Recent events in the news demonstrate how there really are two Americas, though the dividing line is not economic, as former presidential candidate John Edwards would have you believe. Rather, the line between the two Americas separates those who get it and those who don't have an f-ing clue.
You'd be hard-pressed to find a starker difference between supporters of a Michigan prison escapee who spent 32 years hiding as a wife and mother in the upscale San Diego suburb of Carmel Valley, and the softball players at Central Washington and Southern Oregon universities.
In the first story, Susan Lefevre was sentenced to 10-20 years in prison for selling heroin to an undercover policeman in Saginaw, Mich., which at the time was besieged by a drug war that had its murder toll approaching the recent annual number in San Diego, one of the largest cities in the United States. A year later, she escaped, and since lived as Marie Walsh in a posh neighborhood, an attractive 53-year-old mother of three. By all accounts, she'd left her previous way of life well behind her.
However, someone tipped off authorities to her true identity and in late-April, she was arrested. She's waived extradition and is due to be sent back to Michigan anytime now to serve out her sentence. Her family and her friends, as you might expect, are devastated.
What's disturbing is the outpouring of support that Lefevre-Walsh is receiving from the community. Although overblown news coverage probably makes her support look bigger than it really is, there appears to be a lot of people out there who think the authorities should just let her go. Forget the whole thing. She's been a clean, upstanding citizen for 32 years and it was "just" a drug crime. Let her go.
What is it that makes people think she shouldn't have to actually serve her debt to society? She wasn't dealing marijuana. She was selling heroin, which often kills people and has addictive properties that users never truly escape. The killings in Saginaw back in the mid-70s. Whether it was just a one-time thing as she claims or whether she was a big-time dealer as the prosecution said, I have no idea, but being involved in heroin in any way is awfully serious.
Letting her walk away from a prison commitment, and letting her get away with it, would make a mockery of our criminal justice system. But, hey, she's reformed herself. Those who died or have lifelong substance abuse issues because of her actions, directly or indirectly, well who cares about them? Talk about elitism.
Plus, just how reformed is this woman? Her original family was stuck wondering about her whereabouts all of these years. She played her husband for a fool and left her children wondering whether they can ever believe anything their mother ever said to them. What was her message to them about drugs? Those 32 years she was "clean," she was actually living a lie. We're just assuming she lived a clean adult life because we're told she did. Reporters who've interviewed her in jail say she's downplayed her actions in Michigan, so again, how reformed is she?
I in no way suggest that she go back to prison for what will amount to a significant chunk of her the remainder of her life. Lord knows she's not the only one in the world with a past that she'd rather leave behind. But there are better ways for her family, friends and other supporters can back her than to just plead for her to not have to be returned to prison.
Once she's settled back in prison in Michigan, her lawyer there will ask Gov. Jennifer Granholm to commute her sentence. While I question her honesty, her living within the law the last three decades does count for something within our legal system. While Granholm's record in granting clemency is reportedly not in Lefever's favor, it's doubtful that she's ever been presented with a case like this. That's where the support has to go. Her family and her friends should make sure that her lawyer has a strong case to give the governor.
There's a growing tendency among us to try to excuse the malfeasance of others. Look how we tried to understand the motivations of the 9/11 hijackers. Most of us wanted to understand them so we could prevent such a thing from happening again, but too many others wanted to use such knowledge to excuse their atrocities. Their attack on us was our fault, that sort of thing.
For Lefever, the line is that her offense was a drug crime long, long ago. Drug offenses are victimless crimes, too, aren't they? Well, no. That's just hiding your head in the sand because victims are all over the place, many in prison, many dead. More than anything else, they're often out of sight. I had a conversation with a very talented public defender a couple of months ago in which he said 90 percent of our jail cells could be emptied if people stopped using drugs and we, as a society, truly confronted mental illness. The fact of the matter is that drug use destroys lives. I'm not talking about pot, I'm talking about the hard stuff like heroin. Like what Susan Lefever once sold to an undercover cop.
She has to go to back to prison first. For her supporters not to understand this, or try to lessen the importance of drug crimes, is just wrong-headed. Strangely enough, Lefever herself seems to understand this better than those who back her.
On the other side of the ledger, here are some folks who get it. Sports fans already know the story. Here it is in a nutshell in case you don't: Southern Oregon softball senior Sara Tucholsky hit the first home run of her career last week to give the Wolves a victory over Central Washington and a spot in the Division II playoffs. The two runners already on base scored to tie the game but Tucholsky missed first base and collapsed in a heap when she turned around to touch the bag, a victim of a torn ACL. When umpires cited rules that teammates were not allowed to help Tucholsky circuit the bases, Central Washington first baseman Mallory Holtman and shortstop Liz Wallace picked her up and carried her around, lowering her to touch each base before dropping her off to her cheering teammates at home plate. The run gave Southern Oregon a 5-4 victory.
Some people are calling this the greatest act of sportsmanship they'd ever seen or heard of. I can't offhand think of one better. ESPN aired a story on the game Sunday night, and people were still crying when they discussed it (stories and video of it are all over the Internet if you run a search).
So what made Holtman and Wallace perform this extreme act of kindness when it guaranteed them defeat? Read Holtman's quotes on the subject. Trust me, there were no moral high principles or great ethics involved. These youngsters, very simply, have a firm foundation for understanding life and their place in it. They're not superstars, they're merely college students who enjoy playing softball. While umpires and coaches dithered around trying to figure out what to do, Holtman and Wallace took matters into their own hands and did the right thing. There was no prompting, no hope of reward when they were finished.
So many of us who are full of ourselves look at the young men and women who serve in Iraq, putting themselves at risk and separating themselves from home for such long periods of time, and wondering how they can do it. Let's be honest, most of them are there because they're ordered to and don't have a choice. But many of them sense that there are things in life bigger than themselves and that they've been given an opportunity to shape their world.
Holtman and Wallace are the same way. They could have watched Tocholsky writhe on the ground and done nothing, hoping that they could win the game and go to the playoffs themselves. The injured girl had hit a home run, however, and the game should really be over. That was clear. In a small way, life's events clarified the situation for the Central Washington players and they reacted accordingly. Just like, in a much bigger arena, people their age joined the military because of 9/11.
Those kids understand the way like works. The misguided supporters of a former heroin dealer do not. They may not be in different worlds, but they are in two Americas.
