What does this have to do with Chester County? Up until earlier this year our county had a program in place designed to address drug policy on several fronts. Known as Recovery Court, this was a demanding program that combined punishment (including incarceration), very strict supervision and rehabilitation. Recovery Court brought together law enforcement and the health-care community. It was successful in punishing offenders while rehabilitating them and deterring drug use in our county.

So what happened? The Commonwealth of Pennsylvania stopped funding the program. Recovery Court was well regarded by citizens, the district attorney, health-care professionals, even defense lawyers. It was a model of optimum cooperation among various competing constituencies. It is, for now, extinct. We all realize that Harrisburg is not a bottomless well for funding programs like these. Recovery Court was not glamorous. It wasn’t a job creator, or a revenue generator. What it did do was address the drug problem, head-on, from all the necessary perspectives. It helped clients of mine.

What does this have to do with poppy planting in Afghanistan? Our federal government funds an Afghan government that is, effectively, the world’s largest drug dealer. American men and women die in support of that government. Meanwhile, an effective anti-drug program goes under for lack of money. I know there is a difference between federal and state funding. But couldn’t the two just get together once in a while. It just might save some American lives from the darkness of drug addiction.

If the police feel, in their subjective judgment, that they have been disrespected by someone, they can issue a citation or even arrest that person. But what happens when an individual with no badge or gun or district attorney or judge to back him up is disrespected by the police? Not a damn thing.

For the record, I am related to several former New York City Police officers. I understand there is no such thing as a routine traffic stop and that any encounter has the potential to be deadly. Yet that does not give the police the right to disrespect, insult and harass people. All too often, sadly, this is exactly what happens, and the police get away with it.

Many police departments use the motto, “To protect and to serve”. They should remember the meaning of these words when they deal with individuals. The police are paid to be public servants and protectors. They are not paid to be public bullies.

I’ve been teaching college and, of course, I continue to practice law. This hasn’t left time for much else. So what has this to do with the today’s commentary? Nothing.

Recently I have come back to the game of chess the way one comes back to a long lost faithful lover. I have always loved chess. I’ve never been very good at it, but I have loved it since I was 17 and Bobby Fischer took on Boris Spassky for the World Championship in 1972 in Iceland. Public TV was not much more than Sesame Street and some cooking shows, but in the summer of 1972, all that changed. Channel 13 in New York City, where I grew up, covered the championship. There were no cameras at the site and no ESPN type commentary. There’s was a just a mild mannered professor named Shelby Lyman who showed the moves on a large , wall mounted chessboard. The show was mostly analysis by Lyman and his compadres, including Bruce Pandolfini, who became famous much later in the book and film Searching for Bobby Fischer.

I’ve bought countless books and software programs, taken lessons, played in the holds of U.S. Navy ships, played in Washington Square Park in NYC, played in dingy saloons where respectable people don’t go, played on a hand held chess computer on the train to Philadelphia, but never really improved. But I am so in love.

In chess, mediocrity is failure. Poor players are called woodpushers. They don’t really play chess, they just push the wood pieces. Patzer is a German word for bungler. In chess, a patzer is a weak player. To call a chess player a Patzer is the verbal equivalent of a slap in the face. Want to describe a poor-to-fair chess player? He’s a patzer. My name is Tim, and I am a patzer.

And in serious chess, there is no place for patzers. We are not welcome at tournaments. We are not welcome at chess clubs, either. In fact, a former chess coach of mine was very clear about this. I asked him about going to clubs to play casual games. His response? I needed at least a solid year of intensive study (no doubt under his tutelage) before I should even think of playing at a club. That’s why he’s a former chess coach of mine. Serious chess players can be borderline rude.  Good grief, we’re talking about playing with a $5.00 toy!

So, I live my closeted life as a patzer. I play on my chess computer at home and sometimes at my office. Occasionally I get the nerve to ask a friend to play a real over-the-board game. I still love the game. But it’s tough to find other patzers to play with. As I said, we keep closeted.

Recently I have drawn what I think is an apt analogy. Look at all those out of shape guys who play slow-pitch softball for the local tavern. They all wanted to be Babe Ruth once (or perhaps even Bobby Bonds). Yet, every Sunday afternoon when they step into the batter’s box, beer gut hanging over the tight baseball pants, girlfriends, wives and drinking pals cheering wildly, they are Babe Ruth. They are Ted Williams. Why is there no place like that in chess for patzers?

When I step up to the chess board, I am Fischer. I am Kasparov. I am Morphy. I too open with the Ruy Lopez. I too can play the Nimzo-Indian Defence. And I can fianchetto a bishop like nobody’s business. But once the game gets too far along, I know what I am. I’m just the woodpushing equivalent of that overfed, beer-soaked softball player. I am a patzer.

Backgammon, anyone?

But wait, there’s more. Yet another potential Obama appointment went down due to tax problems.

Nancy Killefer was the President’s nominee for  Chief Performance Officer, a title almost as Big Brotherish as Homeland Security. Killefer, a graduate of Vassar and MIT, clearly also attended the Geithner School of Tax Returns. Yes,  as she has her tax problems. By the way, she works for the world-famous management consulting firm, McKinsey and Co. Hmmmm…Vassar, MIT and McKinsey, and didn’t understand her own income tax position? What makes this even more amusing, or frightening, is that Killefer was to be our Nation’s first Chief Performance Officer. In plain English, she was going to be the person who was to be sure government was efficient.

I wonder what she charges by the hour at McKinsey where she tells other businesses how to mind their business.

Now for the commercial: If you have concerns about your own tax situation with the IRS, please give me a call at (610) 430-6500 or send an email to tim@ttrottlaw.com. I’ll help you avoid those problems so your political appointment can sail right on through.

Timothy Geithner has been sworn in as Treasury Secretary. As we all know, the Treasury Secretary is in charge of the IRS. That makes sense. What doesn’t make sense is that  Secretary Geithner’s appointment was confirmed despite the fact that he failed to pay taxes. I’m not talking about a rounding error here. While different accounts report different amounts, it is safe to say he owed over $30,000. Oops. Whether the failure to pay was intentional or inadvertent, is this the guy who is supposed to fix the economy? Is this the guy who is going to be the head tax collector? Time to just stuff your money in a mattress.

Then we have former Sen. Tom Daschle, President Obama’s choice to head Health and Human Services. He must have gone to the Geithner School of Tax Returns. Sen. Dashcle failed to pay about $128,000.00 in taxes. Double Oops. If confirmed he will be in charge of health care reform. Health care represents 17% of GDP. I sure hope he can keep track of all that money better than he did his tax returns.

Maybe these guys should have gone to H&R Block. Maybe they should have consulted me. I represent people with tax problems. I know folks who have had their businesses and financial lives ruined over $10,000 or $20,000 of tax debt. They have had to jump through legal hoops, pay a lawyer, and enter binding contracts with the IRS to try protect what little they had. Their assets were frozen, bank accounts seized and wages garnished.

Yet it seems these two pols are indispensable. They get a pass on their tax problems. They get to be in charge of trillions of dollars. The late Sen. Sam Rayburn used to say that sooner or later that becomes real money.

President Obama, no one is indispensable in a democracy. Why weren’t these problems discovered before the appointments were announced? While we’re at it, what was the problem that caused Gov. Richardson to withdraw from his appointment?

Please say it isn’t so, but I’m scared we might be back to business as usual.

Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich was voted out of office today, 59-0, at the conclusion of his impeachment hearing. Another 59-0 vote determined that he cannot hold public office again in Illinois. He was the perfect foil. He talks too much. He’s too arrogant. And he dared to place himself in the pantheon of some of history’s greatest personages. But how different is B-Rod from so many other persons who play in the American political arena? He was caught on tape. And since when did being caught matter?

Clinton lied under oath to the people of this country and is hailed as a great statesman. Bush lead us…well he didn’t lead us, he just rode roughshod over the Constitution, mired us in an illegal war, violated international treaties and promoted policies which have us on the verge of bankruptcy and he gets to go clear brush and maybe try to write a book in Crawford, TX. John Street, that great Philadelphia exemplar of pay-to-play government, is off in what is no doubt a splendid retirement, while the city crumbles behind him and Philadelphians worry over whether libraries will be closed. I lived in Chicago for a couple of years. It has been said that the difference between Chicago and Philadelphia is that in Chicago the corruption actually helps the city work. Anyone who suggests that quid pro quo is not the currency of the political realm is simply not paying attention.

And then there’s Coatesville. Run by the Bloc of Four, with a Police Chief who is not a police officer, it burns in the night. It has taken the plague of arson to get state and county officials to wake up and smell the crime and corruption. Again, only District Attorney Joe Carroll, my erstwhile political opponent, had the courage to take a stand before this latest spate of disasters.  He deserves our support. Hundreds of people attended a meeting in Coatesville, last night, with a combination of both fear and hope. Solutions are still lacking. No arrests made. Perhaps it is finally time for Chester County politicos to put their own political agendas aside to try to save this city. Coatesville is worth saving. Its people are worth saving. Its homes are worth saving. How do we save them? We should borrow a line from the Civil Rights movement: By any means necessary.

Blago may be gone, but his species is far from extinct.

President Obama’s history making opportunities will be looking him straight in the eye on Wednesday morning. There is the economy, one illegal war, one poorly prosecuted war, the viability of social security,  and the need for national health care,  to name a few.  But what of the accountability of the Bush administration for its incompetence, malfeasance and possible criminal acts?

Will there be an investigation into the lies and intelligence failures that lead us into the war in Iraq? If our country, as a matter of morality, does not torture, if torture is forbidden by international treaties to which our country is a signatory, and we admit to having tortured notwithstanding, will there not be a reckoning? Will there be an investigation into a bailout law which gave the financial elites of this country unencumbered use over taxpayer money–your money and mine and our children’s and grand-children’s–without accounting for its use? Will there be an investigation into the ineptitude of the Securities and Exchange Commission, which despite warnings from several sources, neglected the crimes committed by Bernard Madoff in his creation of the biggest Ponzi scheme in history? What of the single-handed shredding of our Constitution in the name of security? Will our Constitutional rights be restored? Or will there simply be business as usual while we sit entranced in our present feel-good euphoria?

If there are such investigations, and should they yield disturbing answers, will our new national leadership have the courage to pursue action? Will our new national leadership have the courage to pursue criminal action if such is warranted? We can only hope.

When the television commentators on MSNBC said Obama carried Pennsylvania, I screamed as loudly as my neighbors did when the Phillies won the World Series. When those commentators said we have a new President, Barack Obama, the tears rolled down my face. The joy is still there, but now there is work to do. Hard work. Tough decisions.

President Obama says we need to look forward and I agree. But if we neglect the past, and ignore history…well we see where that got us over the last eight years.

Godspeed Mr. President.