Irish American duo at forefront of 21st century war on drugs

Illegal Drugs

Singer Whitney Houston’s death brought with it a whirlwind of emotions -- shock that an artist of such skill and passion would leave us so soon; confusion that a life of such promise could end amid reports of booze and prescription pills; and sadness, for the family, fans and apparently troubled young daughter she left behind.

And, let’s face it, there is anger, too. Very few of us can understand what it means to live a life of glamour and privilege.

And that, of course, is the point. Celebrities can go on and on about the pressures and expectations of such a life.

The rest of us, the 99 percent, can’t help but focus on the fact that these people have made enough money to literally do anything they want.

Most of us spend our lives toiling for just a precious few moments of freedom.

And yet, many troubled celebrities swap their hard-won freedom for the fog of booze and pills.

Of course, it is not just the rich and famous who O.D. on oxycodone. The abuse of prescription pills has exploded in recent years.

Enter Terence J. O’Leary and Bridget Brennan. The Irish American duo are at the forefront of the 21st century war on drugs.

Late last year, O’Leary, a graduate of Loyola College in Maryland and Seton Hall University School of Law, was appointed the head of the New York State Health Department's Bureau of Narcotics Enforcement (BNE).
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O'Leary had served as a prosecutor for the Office of the Special Narcotics Prosecutor for the City of New York, which just so happens to be run by Brennan.

"Crimes involving the illegal use and distribution of prescription drugs are a public health threat that demands the investigative and prosecutorial experience that Terence O'Leary brings to this position,"
Governor Andrew Cuomo said at the time of O’Leary’s appointment back in November.

"He has a proven track record in fighting illicit drug trafficking and an understanding of the need for new public health strategies to combat these crimes."

The BNE is charged with protecting the public by identifying the use and trafficking of illegal prescription drugs. It is also designed to help doctors and other prescribers prevent the distribution of controlled substances.

According to Cuomo’s office, O'Leary, 36, will be expanding the Department of Health’s initiatives to combat the theft of prescription drugs.

For nearly 15 years now, Brennan has served as New York City’s top narcotics prosecutor, with her office handling nearly 3,000 drug cases a year.

Brennan served as O'Leary's supervisor while he served at the Special Narcotics Prosecutor’s office. Brennan has said, "Terry O'Leary is an extremely intelligent and experienced attorney with a strong background in investigative work.

“During his 10 years at the Special Narcotics Prosecutor's Office, most recently as senior investigative counsel, Terry followed the highest ethical standards and demonstrated true dedication and commitment to his work."

Brennan and O’Leary will continue working together on certain city-state cases.

It goes without saying, they have quite a challenge ahead of them. While pill-popping celebrities tend to garner lots of headlines, the street level use of prescription drugs is truly shocking.

From 1999 to 2008, deaths related to painkillers more than tripled nationwide from 4,000 to 15,000, according to an editorial published last week in the New York Daily News.

“In 2009 alone, prescription abuse produced almost 500,000 emergency room visits,” the paper adds.

In New York City, “pain medication abuse ballooned 40% … from 2002 to 2009. Across the state in 2010, doctors wrote an astonishing 22 million pain reliever prescriptions — a number that exceeded the entire population of men, women and children by three million.”

Perhaps the most notorious case is that of Dr. Stan Xuhui Li, who reportedly wrote up to 120 prescriptions as day, leaving as many as 10 patients dead.

In short, Brennan and O’Leary have their work cut out for them.

(Contact Sidewalks at tomdeignan@earthlink.net or facebook.com/tomdeignan)

President Barack Obama’s Blessing for “Pope” Timothy Dolan

Archbishop Timothy Dolan (AP Photo)

Sarah Palin saw this coming all along.

Back in 2009, Palin was all fired up about Notre Dame University’s decision to invite President Obama – pro-choice on abortion – to speak at its graduation ceremonies. Many – not just Palin – shuddered at the thought of such a president speaking at what is arguably America’s most famous Catholic institution.

"My favorite grandpa, Clem James Sheeran, was Catholic. Irish to the core,” Palin was quoted as saying back in 2009.

“His favorite place (other than church) was Notre Dame. I can't imagine what he would think as the university recognizes someone who contradicts the core values of the Catholic faith by promoting an anti-life agenda."

And now we have another brouhaha over Obama and Catholicism. A few weeks back, the Obama administration unveiled plans that would have compelled Catholic institutions to provide contraception to employees. There was a compromise offered on Friday, though the damage to Obama has largely been done.

Thunderous objections have followed, though they were quite understandable. By all accounts, Obama had been warned by Irish Catholic members of his inner circle – including Vice President Joe Biden and former Chief of Staff Bill Daley – that requiring Catholic institutions to provide coverage contrary to their teaching would start a holy war.

And boy did it.

It played to the right wing belief that Obama – and really, most Democrats – are anti-religious.

Former George W. Bush speechwriter and current Washington Post columnist Michael Gerson said the edict was “delivered with a sneer,” and added that this was “the most transparently anti-Catholic maneuver by the federal government since the Blaine Amendment was proposed in 1875, a measure designed to diminish public tolerance of Romanism, then regarded as foreign, authoritarian and illiberal.”

Newt Gingrich charged that "the Obama administration is engaged in a war against religion." Mitt Romney declared this "a direct attack on religious liberty."

No doubt that this was a boneheaded move by Obama. Then again, now that this issue has become a political football, it’s easy to forget a few things.

First of all, the vast majority of Irish Americans and other Catholics are quite liberal when it comes to contraception.

In fact, as The New York Times noted this week, “Although Archbishop Timothy M. Dolan of New York has vociferously argued that a national requirement for religiously affiliated institutions to cover birth control in their insurance plans is immoral and unacceptable, some Roman Catholic organizations in his own backyard have for 10 years been grudgingly complying with a state law making  them do precisely that.”

Manhattan College and Fordham University are among the Catholic institutions that offer contraception as part of their health care packages.

And yet, the fact is, after years of backpedaling because of horrific sex abuse allegations, church leaders were actually able to take the moral high ground on this issue.

The biggest winner here seems to be New York Archbishop Timothy Dolan. He has emerged as an outspoken and legitimate defender of religious values.

This is a role Dolan’s predecessor, Edward Cardinal Egan, never seemed to grow into. If Dolan manages to maintain this position, he could recall the more vigorous days of John Cardinal O’Connor.

This comes just as Dolan is elevated to cardinal this Saturday. So swift and significant has Dolan’s other elevation – to significant public voice – been that the New York Daily News actually ran a long analysis outlining the circumstances under which Dolan could someday become the first American pope.

This sounds more or less absurd to me. The U.S. has enough influence on the world stage without also ruling over the Vatican.

And yet, this mere discussion is an indication of how well Dolan has managed to articulate a certain moral message, all the while retaining his gregarious, even fun-loving side.

How will this all effect Catholic voters come November?

If only we could ask Sarah Palin’s grandfather.

(Contact “Sidewalks” at tomdeignan@earthlink.net or facebook.com/tomdeignan)

Mitt Romney bashers fail John F Kennedy test

Hopeful GOP nominee Mitt Romney (REUTERS/Rick Wilking)

How is it possible that all these years later, revelations about JFK and women still make headlines?

This week, there were more sordid tales coming out of Camelot, this one about 19-year-old Mimi Alford, who supposedly had an affair with Kennedy while she was serving as a White House intern. (You can insert your own Clinton joke here.)

Naturally, Alford has a book to sell. The bizarre thing is not that she has a book to sell but that there are people willing to buy it.

Nevertheless, these days, there are some things about JFK worth discussing.

Ironically enough, this has nothing to do with JFK’s sexual dalliances, but instead with his religion.

Kennedy, of course, was the first Roman Catholic to become president. He didn’t face the fire and brimstone Al Smith did in 1928, but the 1960 campaign had its fair share of anti-Irish, anti-Catholic sentiment.
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So, Kennedy famously delivered a speech before the Greater Houston Ministerial Association in 1960, attempting to confront whispers that he would be the Pope’s president.

“Because I am a Catholic, and no Catholic has ever been elected president, the real issues in this campaign have been obscured -- perhaps deliberately, in some quarters less responsible than this. So it is apparently necessary for me to state once again not what kind of church I believe in -- for that should be important only to me -- but what kind of America I believe in,” he said.

The speech was considered a bold move on Kennedy’s part. But it was also kind of sad that a member of any religious minority had to make such a speech in the first place.

The implied message was that Kennedy had to prove that he had just as much a right to run for the presidency as any Protestant.

Now, we have a Mormon running for president, Mitt Romney. And while much has been made of the rift between evangelical Protestants and Mormons, less has been noted about the way normally tolerant liberals have also raised questions about Mitt’s faith.

Romney’s “conspicuous cone of silence about this major pillar of his biography also leaves you wondering what he is trying to hide,” writes former New York Times columnist Frank Rich in the current issue of New York Magazine.

Rich goes on, “That his faith can be as secretive as he is…only whets the curiosity among the 82% of Americans who tells pollsters they know little or nothing about Mormonism.”

Secretive? Trying to hide something?

Given what folks have said about the all-powerful Vatican in the past, these very things could well have been said about JFK in 1960. And that’s a shame.

There’s a fine line between wanting to know more about a candidate’s background and equating silence with suspicious secrecy.

The late best-selling author Christopher Hitchens, before he died, declared, “we are fully entitled” to ask tough questions about how Romney’s faith shaped his political philosophy. There is, of course, a defensiveness to that declaration.

Because Hitchens and those like him know that you run the risk of seeming anti-Mormon, if not anti-religious, by pushing such questions. Hitchens, for one, was a proud atheist.

But one suspects that if the leading Republican candidate was a devout Buddhist or Jew -- or heaven forbid, Muslim -- people like Rich would be the first to view such questions as bigoted.

There is so much material to slam Romney on -- his flip-flopping, his cutthroat private sector policies, his thin political experience. Why go after his religion?

Yes, he himself speaks of God oh so much on the campaign trail. He is not the only one.

The problem, then, seems not to be Mormonism but religion in the political sphere in general. Liberals don’t like to be labeled as anti-Christian, but there are times when they make it awful easy for the right wing to do just that.

Sure, Romney could make another JFK-style speech about his religion. But would that really satisfy the critics who view him with suspicion?

As JFK said back in 1960, “For while this year it may be a Catholic against whom the finger of suspicion is pointed, in other years it has been, and may someday be again, a Jew -- or a Quaker or a
Unitarian or a Baptist.”

Or a Mormon.

(Contact Sidewalks at tomdeignan@earthlink.net or facebook.com/tomdeignan)

The real Fighting Irish - Boston Irish fight each other

Former Boston Mayor Kevin White

With gleaming stars like Matt Damon and Ben Affleck bickering over who has the right to make a movie about that rapscallion Whitey Bulger – you know, the gangster and drug dealer who killed at least 19 people – it’s safe to say we have moved so far away from Boston’s dark past that it looks nearly charming these days.

And yet, it really wasn’t so long ago that the Boston Irish were at the center of a drama that was ugly, raw and rooted in ancient hatreds. And it had nothing to do with Whitey Bulger.

The death last week of former Boston Mayor Kevin White, at the age of 82, was another reminder of these bad old days.

This also reminds us that while we have our problems in the year 2012, they are nothing compared to the rancor of 1970s Boston.

Finally, lest we ever forget, the White days also proved that we may be known as the “Fighting Irish” not because we fight against the world, but because we fight each other.

White’s glory days were 1970s Boston, a town ruled politically by the Irish. In fact, former Boston Globe reporter and editor Gerard O’Neill has a new book coming out in March entitled Rogues and Redeemers: When Politics Was King in Irish Boston (Crown).
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The book’s starting point is “Four Micks,” including, Thomas Fitzgerald (JFK’s Irish-born great-grandfather) and Michael Curley, whose grandson James would serve as Boston mayor and Massachusetts governor, while also serving time in prison.

But perhaps the most interesting – and timely - sections of O’Neill’s book are the White years.

White was briefly a towering figure. He was nearly selected as George McGovern’s presidential running mate in 1972.

And yet, White may be the least colorful of four key figures from late 1960s and early 1970s Boston. 
They were all Irish and all, in their own ways, despised each other.

First there was White, who like most Irish pols of his generation had a strong political pedigree. His father once served as Boston’s City Council president, and also served in the state senate. He even eyed the mayor’s chair his own son would eventually occupy from 1968 to 1984.

White, simply put, was a moderate liberal. He even labeled Boston “racist” in 1980.

And so, when the notorious bussing controversy of the early 1970s hit South Boston, White was vulnerable when it came to political enemies such as Louise Day Hicks.

“Bussing” hit the big time in 1974, when Irish American judge Arthur Garrity ruled the Boston’s schools were racially segregated.

The solution? Sending African American kids on busses to mostly white schools, and vice versa.

Louise Day Hicks looked like everybody’s grandmother, but she was supported by the vociferous, sometimes violent, anti-bussing crowd, including the group ROAR.

Demanding that someone “Restore Our Alienated Rights,” Hicks won over her fans and earned her
enemies when she said, “You know where I stand.”

To some, she and ROAR stood for racial segregation in the north, just as fat, bald sheriffs had done in the American south.

A more complex opponent of White’s was Joe Timilty. “They came from opposite sides of the tracks to enter city politics at the same time, in the same place,” O’Neill writes.

“One was a hard-charging, beer-drinking Marine from St. Gregory’s parish in Dorchester. The other was something of an intellectual from a lace curtain family in West Roxbury who read the philosophers and sipped white wine – when he drank at all.”

Timilty and White, who battled in three ugly races for mayor throughout the 1970s, represent two sides of the Irish American experience -- one, blue collar and feisty, the other more upper class and anxious to escape these less sophisticated roots.

When all was said and done, there was racial tension and violence, not to mention Irish-on-Irish violence.

Most notoriously, Judge Garrity faced death threats and Senator Ted Kennedy was nearly mauled by an angry crowd.

Meanwhile, even though White got the most votes in those mayoral races, it’s hard to say someone actually won given the long-lasting scars left behind.

To some, these days are ancient history. And that’s a good thing.

So long as we do everything we can to avoid the passing of such days ever again.

(Contact “Sidewalks” at tomedeignan@earthlink.net or facebook.com/tomdeignan)

Stephen Colbert’s “Rock me like a Herman Cain” serious joke - VIDEO

Stephen Colbert

So Comedy Central fake news anchor Stephen Colbert’s efforts to make waves in the South Carolina primary didn’t really work. 

Hoping to laugh all the way to the ballot box, Colbert told followers in his native South Carolina to show their support by voting for Herman Cain.  The project -- tongue planted firmly in cheek -- was called “Rock Me Like a Herman Cain!”

In the end, Colbert/Cain received only about 6,000 votes in South Carolina, or about 1%.

But Colbert -- one of 11 children, who never misses a chance to reference his Irish Catholic roots -- can rest easy. 

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He is well on his way to making an impact of truly historic proportions. 

And he is using that trusty Irish tool -- satire -- to do so.

Colbert has created a Super PAC (Political Action Committee) called Americans for a Better
Tomorrow, Tomorrow.  And he has shown that for all of the time and effort put into creating intricate rules to regulate the influence of money in the political process, it is laughably easy to subvert those rules.

If you were yawning by the time you read the end of that sentence, this is understandable.  The precise reason political financing rules are so easily subverted is because they are such a tiresomely boring topic.

But Colbert may finally succeed where so many others have failed -- by exposing this absurdity.

It should be noted that this is not Colbert’s first foray into the real world of politics.

In 2010, he went before Congress (as his right-wing character), and spoke out against illegal immigration.  He said that his great-grandfather did not come from Ireland to see America "overrun by immigrants."

Indeed, Colbert has always been vocal about his Irish roots.

When he spoke to Harvard professor Henry Louis Gates as part of the Faces of America project (this time speaking as his humble self), he spoke at length about his ancestors from Tyrone and Roscommon, and how his great-grandfather came over on boat he knew as “the noble Dundee,” to work on the Erie Canal.

“Part of being Irish is hating the English in America,” Colbert added.  “They probably got over it better over there than we did over here.”

Colbert’s latest satirical crusade takes aim at political fundraising.  Money in politics is a topic people like to complain about, but which is also so murky that it’s difficult to blast the system in anything other than the most bland, generic terms.

For me personally, money in politics is not inherently evil.  To believe money can be separated from politics is hopelessly naïve.

What is disturbing is that so many rules were set up to create the illusion of fairness, and that no one really talks about the obvious ways to subvert these rules.

Colbert is not only talking about it. He’s showing it.

As a recent New York Times Magazine profile of Colbert put it, “Americans for a Better Tomorrow, Tomorrow…is entitled to raise and spend unlimited amounts of soft money in support of candidates as long as it doesn’t ‘coordinate’ with them, whatever that means. Of such Super PAC efforts, Colbert said, ‘This is 100 percent legal and at least 10 percent ethical.’”

Super PACs these days play a huge role in elections.  Perhaps you’ve noticed that almost every time you see a political attack ad, it is not paid for by the candidate but some group with a weird name. 

Such as “Winning Our Future.” This is a Super PAC which supports Newt Gingrich, even though Gingrich is technically not allowed to be in contact with them. This even though Winning Our Future is run by a bunch of Gingrich pals.

Everyone’s got one of these PACs. Everyone knows the rules are a joke. And yet, they play a key role.
Colbert has since made his own pal Jon Stewart the head of his Super PAC. Colbert and Stewart simply can’t “coordinate.” 

In case you miss the point, this illustrates just how farcical this all is.

Colbert is currently accomplishing what hordes of journalists and activists could not -- shedding light on a complicated yet vital topic.

He may not get many votes for president.  But Colbert may well spur significant changes in the electoral process.

Somewhere, Irish satirist Jonathan Swift must be smiling.

(Contact “Sidewalks” at tomdeignan@earthlink.net or facebook.com/tomdeignan)

Here, watch the video of Stephen Colbert at the Herman Cain rally at the College of Charleston:

Mitt Romney’s troubling immigration pal Kris Kobach

Mitt Romney (REUTERS/Chris Keane)

The movement to make sure that anti-Irish, anti-Catholic cartoonist Thomas Nast is not enshrined in the New Jersey Hall of Fame continues to gain momentum. 

A wide range of groups, and not just Irish ones, have come out against Nast, who was famous for inventing our image of Santa Claus, but also made Catholics look like scheming villains and the Irish look like apes.

And yet, even as this very sensible opposition to nativism and anti-immigrant ideas makes itself heard, there is troubling news on the horizon. This only proves yet again that we are a schizophrenic nation when it comes to immigration.

Barring a major catastrophe, we can expect that Mitt Romney will emerge from this weekend’s South Carolina primary as the Republican candidate for president.
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And so, even though the general election in still 10 months away, it is probably not too early to start thinking about how certain key issues will play out.

News reports that Romney was hitting the campaign trail with a man by the name of Kris Kobach suggests we can expect a bitter campaign on the immigration front.

Who is Kris Kobach?

Though he is little-known outside of political circles, Kobach is a tremendously influential -- and divisive -- figure.

By day, Kobach serves as the Kansas secretary of state. But he is also a lawyer and outspoken activist against illegal immigration and is one of the driving forces behind controversial anti-immigration measures in a number of states, most notably Arizona.

Arizona, of course, is where an Irish American and former Port Authority police officer named John Kavanagh -- who serves as a state senator -- has been spearheading a movement that some critics call anti-immigrant or nativist.

Back is 2010, Kavanagh, who was born in Queens, confronted just such a protester, who demanded to know where his own ancestors came from originally.

After touting his Irish (as well as German) roots, Kavanagh went on to stress that his ancestors came to the U.S. “legally.”

This, of course, may be true. 

But it’s not like illegal immigration was just  recently invented.  Millions of Americans not only have
immigrant roots, they also have illegal immigrant roots.

Sensible people, of course, can disagree over immigration. But Kavanagh and Kobach have catered to some hardline thoughts on this topic.  And now they are taking aim at the U.S. Constitution.

Earlier this month, a New York Times story about a looming immigration battle featured both Kobach and Kavanagh, and it’s not the first time the duo has been paired in the press.

“The next big immigration battle centers on illegal immigrants’ offspring, who are granted automatic citizenship like all other babies born on American soil,” the Times noted.  “Arguing for an end to the policy, which is rooted in the 14th Amendment of the Constitution, immigration hardliners describe a wave of migrants…stepping across the border in the advanced stages of pregnancy to have what are dismissively called ‘anchor babies.’”

With the latest news that Romney has been endorsed by, and campaigning with, the likes of Kobach, we can be sure to expect lots of nasty talk about immigrants on the campaign trail.

Not that we should be surprised.  Everyone knows that Romney, though likely to win the nomination, also has very soft support among conservatives.  All along he has been taking a hard-line stance on immigration, playing to voters fears. 

This even as conservatives such as New Gingrich and Rick Perry have made shocking statements suggesting that we not scapegoat immigrants for the country’s woes.

This, of course, plays right into Romney’s hands.

The problem is that such tactics generally poison the atmosphere and accomplish nothing in terms of some our real problems relating to immigration, the economy and jobs.

Furthermore, President Obama will be in no position to stand up for a sensible immigration policy during the election.

So, expect lots of nasty talk about immigrants in the coming months.  Thomas Nast would be proud.

(Contact “Sidewalks” at tomdeignan@earthlink.net or www.facebook.com/tomdeignan)

New York Archbishop Timothy Dolan - much power but little glory

Archbishop Timothy Dolan (AP Photo/Louis Lanzano)

“Could Cardinal Dolan Become Pope?”

The question jumped out at me from the CBS News website and made me chuckle for several reasons.

First of all, New York Archbishop Timothy Dolan will not even get his red hat until February 18.  Yet here they are speculating that the guy might become Pope.

And then there’s the prospect of an Irish American pope in Rome.  That made me chuckle even more mightily.

Still, it was quite a week for Irish American power. First, there were reports that First Lady Michelle Obama once griped about the power wielded by just three Irish Catholic clans in Chicago -- the Daley, Madigan and Hynes families.

Then there was the elevation of Dolan, as well as Bronx native and fellow Irish American Edwin O’Brien, to cardinal.

That means for over 170 years now an Irish American has ruled the biggest, most visible diocese in North America.  And all but one, in that time, has made it to Rome as a cardinal.

This got me thinking about what Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan wrote in his book Beyond the Melting Pot back in the 1960s.

“The Irish didn’t know what to do with power once they got it. …[T]he very parochialism and bureaucracy that enabled them to succeed in local politics prevented them from doing much else.
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“In all these 60 or 70 years in which they could have done almost anything they wanted in politics, they did very little. Of all those candidates and all those campaigns, what remains?”

What remains, of course, is power. Still.  To this day.  In 2012.

Moynihan’s point seems to be that after the Irish scrapped and battled their way from the bottom of the social heap to the corridors of power in Boston, New York, Philly and Chicago, they seemed content simply to be powerful and influential.

And one is tempted to ask who can blame them?

It’s particularly interesting to read Moynihan’s lines in the first month of 2012, decades after the Irish finally had to begin sharing power with other ethnic groups, as they moved out to the suburbs and began inter-marrying in great numbers.

Oh sure, it’s hard to find a Hibernian trace of Tammany Hall these days, even if two of the most likely candidates for New York City mayor in 2013 are named Kelly and Quinn.

And the rank-and-file of the unions are nearly as diverse as the city, though the cops and teachers and firefighters have union leaders named Lynch and  Cassidy and Mulgrew.

Yes, the historically Irish Transit Workers union leader is named John Samuelson.  But even he has a son named Jack Duggan Samuelson, thanks to the old Irish ballad.

Moynihan and many others have suggested the Irish could have done more with the power they accumulated.  Others still suggest that had the Irish shared their power they might have made a more just society.

In an important new book to be published in March, entitled The Irish Way, Professor James R. Barrett writes about the Irish in America: “Their most common impulse was to exclude: to bar more recent immigrants, women and people of color from jobs and unions, to discriminate against women and minorities, and to fight more radical groups in the labor movement.”

If this is not excusable, is it at least understandable?  Given what the Irish went through?

There are, of course, plenty of harsh things to say about the Irish influence on the American Catholic Church.

But imagine if you had told “Dagger” John Hughes that the Irish would rule Catholic New York for nearly 200 years?  It would have sent his head spinning.

Yes, they should face the reality of the changing times and the changing faces in the pews.

Yes, the church was a force social mobility, but at a high price when it came to conformity and sexuality.

But maybe for this week, just this week, we should acknowledge this amazing fete.  That the Irish in
America obtained and maintain influence, not for its own sake, or in the name of making the world a
better place.

The amazing thing is that it happened in the first place.

Could they have done more?  Of course.

Let’s not forget the biggest miracle -- that they did it at all.

(Contact “Sidewalks” at tomdeignan@earthlink.net or facebook.com/tomdeignan)