I Knew Something Smelled

Friday, Jan. 26, 2007 | Following up on my letter “Something Fishy at the U-T,” on Nov. 11, 20206. With all due respects, Carol Lam is not the Joan of Arc of Justice which so many are portraying her as. She was one of the first U.S. Attorneys appointed by that great libertarian, John Ashcroft. Carol was an ardent cheerleader for the Patriot Act, and of all the freedoms the act granted to her to surreptitiously combat domestic terrorism, and City Council members.

How fickle fate can be. She who prosecutes by the Patriot Act; gets gored by it in the end.

Lam had no hesitation in needlessly subjecting both the “accused” and the entire SD community to the theatrical storming of City Hall in May, 2003. Was she trying to reprise the raid on Waco? I mean, were the San Diego Three (later just two, after Lewis died) going to barricade themselves in; or come blasting their way out of their offices in City Hall? That day in May was a pure made for TV Hollywood production. She did a swell job with the help of the armed FBI troops, and the local media; armed with plenty of malice. She poisoned local attitudes toward the three Democratic council members, beyond all reason, jurisprudence, and fairness.

In addition: Washington correspondent, Marcus Stern, handed Duke Cunningham, Carol’s Congressperson, to Carol on a silver platter. Javier Arellano Felix was also a gift to her, from the U.S. Coast Guard — probably a gift she would just as soon do without.

While the border lay at the low end of her priorities, lots of smugglers of drugs, people, and weapons were able to traverse the border using state of the art tunnels constructed under the frontier.

With this entire criminal activity-taking place underground, Lam just couldn’t get over her obsession in nailing Councilman Michael Zucchet to a thorn bush. Never mind that Zucchet was not even in office yet, when he was already in Carol’s crosshairs. Was he really posing a mortal danger to the life and liberty of San Diegans, by trying to shut down strip joints?

Carol armed herself with 10,000 hours of tapes of every form of communication, and the gold-plated testimony of that paragon of virtue and defender of family values, Mr. Galardi, her Vegas star witness. Surely, any jury exposed to all that negative publicity couldn’t help but put thief, Zucchet away for life! Poor Carol couldn’t hand pick the trial judge unfortunately. It was hard to tell whether Carol Lam or Bob Kittle was more enraged by Zucchet’s acquittal.

If Carol feels so strongly that she herself has been railroaded, she should stand up for her integrity. Maybe, she’s just as happy to leave Felix-Arrellano to the next attorney. Instead, she can go on tour to give lectures on the finer points of “The Patriot Act; How to Apply It in Ten Easy Lessons.”