Fitting end to Kathleen Kane's Shakespearean drama
The attorney general played the woman card in a cynical move to hide her dishonesty. It was past time for her to go.
MY GRANDMOTHER was suspicious, as Italian women of that generation tended to be. She knew about the evil eye, the prescriptions to guarantee a "masculine child," the book that interpreted your dreams. Karma was her middle name, and she understood that when you do one act in the vacuum of the universe, it will come back to you.
Do a blessing, get a blessing. Lie, be lied unto. Make a victim, be a victim. Justice had its logic, and its rules, and while it might take a lifetime to taste it, there would be a sweet reckoning.
It didn't take a lifetime for Kathleen Kane. It took barely four short years, eventful and exhilarating and filled with lofty promise. That is why the descent from that PR mountain and the expectations of higher office - senator? governor? - was so devastating.
Pennsylvania's soon-to-be-former attorney general was served justice Monday, by a jury of men and women who weren't swayed by stories of lascivious old men who partied on the internet, or vindictive younger men who resented an enterprising and courageous woman. This jury, one that deserves great credit for doing what an entire Pennsylvania legislature was too cowardly to attempt, deactivated the legal career of a woman who used people as pawns in her petty and personal Game of Thrones.
One of those people was my friend Jerry Mondesire, who died under a cloud of suspicion last year after Kane leaked a story about an investigation focused on his role at the NAACP to someone at this newspaper. She leaked the story not caring that a man's reputation, that "immortal part of myself," as Shakespeare once wrote, was likely to be irreparably damaged. For that, I will forever hold her in contempt.
But there were other victims, or casualties of war, as Montgomery County D.A. Kevin Steele noted in his closing argument: "This is war. As you know, wars have casualties. Wars leave scars."
There are too many scars to count, and they have all been inflicted by a woman who was so filled with the glory of her own narrative, puffed up by the "attagirls" and the shattered glass ceilings and the intoxicating drug of power that flowed from her electoral victory in 2012, that she lost sight of the purpose of her office: Do justice.
I did not vote for Kane, but I was willing to give her a honeymoon period, hopeful that she would bring honor to all the women in this commonwealth who sat for the bar exam and wanted her to succeed for them, for us. I wanted to believe that a Democrat with progressive tendencies could rein in her natural inclinations for social engineering and follow the law as written. I thought that the weight of her office, and the honor that she had been given in wearing that "First Woman" banner, would keep her balanced and measured and cognizant that she represented all of the "people," not just the ones who agreed with her on policy.
That dream was shattered when she trashed the Constitution, refusing to defend Pennsylvania's Defense of Marriage Act against a federal court challenge. A true public servant puts aside personal proclivities, politics, and ambitions, and follows the law until it is no longer law. This woman flipped her long, Rapunzel-like mane and told the people that the law she would follow was written on her heart and the oaths she obeyed echoed solely in her ears, and the rest of us were just along for the ride.
Because Kane refused to defend DOMA in court, that law was ultimately overturned. To many who are thrilled that gays and lesbians are free to marry their loved ones, that is a good thing. But the ends do not justify the means, and Kathleen "Machiavelli" Kane is no heroine just because she gave the LGBT community something to celebrate. She usurped the role of the judiciary in determining that this law was unconstitutional, and spit on the separation of powers.
But even this could be swallowed, bitter brew that it still is, because some will argue that an attorney general has the right to determine whether a law is doomed to be ruled unconstitutional, and decide to save her commonwealth the time and expense of a doomed and valiant fight, a legal Waterloo.
What cannot be excused are lies, backstabbing, more lies, attempts to frame those suspected of disloyalty, shameful slander, use of the "woman card," paranoia, and paralysis of the office that is supposed to keep us safe from criminals. To have a criminal heading that office, and clinging to it with beautifully manicured nails, is an abomination of the highest order.
Every day that Kathleen Kane would remain in office beyond this conviction, this judgment from her peers, was a sentence for the people of this commonwealth. Every moment that she would retain a footing in our state Capitol was a sacrilege, and made a mockery of each Pennsylvanian who had a right to be represented well and honorably. That goes for those who cast their vote for her four years ago, and those who thought that ovaries are not a unique qualification for office.
Gov. Wolf, to his credit, called for her to resign. Others joined their voices to his, asking for a woman without honor to borrow some against her future, to retire. To go home to Scranton and fade into a well-deserved oblivion.
And, finally finding some honor, or at least the discretion that is the better part of it, she did.
Shakespearean tragedy, and comedy, finally ends.
Christine Flowers is a lawyer.