The Week

■ The Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court has suspended the Chief Justice of the Superior Court, Robert M. Bonin. Judge Bonin is an erstwhile pal and protégé of Governor Dukakis, who begged him to step down voluntarily. He wasn’t even a judge, and Dukakis appointed him a year ago over 45 sitting judges. Whereupon it transpired, gradually, that Bonin had lied on his application to be a judge; had been accepting improper retainers from a former law client; had, through his new wife, accepted a gift (an expensive “rental” car) from another client; and, on top of all this, attended a fund-raising event for 24 men accused of running a homosexual child-prostitution ring. (He might well have presided over some of the 24 trials.) Bonin said he didn’t know it was a fund-raiser; he just wanted to hear a speech on sex and politics. Turns out this was a fib. Two lawyers have said they warned the judge against attending the event, before it happened; and a Boston TV station broadcast a tape of opening remarks, which made it clear what the meeting was for. Impeachment looms, unless His Honor can wring something good out of the First, Fourth, Fifth, Sixth, Eighth, Ninth, and Fourteenth Amendments in a hurry. But all is not lost. After all, it is Massachusetts.

■ it can’t happen here dept. : Last week, some three hundred representatives of liberal organizations—AFL- CIO, ACLU, National Council of Churches—gathered round campfires in Washington to exchange tales of the “New Right.” Senator Thomas McIntyre (D., N.H.) warned that his campaign for re-election was under attack from conservatives. A delegation from the state of Washington told in hushed tones of the political successes of right-wingers there. One Midge Miller, of Wisconsin, described her first close encounter: right-wing resistance to the Equal Rights Amendment. “Then I came to see that it was not just the ERA but the Panama Canal, abortion, and a lot of other issues that were going badly because of well-organized campaigns by the right wing.” Who are these masked men? Said Sandra Willet of the National Consumers League: “The National Right to Work Committee, Young Americans for Freedom, Americans against Union Control of Government, the John Birch Society . . Say not the struggle naught availeth: twenty years ago, they would have included the KKK.

Featured Tags

Equal Rights Amendment

■ The Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court has suspended the Chief Justice of the Superior Court, Robert M. Bonin. Judge Bonin is an erstwhile pal and protégé of Governor Dukakis, who begged him to step down voluntarily. He wasn’t even a judge, and Dukakis appointed him a year ago over 45 sitting judges. Whereupon it transpired, gradually, that Bonin had lied on his application to be a judge; had been accepting improper retainers from a former law client; had, through his new wife, accepted a gift (an expensive “rental” car) from another client; and, on top of all this, attended a fund-raising event for 24 men accused of running a homosexual child-prostitution ring. (He might well have presided over some of the 24 trials.) Bonin said he didn’t know it was a fund-raiser; he just wanted to hear a speech on sex and politics. Turns out this was a fib. Two lawyers have said they warned the judge against attending the event, before it happened; and a Boston TV station broadcast a tape of opening remarks, which made it clear what the meeting was for. Impeachment looms, unless His Honor can wring something good out of the First, Fourth, Fifth, Sixth, Eighth, Ninth, and Fourteenth Amendments in a hurry. But all is not lost. After all, it is Massachusetts.

■ it can’t happen here dept. : Last week, some three hundred representatives of liberal organizations—AFL- CIO, ACLU, National Council of Churches—gathered round campfires in Washington to exchange tales of the “New Right.” Senator Thomas McIntyre (D., N.H.) warned that his campaign for re-election was under attack from conservatives. A delegation from the state of Washington told in hushed tones of the political successes of right-wingers there. One Midge Miller, of Wisconsin, described her first close encounter: right-wing resistance to the Equal Rights Amendment. “Then I came to see that it was not just the ERA but the Panama Canal, abortion, and a lot of other issues that were going badly because of well-organized campaigns by the right wing.” Who are these masked men? Said Sandra Willet of the National Consumers League: “The National Right to Work Committee, Young Americans for Freedom, Americans against Union Control of Government, the John Birch Society . . Say not the struggle naught availeth: twenty years ago, they would have included the KKK.