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Honolulu Lite
IF you are running for office, the right to call an opposing candidate a big doo-doo-head is fundamental. That's what a federal court judge ruled this week. Judging the
name gameIt's too bad that it takes a federal judge to tell everyone that. Actually, U.S. Judge Helen Gillmor didn't specifically say it's OK to call a candidate a doo-doo-head, she said it's all right to launch personal attacks against candidates.
The case involved the 1998 election, where in a state Senate race Roger Ancheta accused Randall Iwase of being in the pocket of what was then known as Bishop Estate. This is because Iwase's law firm did work for what was then known as Bishop Estate, which was a major political force, affecting all kinds of important laws, particularly those involving the entity formerly known as Bishop Estate.
Who would have guessed? I mean, the former president of the state Senate and the former speaker of the state House of Representatives were trustees of the thingy that was formerly known as Bishop Estate. State Senator Milton Holt was on the payroll of the da kine that used to be known as Bishop Estate and has the hostess bar bills to prove it. And numerous wives and friends and girlfriends of people associated with the people who make the laws in this state were connected like remora to the giant shark-like business and political behemoth that, so I've been told, was once called Bishop Estate.
Iwase and his buddies screamed foul. Accusing Iwase of being in the breast pocket of a multibillion-dollar enterprise like the business concern that used to be called Bishop Estate was a violation of the Code of Fair Campaign Practices! And guess what? The Campaign Spending Commission, a couple of the nicest political insiders you could meet, agreed.
Ancheta, a reformer, lost the election, which came as a huge shock to absolutely no one, seeing as how he was running against a guy who had no connection to the ethereal Bishop Estate, other than that law firm thing.
But that wasn't good enough. You can't simply beat these upstarts who have the audacity to take on the political machine, you have to grind them up and make them an example for others who try. Which is why Ancheta was dragged before the Campaign Spending Commission.
WELL, a couple of funny things happened on the way to the new millennium.
That political gorilla whose name used to be Bishop Estate suffered a makeover. It imploded after all of the excesses of its trustees became known.
And then, in an Oprah-like episode, the Bishop Estate went behind the curtain, made a deal with the IRS to clean up its act, and came out dressed in a new name: Kamehameha Schools. Which is cool. Who can be against schools? The problem is that if the organization gets into another political brouhaha, it's going to have to come up with a new name. Maybe they can go the way of Kentucky Fried Chicken (KFC) and just call the business KS.
But they are running out of options.
What judge Gillmor found was obvious. What Ancheta was doing was just free speech. In a free society, you are allowed to call someone a political hack or a doo-doo-head. It's just that one political party has controlled Hawaii for so long that free speech has become a bother to those in power.
Mud slinging and negative campaigning have become catch words for any criticism whatsoever of those who control government. Hopefully, Gillmor's ruling will remind Hawaii that we need to sling mud hard, fast and often, as long as it is the truth. That's the only way the names will change.
Charles Memminger, winner of
National Society of Newspaper Columnists
awards in 1994 and 1992, writes "Honolulu Lite"
Monday, Wednesday and Friday.
Write to him at the Honolulu Star-Bulletin,
P.O. Box 3080, Honolulu, 96802
or send E-mail to cmemminger@starbulletin.com.
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