How Easily I Can Be Had

Thanks to his own post today, I learned how Massachusetts prosecutors cut blogger Andrew Sullivan some slack on a minor marijuana rap to keep the conviction and $125 fine from interfering with his application for U.S. citizenship. I was about to write scaldingly about this bald, unjust preference for a bald and usually just cultural elite when I read this in the Boston Globe article to which Sullivan linked:

Jeanne M. Kempthorne, a Salem defense lawyer and former longtime federal prosecutor, said it was “perfectly legitimate’’ for prosecutors to weigh the potential impact of Sullivan’s case on his immigration status.

“Am I offended by the notion that prosecutors take into account collateral circumstances? No,’’ she said. “They should be doing that. That’s humane.’’

As editor of the weekly student paper, the Cynosure, at Abbot Academy, a girls boarding school in Andover, Massachusetts, Jeanne invited me to be the managing editor for the spring term of my senior year at neighboring Phillips Academy, which enabled me on production nights to be the only boy in the basement of Draper Hall, the largest Abbot dorm, after hours.

Welcome to America, Andrew!