I came onto the scene a bit too late to get the full Jim Douglas Experience. Moved to Vermont in 2006 (which, yes, still a flatlander, I know, should I really be allowed to vote?) and didn’t pay much attention to #vtpoli until the 2010 campaign, when Dead-Eyed Jim was on his way out the door and into a fairly inert retirement. I have to admit, I see photos of this guy with his characteristically vacant non-smile, and I just don’t get the appeal. Like, this picture on the cover of his terrible memoir (see below), presumably chosen or approved by the subject, makes him look like he’s contemplating a bit of cannibalism.

But I will say this. If Douglas wanted to find a cause celebre to occupy his Golden Years, it’d be tough to find anything more apropros than defending the good name of a long-dead governor from the merry days of Kipling-style white supremacy. If any modern-day figure seems made to carry the threadbare mantle of those unenlightened times, it’s Jim Douglas. And here he is, spending years and clogging up the courts in his defense of former governor John Mead, whose most infamous contribution to our civic life was his enthusiastic advocacy for eugenics.

Douglas took one for the team last week when a judge issued a decidedly unfriendly ruling in his lawsuit over Middlebury College’s decision to take Mead’s name off the college chapel, the most prominent building on campus. It’s one of those rare stories in our perilous times that made me chuckle over my corn flakes.

The chapel was rechristened Middlebury Chapel in 2021, so Douglas has been at this for three-odd years and shows no sign of giving up the hunt. He must really feel strongly about preserving the legacy of ex-governors who might otherwise disappear into the mists of history like, uh, himself. Maybe the man who did his damndest to block marriage equality feels a sense of comradeship with the man who used his final gubernatorial address to call for restrictions on marriages involving “degenerates” and forced sterilization for “defectives,” whose numbers include, in the mind of Mead, “the insane, the epileptics, the imbeciles, the idiots, the sexual perverts, together with many of the confirmed inebriates, prostitutes, tramps and criminals that fill our penitentiaries, jails, asylums and poor farms.”

You can’t deny the man had a way with words.

And really, what better name could there possibly be for a house of worship that’s the visual symbol of a renowned liberal arts college, its spire occupying the center space of the Middlebury logo?

Douglas makes multiple arguments that amount to throwing a pot of spaghetti at the wall and hoping something sticks. He points out that Mead’s influence couldn’t have been that great because Vermont didn’t follow through on his noxious ideas until two decades later. So, Mead tried to be an awful human being but didn’t immediately succeed? Huh. It’s still true that Mead was the one who first injected the poison into our bloodstream, if you don’t mind me borrowing an analogy from Donald J. Trump.

Douglas also asserts that the name change “makes Governor Mead a scapegoat and does a disservice to his memory.” Quite the opposite, in fact; Middlebury could have kept the name and put up some kind of explanatory display covering Mead’s eugenics fandom. Removing his name from the chapel was the less scapegoaty option. It simply removes him from a prominent perch and leaves his supremacist legacy to molder away in the darkness.

Finally, Douglas pulls out the old Ronald Reagan “I paid for this microphone” routine: Mead provided funds for building the chapel, so NO BACKSIES. The gift imposes a perpetual obligation on the college, according to Douglas. Not so much, said Judge Robert Mello: ““Governor Mead contributed most of the funds supporting the initial construction of the chapel, but he did not provide funds for its indefinite maintenance.”

Yeah, oopsie.

The judge did leave a narrow path for the lawsuit to continue, and Douglas could also appeal the decision. In a post-decision interview, Douglas didn’t commit to appealing. Instead, he spun the unlikely scenario of the college reversing course on its own.

“We’re supposed to be learning from history and not erasing it,” he said, sounding very much like a defender of Confederate statues in the South.

Let’s hope he thinks better of pursuing this ill-begotten and costly offensive against his dear ol’ alma mater, not to mention employer. Jim Douglas could be making much better use of his time and influence.

A note about Douglas’ awful book. I sat down to read The Vermont Way a few years ago, and I got through about 40 pages. It’s really bad. Jim Douglas was a central figure in our politics for most of his adult life, serving in the Legislature and as Secretary of State and Treasurer before occupying the governorship through eight years. He should have had a lot to offer, and I’d looked forward to his views and insights even though I doubted I’d agree with him much.

Instead, the book — well, the first few dozen pages, anyway — is a dispiriting blend of surface recollections and the airing of long-held grievances. If he has ever allowed himself an introspective moment, it is not reflected in his memoir. At all. I just couldn’t bring myself to keep on trudging.

I ought to give the book another chance. But it’s not something I look forward to. I have quite the pile of unread books in my bedroom, and I keep discovering new stuff. (Currently making my way through Giant of Journalism and longtime Vermont resident George Seldes’ memoir Witness to a Century.) It’s hard to set aside all the great books I have yet to read so I can slog through an old pol’s turgid, incurious recollections. But maybe one of these days.