Originally Posted by Memphis Flyer
John Ford, Scofflaw
If it is a secret on his own home turf of Memphis and Shelby County that State Senator John Ford is generally acknowledged in Nashville to be an effective member of the state legislature, no one other than Ford himself can be blamed for that fact. Last weekend's baffling and disturbing incident at the senator's East Memphis residence, at which he allegedly pointed a loaded shotgun at MLG&W construction workers, is but the latest episode in a run of public irresponsibility that has spanned Senator Ford's entire working career.
Ford, who has had so many scrapes with the law -- usually involving assault or speeding charges -- that they almost don't bear counting, was charged in Lexington only six years ago with firing a weapon at truckers on I-40. He was exonerated then, in a trial which exposed his accusers as rednecks and racists, and many of us rejoiced. Now we wonder: Did Senator Ford get away with something, merely because the testifying truckers failed to inspire a jury's confidence?
In fact, every time we try to grant Ford the benefit of the doubt, he burns us. Why bother to bend over backward and acknowledge that Ford, as so many of his defenders contend, is a serious and respected state lawmaker when his scofflaw actions -- and his unrepentant arrogance concerning them -- continually cast a frivolous and disrespectful light on the nature of public law itself? (This is an irony underscored by the fact that District Attorney General Bill Gibbons, who has made the questionable decision to recuse himself from l'affaire Ford, had lately been working with Ford to get some prosecutor-friendly legislaton passed in Nashville.)
For that matter, what is John Ford -- whom the spirit of the law, if not its letter, would seem to require his residence in the same South Memphis district he represents -- doing out there on the extreme eastern suburban edge of Memphis, anyhow? (In a house apparently set aside for him by one of his major financial backers.) Is he incapable of respecting even the appearance of legal form?
Perhaps the most wretched result so far of Ford's newest breach of the peace is that people have taken sides in almost exactly the same knee-jerk way that they have throughout the trials and aftermaths of the O.J. Simpson affair. Whites say one thing, blacks another, with equal intemperance and equal disregard for the one fact which ought to be paramount when the public order is at stake. Is the law being upheld, and is it being upheld in a spirit of even-handedness and equality?
Or will John Ford -- taking undue advantage of his power and alliances and political support -- merely bleed a while by the side of the road, only to rise and tread his careless path again? It was just months ago, remember, that Ford, recently retired by the voters as General Sessions Court Clerk, proclaimed his contempt for the taxpayer by acknowleding a whole series of paternities he was paying for out of the public budget.
If it turns out to be provable in a court of law that Ford indeed did wave a loaded weapon about in a public place and point it carelessly at public employees, he should pay the legal penalties and pay them in full. And he should voluntarily forfeit his place among Tennessee's lawmakers.
We have faulted John Ford editorially twice before. It should be clear to anyone by now that we were not crying wolf.
