Straight From The Hart

  Here is my column this week as I submitted it. I have added the "edit" done by the editor of the paper to show you why I am upset. Note the use of the word fair instead of fare. I assume that's what they were going for. Loretta Lynch Confirmation Hearing Loretta Lynch, who is President Obama’s nominee to become the 83rd Attorney General of the U.S., had her first Senate confirmation hearing on January 28. If confirmed she would be the first black woman to serve as attorney general, making her the second woman to serve as attorney general and the second African-American to hold the post. Lynch’s hearing is the first to be held before the newly -elected Republican controlled Senate so many political observers were looking at it as a litmus test for how the President’s nominees during the last two years of his term will be treated. ***(Editor changed this last line to "how the President's nominees would fair during the last two years of his term.")

  WHAT WOULD JUSTICE DONNELLY BE THINKING TODAY? I try to keep my columns timely, so with the current news emphasis this week I went back into my archives and found an article I wrote for this newspaper in 1982 about Judge Robert T. Donnelly, Chief Justice of the Missouri Supreme Court from 1973 to 1975 and again from 1981 through 1982. I believe Justice Donnelly, who was born and practiced law in Lebanon, was one of the most intelligent men to ever sit on the Court. I had asked him for an interview that summer and he graciously consented to meet me in Jefferson City so we could talk about a fiery debate he had with then U.S. Senator Thomas Eagleton on April 30, 1982. It all started when Justice Donnelly delivered his State of the Judiciary address to the Missouri General Assembly in January 1982 wherein he proposed an amendment to the U.S. Constitution which would have effectively limited the power and jurisdiction of the U.S. Supreme Court. This proposal met with strong oppositio