JACKSON - Now that Jackson attorney Mike Wallace has asked President Bush to withdraw his appointment to fill the 5th Circuit Court of Appeals seat vacated by Judge Charles Pickering, can someone please give Wallace back his reputation?
That reputation was sullied by a bogus, politically charged American Bar Association report that attempted to paint Wallace as a racist, an enemy of voting rights and one who would deny federal legal services to the poor.
Trouble is, Wallace's life and legal career in Mississippi doesn't vaguely resemble that characterization. Reuben Anderson, Wallace's law partner and the first African-American to be elected to the state Supreme Court in Mississippi since Reconstruction, recently wrote that "both in legal skill and in character (Wallace) is exactly the kind of person that any of us would want judging our cases."
Now that a second consecutive Mississippian nominated to the 5th Circuit bench was denied an opportunity to serve because of manufactured charges of racism, can Wallace join retired U.S. District Judge Charles Pickering as yet another victim of the Capitol Hill partisan political meat grinder and return home to be judged on his character rather than his politics?
Wallace, like Pickering, is in truth guilty of nothing more or less than an affinity for the Republican Party's political philosophies and a refusal to let special interest groups like People for the American Way and other liberal activists dictate public policy unchallenged.
Wallace was also guilty of believing that the federal Legal Services Corporation should actually represent individual poor people in court rather than carry the water of liberal special interests in political litigation.
For those crimes, the American Bar Association rated Wallace "not qualified" to serve on the federal bench.
The Wall Street Journal made the compelling case for Wallace as the victim of a political lynching back in July in an editorial entitled: "An ABA Hit Job: Political payback against a judicial nominee."
The editorial said in part:
"During the Reagan and George H.W. Bush Administrations, Mr. Wallace served on the board and then was chairman of the federally funded Legal Services Corporation, whose ostensible mission was to provide legal help for the poor but which was a haven for liberal legal activism.
"Mr. Wallace's efforts to reform the LSC had many critics, among them an attorney by the name of Michael Greco. Another opponent was the then-president of the New Hampshire bar, Stephen Tober, who accused him of having a 'political agenda' at one particularly contentious hearing. Mr. Greco is now president of the ABA, and Mr. Tober is chairman of the ABA committee that nixed Mr. Wallace. Mr. Wallace's reforms were adopted, and now it's apparently payback time."
Greco and Tober were the prime movers behind the ABA report that said in part:
"Lawyers and judges stated that Mr. Wallace did not understand or care about issues central to the lives of the poor, minorities, the marginalized, the have-nots and those who do not share his view of the world."
Yet in the same report, the ABA said: "The investigation revealed that Mr. Wallace has the highest professional competence. Mr. Wallace possesses outstanding academic credentials, having graduated from Harvard University in 1973 and the University of Virginia Law School in 1976. He was a law clerk to former Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist from 1977-78."
Wallace also clerked for former state Supreme Court Chief Justice Harry Walker.
Wallace was more than qualified to serve on the 5th Circuit bench. He was the victim of an ideological smear campaign by those who simply disagree with his politics.
Here's hoping Mississippians are savvy enough to see past the political and ideological smear and let Wallace return to the reality of his real life and real reputation.
