By Steve Otto
Vern Miller, long time lawman and right-wing politician died June 11 at the age of 92. Miller was one of my long time political enemies, maybe my first major one. As with Richard Nixon, he became a major target of my writing, cartooning and satire.
I first became familiar with Miller when he became the Attorney General of Kansas, starting in 1971. Miller came down hard on the counter-culture of Lawrence, Kansas, mostly using drug laws to arrest what at the time, would be called “hippies.” Miller went after drug users using spectacular raids and such stunts as popping out of car trunks to catch drug users in the act of using or selling.
I was in high school, at the time, when much of this happened. Miller was one of the villains that helped me understand politics. I had a language arts class, (we used to call them “English” at the time) and as part of that class we were supposed to develop some kind of self expression in the form of journaling. For me, it was cartoons and I had a series of those which I called “Uncle Vern.” I parodied that man and his antics.
At the time, I opposed pretty much all drug laws. So I often classified him as a fascist. He ran for office as a Democrat, but he seemed rather conservative to me. The Young Democrat Club of Kansas University, in Lawrence refused to endorse him when he ran for governor.
Miller was ambitious. He ran for and won the post of Sedgwick County Sheriff. He then ran for and won the Kansas Attorney General post. He ran for governor but never won.
I wrote about Miller in one of my books, Memoirs of a Drugged-up, Sex-Crazed Yippie:
-excerptsMiller was like a state version of Nixon. Both Hunter S. Thompson and I have made Nixon a target for much of our writing careers. For me Miller was also such a target. Late in his career, Miller made national news by attacking the trains for serving liquor-by-the-drink which was against Kansas law at that time, in the 1970s. Although in recent years I now consider Nixon to be a much more evil man than Miller. Miller was not responsible for all the deaths in Vietnam or Cambodia, at least not directly. I still think drug laws are a bad idea. I published first book, War on Drugs/ War on People and that book focuses on the miss-guided “war on drugs.” The only difference between my high schoolyears and today is that today I would restrict children from having drugs. Miller ran for Shariff again a few years ago and, as in past years, I would not support him at all. I sure didn’t vote for him and he still wanted to chase after vice, a complete waist of time, in my opinion. I don’t think I have the same animosity as I had for Nixon when he died. Has my rath for Miller simply faded out? Am I mellowing out with age? I’m not sure. Miller was a worthy adversary and I just don’t feel the same animosity I would have had if he had died in the 1970s. I still don’t like him. But he seemed to be a celebrity who is now more of a part of my past political struggles. That’s the best I can say.