She gazes out at us from the newspaper page, a seraphic smile on
her face. Her pose is that of Goya’s “The Naked Maja,” only she has
clothes on and she weighs 270 pounds. She is 19 years old, her name
is Jazlyn Bradley and she is a plaintiff. Specifically, she, along
with 14-year-old, 170-pound Ashley Pelman, is suing the devil,
McDonald’s. You see, the devil made her do it — get fat, that
is.
The Misses Bradley and Pelman are the cat’s paws of one John
Banzhaf, a professor at George Washington University Law School in
Washington, D.C. Mr. Banzhaf, the driving force behind the spate of
lawsuits against tobacco companies, has been itching to get a
fast-food case on a court calendar and he has finally
succeeded.
Banzhaf has deftly combined the news from the U.S. Surgeon
General that too many Americans are carrying around too much fat
with the obsession spawned by some Yuppies of the '70s that they
should live in a risk-free society. That, in turn, was a successor
to the back-to-the-womb movement popular with some '60s college
students (no more grades! no competition!).
All of this fits nicely with that liberal staple: no one is
responsible for his or her choices and actions; everyone is a
victim. Banzhaf and the trial lawyers’ fraternity have done nicely
by it.
Juries are awarding billions to two-pack-a-day smokers who claim
they had no idea cigarettes might cause lung cancer. And, there was
the famous woman who won a suit against McDonald’s for serving her
coffee which she spilled on herself, not realizing it would be
hot.
Seraphic Jazlyn and her fellow plaintiff might get enough money
out of the lawsuit to enroll in Weight Watchers. If they win,
however, it will be the ever-angelic — and very rich — trail
lawyers who try the case who will get the rest of the money.
Meanwhile, Mr. Banzhaf, determined to make choices for us in all
that we consume, is planning campaigns against milk and pork. Do
you suppose he is angling for a job in the next trial
lawyer-friendly administration, say, Secretary of the Department of
National Nannies?
If so, he will welcome a new program being promoted in the
Department of Defense by none other than former Admiral John
Poindexter, the erstwhile presidential National Security Adviser
whose involvement in the arms-for-hostages scheme with Iran in the
'80s nearly spiked the Reagan Administration. He was convicted of
lying to Congress about the scheme (the verdict was later
overturned on a technicality). Undaunted, the admiral is back, now
at DoD promoting something named Total Information Awareness (TIA).
Briefly, TIA would create a government database of virtually every
transaction everyone in the United States makes: telephone calls;
bank deposits, withdrawals and loans; e-mail messages; credit/debit
card purchases and medical records.
The stated purpose of TIA is to spot patterns by suspicious
persons who are under surveillance as potential terrorists. So far,
so good, but will it stop there? That, at least, is the worry
raised by “civil libertarians.” They needn’t worry that the Bush
Administration will step beyond the stated bounds, but what if it
were to be succeeded by an administration friendly toward Professor
Banzhaf’s National Nanny concept? It might go like this:
(Knock on the door; Mrs. Smith opens it)
MAN: Mrs. Smith? Mrs. John Smith?
MRS. SMITH: Yes, that’s me.
MAN: I’m from the Department of Healthy Life Styles. We find
that you had a meal at McDonald’s last Friday and charged it to
your credit card. That’s your ninth meal there this year. I must
warn you that if you eat more than one more meal there this year
you will be in violation of the anti-fat regulations and will be
subject to a fine.
MRS. SMITH: By whose authority?
MAN: Congress passed the Healthy Life Styles Act, President Gore
signed it and Secretary Banzhaf is in charge of writing the
regulations to enforce it. We have an airtight case.
