iraq with too small a force (or any force at all), and for ignoring the wholesale plunder of the U.S. treasury by defense contractors awarded no-bid contracts and no oversight. How many billions of U.S. taxpayer dollars sank into war profiteers’ endless pockets on your watch, Mr. Rumsfeld? How many U.S. troops died or were maimed for life because the Defense Department couldn’t seem to order enough of the correct equipment? What about torture at Abu Ghraib and secret CIA rendition sites?

While his top aides fall by the wayside, Attorney General Alberto Gonzales breezes through an unprecedented crisis of confidence in the U.S. Justice Department. Thanks to the ouster of now nine former U.S. attorneys for working to uphold the U.S. Constitution instead of the Republican National Committee, the reputation of the department to enforce the law fairly and prosecute without political bias is in tatters. Where is a Justice Department that operates without undue political influence or intervention? A wrongly prosecuted Wisconsin woman named Georgia Thompson would certainly like to know. She lost her job, her home and her reputation, and wrongfully spent time in prison, because a “loyal Bushie” U.S. attorney prosecuted her on what the 7^th Circuit U.S. District Court called “less than thin” grounds - all for election advantage in 2006.

Compared to the high crimes just outlined, the deeds of Ms. Stewart and Ms. Hilton are mere misdemeanors indeed. That leads us to the conclusion to this sad tale. Those who lie, steal from the public purse, smear people’s reputations, etc., better be at the top of the pack. The top dog almost always manages to avoid accountability.

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This is Column #CT036. Request permission to publish here.