I was working on the Illinois weekly papers when the call came in about the taxi driver accused of molestation of a mentally retarded girl.
The taxi driver had been hired to take this girl and several other students to and from their classes each day. One day he was accused of taking one of the girls, the last one on his route, out behind an ice cream stand and raping her.
A friend of the family called the story in to us and I talked to the girl's parents, the school, the taxi company and the taxi cab driver himself. I wrote the story.
About a month later I lost my job at the paper. I went to work briefly for a social services organization that dealt in fair housing, among other things. About a year into the job, one of my coworkers (who did job training) cornered me after a luncheon meeting and asked me if I was the same person who'd written the story about the cab driver. I acknowledged that I'd written a story.
"What do you really think?" he asked me. "Was the guy guilty? Did he really do it? 'Cause, you know, he never admitted it."
I told him that I'd interviewed the man once and couldn't form a proper opinion based on that.
"But you must have some opinion," this man persisted.
I told him that not only didn't I have an opinion, I hadn't followed the story after leaving the paper. He informed me that the cab driver had been fired, and found guilty in court. He paid a stiff penalty, and was on probation, having done no real jail time, but that he'd pled innocent and persisted in insisting on his innocence even afterward.
"Now the family wants to know whether to pursue this further," he added.
I was puzzled. The rape, if such had occurred, had happened almost two full years ago at this point. The cabdriver had been found guilty and fired from his job. He'd lost his license and would never drive a cab again. What was there to pursue?
"Well," he said, "they're thinking of taking it to civil court, suing him or something like that. They just don't feel he's paid the price. They don't feel they have justice. I was wondering if you could help somehow. You're the only reporter I know of who actually talked to this guy. You might know something that could help them."
I thought long and hard for a moment. My coworker seemed quite serious and concerned for his friend.
"The only thing I can think of to say that might help them is to ask how much of their lives they want to give this man," I said finally. My coworker was puzzled.
"Well," I explained, "two years ago, their daughter was violated, if that's what happened. That was traumatic in and of itself. Then came the investigation and that must have been traumatic. Then the trial process and the questioning and that must have taken a toll as well. Finally it's over and instead of moving on with their lives, they're still focused on this one incident that happened two years ago. They're thinking of pursuing it and forcing their daughter to relive it again and again and again. They are, in effect, handing this man control over their lives and their daughters life instead of taking back that control and moving on. Since he's already lost his job and his license and been judged guilty by a court of law, I'm not sure whether pursuing it at this point is justice or just obsession."
"So the question becomes, how much of their lives, and their daughter's life are they willing to hand over to this man?"
My coworker had no answer to that and a few weeks later I left that job for another and had no idea how it all came out.
Now George W. Bush is pursuing Saddam Hussein, in part as he admits, because Hussain tried to kill his father several years ago. There is no clear evidence that Hussein presents any immediate threat to us or anyone else, but Bush is determined to pursue this, against reason and the ongoing entreaties of other countries, the UN and his own people.
So my question to George is this: How much of your life are you willing to just hand over to this man to control as he sees fit?
And more importantly…how much of our lives are you going to hand over in the process?
2:34:53 PM 
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