Andrew Sullivan is measuring Daniels for a Brooks Bros. Boys suit to wear to his 2012 inauguration as as POTUS and David Brooks names him the care bear of the GOP. Meanwhile, in a world of where people may still want to learn more about Gov. Daniels, Paul Waldman finds an account of Princeton undergrad Mitch Daniels being caught with a boat load of drugs.
[…]enough marijuana in his room to fill two size 12 shoe boxes, reports of the incident say. He and the other inhabitants of the room were also charged with possession of LSD and prescription drugs without a prescription.
[…]
The comically mild penalty he received — a $350 fine, no jail time, no probation — was a salutary wake-up call that allowed him to go on to a productive career. And he presents this as evidence in favor of laws that would absolutely destroythe career of anybody caught in 1989 (or today) doing what Daniels was caught doing. A couple of hundred thousand students have lost their financial aid, in many cases meaning they had to drop out of college, because of a conviction for possession or sale of drugs. If Daniels was in college today, and thus had actually served time as a convicted drug dealer, not only would he have no political future, he wouldn’t have much of a future at all.
Contrast that with what Mitch Doggy Dogg prescribes for a kid at Indiana University caught with a joint:
In calling for enforcement of drug laws against even casual users — publicizing the names of arrestees, at least minimal fines or jail time for those convicted and requiring no-use policies from colleges and other beneficiaries of government funds and so on — William Bennett is exactly right
Mitch wants Indiana to have Rockefeller Laws that helped create million dollar blocks. Or the same type of draconian laws passed in the 1980s that help fill California jails so much that the 45,000 member Correctional Officers Union is the most powerful union in that state.
It’s like social security hawk Paul Ryan’s crusade to gut Social Security because Americans desire so much to depend on SSI and use it as a hammock” while he had his own hammock after his father’s tragic death: their boot straps are too good for us to use when we’re in need.