Praise For Brave People Who Came Forward
On this Sunday before you vote, the opinion section of the nation’s oldest newspaper in continuous publication gives you an opportunity for quiet contemplation. There will be no comment in this space on candidates listed on your ballot Tuesday. Instead, here’s a reminder that change and innovation usually comes from people who do not hold public office.
Consider Anna Kain. She was the abused young staff member working for U.S. Rep. Elizabeth Esty who stepped forward to expose a scandal in the Cheshire Democrat’s Washington office. Esty’s chief of staff, Tony Baker, inflicted physical and emotional abuse on Kain, who obtained a restraining order against Baker.
Esty, for reasons that remain unclear, took months to act after she learned of the pain Kain endured. Kain observed a powerful closing of the ranks and wiping of fingerprints to protect both Esty and Baker. Kain told her story to two newspapers. It was an act of remarkable courage for a young woman who had witnessed the unseemly underside of power to take her story to the public. Kain’s valor and public service met with a variety of reactions.
The story of Kain’s suffering and Esty’s indifference forced the three-term congresswoman to abandon her re-election campaign. Kain’s larger service was to expose the secrecy with which the House gingerly handles its scandals. It was the start of something that ought to lead to significant changes if our leaders’ rhetoric has any relationship to their true intentions. We are in Anna Kain’s debt.
Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi began to embrace liberal values later in his career. He’d had enough experience with our murderous allies to know the risk in criticizing the Saudi Arabian royal totalitarians when he began writing about them from a perch on The Washington Post opinion pages.
Details in this story have been slow to emerge and quick to change, but it seems strongman Saudi Prince Mohammad Bin Salam, known as MBS, was infuriated by Khashoggi’s criticism and attempted to lure him to Saudi Arabia. Even the worldly Khashoggi underestimated the barbarous nature of the Saudi regime. On Oct. 2, Khashoggi entered the Saudi consulate in Istanbul to obtain a document for his upcoming marriage. The Turkish government said this week that Khashoggi was met by a team of Saudi assassins, strangled and dismembered in short order.
Plenty of people meet gruesome deaths each year at the hands of the Saudi government, but this is the one that has caused much of the world to express revulsion at its methods. Action may not follow. The Saudi government spreads a lot of money around the world. Watching some of their American lobbyists make excuses for their paymaster’s brutal nature should make any witness wince in embarrassment.
It is too early to tell if this is the start of policy changes that will endure or a fleeting incident that the powerful will succeed in giving a long shrug. This is a critical moment to remember that we are the superpower and they are a government that might not be able to survive without us.
Last Saturday, a pathetic but heavily armed anti-Semite attacked the Tree of Life synagogue in Pittsburgh, killing 11 and wounding 6. The rampage lasted 20 minutes before law enforcement could stop the killer, who survived his wounds. Dr.
Jerry Rabinowitz made it out of Tree of Life when the slaughter began. Then, the 66-year-old beloved physician went back in to help others as the shooting raged. Dr. Rabinowitz was killed in the course of his selfless act.
Dr. Rabinowitz has been praised by friends, patients (many feel they were both), and distant mourners for his instinctive heroism.
Swiss doctors have created an electrical implant that has allowed three paralyzed men to walk again, according to the BBC and the medical journal Nature. The implant has provided limited but welcome mobility for the patients. The device, placed around the spinal cord, has repaired what were thought to be permanently damaged nerves.
The story on its own is an uplifting chapter in the advance of mankind in what feels like a dark age. Adding to this remarkable advance is the wonderment a listener hears in the voices of the researchers as they explain the success of their work. It was a joyful sound we don’t associate with contemporary politics. Kevin Rennie is a lawyer and a former Republican state legislator. He can be reached at kfrennie@yahoo.com.