Wecht and Chong: Up in Smoke

Increasingly, politics seems beyond parody.  Under the heading of Life Imitating Art -- or something -- comes the news that pathologist to the stars Cyril Wecht will appear with onetime movie star, former bong vendor and ex-con Tommy Chong, at a May 5 fund-raiser for the Allegheny County Democratic Committee.

Odds makers are working feverishly to compute the over/under line on the number of Mary Beth jokes anticipated.

For those of you who have been absent from Western Pennsylvania for the past decade, or here but perhaps constantly stoned, Messrs. Wecht and Chong were two of the more widely publicized targets of the prosecutors led by former U.S. Attorney, now Congressional candidate, Mary Beth Buchanan.  Mr. Chong plead guilty to selling drug paraphernalia and was fined and sentenced to nine months in prison under a 2003 plea agreement with Mrs. Buchanan’s office. Ms. Buchanan reluctantly dropped her prosecution of Dr. Wecht after a judge threw out much of the prosecutions case following a mistrial on charges that he had used public resources for his private work.  Then and now, Dr. Wecht bitterly charged that the prosecution was politically motivated.

Legal scholars will no doubt be looking forward to the trenchant analysis of those cases as the Allegheny Democratic Committee hosts "Laugh Till You're Blue: An Evening of Comedy with Tommy Chong" on May 5 at the IBEW’s South Side headquarters.

"In addition to our traditional supporters, we believe that this event will appeal to demographic, particularly young voters, that we do not normally see at our traditional fundraisers,’’ Jim Burn, the county chairman said in a statement.  We don’t think he was kidding, but these days, it’s tough to tell.