The Tale of Mike Molloy
A Parable for American Democracy
by Tamara Baker

Monday, Dec. 11, 2000 -- Saint Paul, MN (AmpolNS) -- Anyone know the story of Michael Malloy?

Not the outstandingly handsome, witty and intelligent radio personality, but an alcoholic Irish resident of New York City during the Great Depression.

Mr. Malloy's alcoholism was so far advanced that the cash- and morality-poor owner of his favorite speakeasy decided to insure him to the hilt and then off him and collect the policy payout. The owner's equally-evil associates agreed to help him carry out this plan, for a share in the insurance-policy proceeds. 

Seeing Mr. Malloy's booze-weakened condition, they assumed that one hellacious bender might be enough to finish him off. To that end, they furnished him with lavish amounts of alcohol, to the point where he would barely stumble home. But the very next day, Michael Malloy would be back at the bar, looking for a refill.

Soon it was decided that tainted booze would be added to Mr. Malloy's refreshment regimen. But that didn't faze our alcoholic hero. The plotters started spiking the food they gave him with metal shavings and other yummy delicacies. Our hero downed every concoction they gave him, liquid or solid, and asked for more.

In desperation, the would-be murderers decided to stage an 'auto accident'. They hit Malloy with a car and sent him to the hospital, but shortly thereafter he was back at the bar, none the worse for his adventure. At this point, the gang found another stewbum, had him hit with a car, and had him booked into Fordham Hospital as 'Michael Malloy' in the hope that he would die and they could finally collect on the policy. No such luck.

Finally, they got Malloy passed-out drunk, shoved a gas pipe into his mouth, and filled him up until his face turned purple. That finally killed him.

However, Malloy's death was so obviously NOT from natural causes, that the police decided to investigate it. An autopsy confirmed that his death was a murder. And the authorities found out about that astonishingly-large sum of insurance that had been taken out on Mr. Malloy a few weeks before his murder.

By this time, the conspirators were already cracking under the strain. At least one of them was killed by the others before the cops closed in. And most of the other killers were themselves sent to the electric chair. In order to kill Michael Malloy, his murderers were forced to use a method that could not be passed off as 'natural causes'. That was their undoing.

I mention this by way of comparing Mr. Malloy's story to what is happening to American democracy right now.

The Republican Party has been using a host of methods in order to kill democracy in the United States. It's come close many a time, but it never has quite succeeded, until December 9, 2000, when their minions on the US Supreme Court dealt the killing blow.

But their triumph over the will of the people comes at a price. Just as Michael Malloy's killers were forced to dispatch him in a manner that could not be seen as anything other than murder, American democracy's killers were themselves compelled to drop any all pretense at respect for states' rights, the primacy of state courts to interpret state laws, the principle of strict constructionism, and a host of other concepts which they honored mainly in the breach anyway.

They may well have succeeded in leveraging a supremely unfit GOPer into the White House, but at the expense of any pretense of legitimacy on his part. George W. Bush will, should he pull off this coup, be forever known as the Commander-in-Thief.

The irony is that, while both Bush and Michael Malloy are known for their run-ins with alcohol, Mr. Malloy would have made a far better President.