If We’re a ‘Nation of Wusses,’ Blame Rendell’s Parasitic Personal Injury Lawyer Pals

As many Judicial Hellholes readers may know, former Philadelphia Mayor and Pennsylvania Gov. Ed Rendell is hawking his new book, “A Nation of Wusses,” subtitled “How America’s Leaders Lost the Guts to Make Us Great.”

The idea for the book was sparked back in late-December 2010 when a blizzard forecast prompted the National Football League and the Philadelphia Eagles to postpone a game that was expected to draw some 70,000 fans, most of whom would have attempted to travel to the stadium by car over snowy and icy roads and highways.

”We’re becoming a nation of wussies,” Rendell blustered.

But just as Judicial Hellholes reporters called him on his hypocrisy at the time, we again point out Gov. Rendell’s hypocrisy as he tries to sell books.  For his political career was funded in large measure by the parasitic personal injury bar, which the NFL and Eagles no doubt feared when they opted not to risk the massive liability lawsuits that surely would have followed if football fans had been injured on the roads or in the stadium that fateful stormy night.     

More than any other single contributor to the wussification of America that Gov. Rendell now purports to bemoan, it is plaintiffs’ lawyers and their shamelessly opportunistic litigiousness that has transformed what was once a nation of self-reliant and rugged individuals into one of cowering, hapless victims and would-be victims who can’t or won’t look out for themselves.

From the removal of jungle-gyms from playgrounds and wholesale elimination of recess from elementary school schedules to the dumbing down of academic and workplace promotions testing, the ever-growing threat of victimhood-embracing litigation has certainly cowed the leaders Gov. Rendell now criticizes.  

In addition to the threat of multimillion- or billion-dollar lawsuits that can paralyze policymakers, the direct political control that personal injury lawyers exercise over certain legislatures (e.g., the U.S. Senate and statehouses in California, Illinois and New York, inter alia) too often promotes increasing liability and decreasing economic growth and job creation. 

Nevertheless, Gov. Rendell won’t criticize his politically powerful pals.  Having been supported throughout his public career by their generous campaign contributions, he’s not ready to start telling the truth about personal injury lawyers now.