District Attorney John  Newsome drank a lot of beer and drove home, there’s no getting around that.

Newsome also deserves credit for pushing the pedal to the metal in the case of Timothy Nichols, the man convicted in connection with the fire that killed his own children. The case had been hanging around for a long time before Newsome was D.A., and his office did a fine, aggressive job of prosecuting it.

Newsome wisely handled the recent case involving a mixed-race teenager arrested for assault after he reacted to other teens calling him the N word. Newsome made all the charges and counter charges go away, which was a good result — there was no need to tag kids with a criminal record for that.

Local police hold Newsome in high regard. That’s why the Police Protective Association still backs Newsome. Like all special interest groups, the PPA is willing to wink at the bad behavior of the officials it supports. There is nothing new, or brave, or intellectual about that. There’s little chance Newsome won’t be re-elected because he has no opponent. Might as well endorse the guy who is going to be there.

Some think there is a higher incidence of alcoholism among attorneys than the public at large. For a view to that, click on http://www.lawcrossing.com/article/index.php?id=2583 There is a group of lawyers and judges in recovery and you can read about them at http://www.ilaa.org/pages/home/ 

If you would like to read a bit about binge drinkers and functional alcoholics, here are a few websites:

http://www.kidshealth.org/teen/drug_alcohol/alcohol/binge_drink.html

 http://www.cspinet.org/booze/collfact1.htm

http://www.fastennetwork.org/qryarticledetail.asp?articleid=af12557f-bf97-49b4-997c-678e39f44d32

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