Balance of Power

Entering the Republican cloakroom after morning business, Frank Fasano had hoped to test his colleagues' reaction to Senator Hampton's uncharacteristically lacerating critique. Instead, he found Chad Palmer and Leo Weller absorbed in watching Kerry Kilcannon on CNN. Joining them, he perceived at once that Hampton's speech was part of a broader attack orchestrated by Kilcannon himself.

    The President had ventured into opposition territory, choosing to address a Chamber of Commerce convention in Atlantic City, part of a one-day media blitz devoted wholly to guns. Faced with a potentially hostile reception, Kilcannon seemed more cheerful—in a sardonic way— than Fasano had seen him since the murders. Palmer, too, seemed amused, watching Kilcannon with the detached appreciation of one warrior for another—enhanced, the Majority Leader suspected, by Palmer's distaste for his own alliance with Fasano.

    "For Kerry," Palmer observed, "a little antagonism is the spice of life." Watching the screen, Leo Weller chuckled.

    Frivolous lawsuits, Kilcannon was telling his listeners, ought not be encouraged. But some of the antilawyer rhetoric used to promote tort reform is based on calculated disinformation. To be blunt, it's more attractive to attack "greedy trial lawyers" than a ten-year-old quadriplegic facing life in a wheelchair because of a defective tire

. . .

    "To be blunt," Fasano repeated with a smile. But he was gaining a fresh appreciation of how deadly such directness could be.

    I understand the temptation, Kilcannon went on. A lot of people hate every lawyer except the one they need. It's rather like politicians. In fact, as a class, we're both so widely despised that it's easy for our detractors to claim that lawyers buy politicians on the open market. Kilcannon smiled, skipping a beat. In fact, one of your previous speakers implied that about

me, just yesterday.

    The speaker, Fasano knew, had been Paul Harshman. Kilcannon continued in the same ironic tone. Seven times, in fact, he employed the words "Kilcannon" and "trial lawyers" in the same unflattering sentence. Never once did he utter the word "victim." But that's what you get from a defective tire; or an exploding gas tank; or a plane which blows up in midair.

    Lawyers don't create victims. But all too often, victims need lawyers. Because without legal representation, ordinary people are all too often powerless

to gain recourse from the institutions whose carelessness or callousness has blighted their lives forever . . .

    "Cheap populism," Leo Weller snorted. "You'd think we're a nation of victims."

    Fasano glanced at him. "Best not to say that in public, Leo. At least until the 'ordinary people' of Montana have voted you a second term."

    And so, Kilcannon suggested to his captive audience, let's address some other questions Senator Harshman failed to ask.

    Time and again, he complained that the cost of "needless litigation" is passed on to the consumer.

    But is litigation "needless" when it secures the constant care our ten-year-old quadriplegic will require for the rest of his very difficult life?

    Didn't "needless litigation" compel the auto industry to improve the safety of its cars?