CORZINE – KATZ – RICCIO: ARE WE ALL ENEMIES OF THE STATE?

The words of Josh Margolin and John Martin are horrifying:

"Rocco Riccio, who is married to Katz's sister, received the money after the governor forced him in January to quit a Turnpike Authority job. At the time, reporters had been pressing Corzine's office for answers about Riccio's work record and how he got hired. … He became the target of rumors that he had been improperly accessing taxpayer records -- to find information about political enemies --while working as an analyst in the Human Services Department. The allegations sparked an internal audit and inquiries from the Star-Ledger.”

"The administration has denied that those records belonged to the governor's political enemies. Riccio said yesterday that 'any records that were reviewed have been in the scope of work.' "

John Dean said it best when he wrote to then President Nixon:

“This memorandum addresses the matter of how we can maximize the fact of our incumbency in dealing with persons known to be active in their opposition to our Administration; stated a bit more bluntly—how we can use the available federal machinery to screw our political enemies.”

A perverted use of government machinery, a use that knows no constraints nor respects the rights of dissent, triggers memories of how earlier government terror campaigns squashed dissent and ruined peoples lives. In such a campaign, the secret, illegitimate exercise of power is overwhelming.

There was the blacklisting of the “Hollywood Ten”. The trashing of academic freedom with political tests for professors. And, by any standard, the Nixon era “enemies list” is so outrageous it defies comprehension. Not even the lawyers who defend unpopular clients have been immune from these tactics.

Closer to home, there was the New Jersey judiciary’s persecution of Rubin “Hurricane” Carter. And, more recently, because We’re All Journalists Now, we cannot forget Jay Lassiter’s capacity to matter.

“Screwing” political enemies is nonpartisan. There is no doubt that Richard Nixon was a Republican. But Governor Corzine is not. And, there’s the rub.

Governor Corzine is refusing to immediately address ethics issues because he wants cooler heads to prevail. But cooler heads, and therefore older memories, like all facts, fade, grow stale and disappear with time. Thus, blacklists and enemies lists only become increasingly untraceable. And, we’ll never see it coming.