Politics & Power Quote by Alan Mollohan

In one sentence, Mollohan tries to smuggle a radical critique into the polite language of civics: equal access to the law is a promise, but it has a price tag. The opening clause - "fulfill the promise of this great Nation" - is classic political throat-clearing, a patriotic frame designed to make the next thought sound like common sense rather than class warfare. Then comes the quiet pivot: "obviously". That word does heavy lifting. It signals that the gap between rights-on-paper and rights-in-practice is so plain it should be embarrassing to deny.

The subtext is about legal inequality without naming it. Mollohan never says "poor people lose" or "wealth buys outcomes", but "having the resources" points straight at the American reality: the law is technically public, yet effectively gated by money for attorneys, time off work, bail, expert witnesses, and the sheer stamina to navigate courts. By phrasing it as "access to the law" rather than "justice", he also avoids accusing the system of corruption; he casts it as an infrastructure problem. That makes the critique more defensible inside a legislature that depends on donors and lawyers.

Context matters: as a politician, Mollohan is speaking in the idiom of funding. He is implicitly justifying legal aid, public defender resources, or systemic reforms while preempting the predictable backlash: this is not special treatment, he suggests; it's the minimum cost of keeping the national promise from becoming a slogan.