KC Johnson's posted re: Plaintiffs's response to Nifong

Saturday morning I posted Plaintiffs response to Nifong’s latest in which I linked to a Liestoppers post and a Liestoppers Meeting “conversation.”

Both concern the Plaintiffs’ response filing; with the L Meeting “conversation" including the full text of the response.”

Thanks to a commenter's heads up, I've leawrned KC Johnson has posted “Responding to Nifong,” his analysis of the response. I strongly encourage you to give it a read if you haven't already done so.

I plan to reread the Plaintiffs’ response as well as the LS and KC’s posts and the L Meeting “conversation.”

Sunday by 1 PM ET I’ll post links and my commentary concerning local media coverage of the Plaintiffs' response filing and, very likely, some analysis of my own.

Check back.

Hat tip: cks

President Obama’s apology to Muslims for U. S.

Charles Krauthammer examined it and concluded - - -

[When] Barack Obama in his inaugural address reached out to Muslims with "to the Muslim world, we seek a new way forward, based on mutual interest and mutual respect," his formulation was needlessly defensive and apologetic.

Astonishing. In these most recent 20 years -- the alleged winter of our disrespect of the Islamic world -- America did not just respect Muslims, it bled for them.

It engaged in five military campaigns, every one of which involved -- and resulted in -- the liberation of a Muslim people: Bosnia, Kosovo, Kuwait, Afghanistan and Iraq. ...

In these 20 years, this nation has done more for suffering and oppressed Muslims than any nation, Muslim or non-Muslim, anywhere on earth. Why are we apologizing? (all emphasis added)

And what of that happy U.S.-Muslim relationship that Obama imagines existed "as recently as 20 or 30 years ago" that he has now come to restore?

Thirty years ago, 1979, saw the greatest U.S.-Muslim rupture in our 233-year history: Iran's radical Islamic revolution, the seizure of the U.S. embassy, the 14 months of America held hostage. …

This is to say nothing of the Marine barracks massacre of 1983, and the innumerable attacks on U.S. embassies and installations around the world during what Obama now characterizes as the halcyon days of U.S.-Islamic relations.

Look. If Barack Obama wants to say, as he said to al-Arabiya, I have Muslim roots, Muslim family members, have lived in a Muslim country -- implying a special affinity that uniquely positions him to establish good relations -- that's fine.

But it is both false and deeply injurious to this country to draw a historical line dividing America under Obama from a benighted past when Islam was supposedly disrespected and demonized…

[When Obama’s] self-inflation as redeemer of U.S.-Muslim relations leads him to suggest that pre-Obama America was disrespectful or insensitive or uncaring of Muslims, he is engaging not just in fiction but in gratuitous disparagement of the country he is now privileged to lead.

Krauthammer’s entire column’s here.

________________________________________________________

My comments:

Krauthammer’s history-based, factually argued, clearly written column is pundrity at its best.

But most Dems won’t agree with what Krauthammer says.

They agree with Sen. Ted Kennedy who declared in a Senate speech at the time of Abu Ghraib:

"Shamefully, we now learn that Saddam's torture chambers reopened under new management: U.S. management."

Remember?

And then there was Dem Sen. Dick Durbin comparing our miliatary’s treatment of prisoners at Gitmo to the treatment received by prisoners of the Nazis, Stalin and Pol Pol.

Remember?

Durbin and most Dems didn’t see any difference.

No wonder President Obama, a political bedfellow of Kennedy and Durbin, decided one of his first acts as President would be to apologize for the U. S.

But how sad for him and us.

I hope President Obama's apology won't hearten the terrorists, but I'm afraid it will.

Plaintiffs’ response to Nifong’s latest filing

Liestoppers has just posted concerning it.

LS begins:

The Plaintiff's attorneys wasted little time in filing a response to Nifong's January 15 terse motion for dismissal with this filing of January 29.

That’s followed by extracts from the response filing which includes reference to the U. S. Supreme Court’s recent unanimous ruling in Van de Kamp v. Goldstein.

Plaintiffs’ attorneys say Van de Kemp “reconfirms that Nifong is not entitled to absolute immunity for his investigative misconduct and public statements.”

LS links to an LS Meeting where you'll find a copy of the filing and discussion. Be sure to visit.

The title of LS’s post is a perfect summing up of the disbarred Nifong’s situation: “Nifong’s Options Running Out”

Hat tip: cks

The Churchill Series - Jan. 30, 2009

(One of a series of weekday posts about the life of Winston S. Churchill.)

Certain people have a sense of a particular destiny.

From his own letters and those of friends and family, we know that even as a youth Patton believed he was destined to command great Armies.

De Gaulle confirms in his war memoirs that the lodestar of his life was his belief in a mystical union between France and himself; and that a time would come when she would be, as he put it, “dishonored” and he would be called to rescue and restore her.

Churchill too had a sense of destiny. Martin Gilbert tells us something of that in Continue to Pester, Nag and Bite: Churchill’s War Leadership:

At the centre of Churchill’s mental energies as war leader was his belief in himself – in his abilities and in his destiny. While at school, he had gathered a group of boys around him and explained his confidence that one day, far in the future, when London was under attack from an invader, he would be in command of the capital’s defenses. (p. 36)

And we have Churchill's own words describing what he felt the night of May 10, 1940 after the King asked him to form a government and serve as his Prime Minister:

I felt I was walking with destiny, and that all my past life had been but a preparation for this hour and for this trial.

Those familiar words need no citation. Most of us never read them without being moved.

I hope you all have a nice weekend. Do you have a favorite in the Super Bowl?

I'm pulling for Pittsburgh because it was the home town of Johnny Unites and some of the other old Baltimore Colts.

See you Monday.

John

Justices Ginsburg & Scalia confirmed for New Years Eve dinners

Today a JinC post -- Justice Scalia at Duke: did the N&O and H-S miss the story? -- included this:

Regarding Scalia’s description of Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg as “the closest of his colleagues:” ...

I’ve been told the justices and their spouses have dinner together each New Years Eve but I don’t know that for a fact.

Can anyone confirm?

A few hours later an Anon commenter on the post thread said:

Here's something from the Wall Street Journal's 12/27/2007 Law Blog...

This New Year’s Eve, as they have done for more than two decades, Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Justice Antonin Scalia will join with their spouses and another couple or two at the Ginsburgs’ large Watergate apartment. After the caviar and wine, they may dine, as they have in the past, on something Scalia has bagged on one of his hunting trips.

Thank you, Anon, for providing the information and its source.

You’ve given us another fine example of JinC “editors at work” and the power of open source information seeking on the Net.

Informed commentary re: likely Duke/Durham discovery

In response to More re: Who should worry about Duke/Durham discovery? three comments were made that belong on the main page.

Even if you’ve read that post, I encourage you to read it again before reading the post that follows. The third comment especially assumes a detailed knowledge of More re: Who should worry about Duke/Durham discovery??

If you haven't read that post at all, you know the rest of what I'd say.

I’m running the three comments without interspersing any responses because together they just make a great post.

So I’ll leave things like that today but I will comment on some of what the three say tomorrow and Sunday.

You’re of course free to comment when you like.

I’ll thank the three commenters now as we begin with the Ex-prosecutor - - -

It will be interesting to see who actually represents the Duke defendants at the depositions. As long as they keep their stories straight, they probably can be represented by the same law firm.

However, once the depositions begin, I'll bet that all defendants, including those from Duke, will try to lay it off on each other.

When conflicts develop among the officers and employees of an insured, the insurance company, because of its duty to provide a defense, must retain separate counsel for those whose defenses conflict.

When the depositions and document productions start, the legal fees will increase by geometric progression.

To make this even more interesting is the fact that Duke is battling on two fronts, the first with the plaintiffs and the second with its insurance company, which, in turn, may soon battle with another insurance company, as to whether either is responsible to fund the defense.

As observed by the immortal bard himself in Henry VI, Act 2, Scene 5: "Ill blows the wind that profits nobody." Here, while Duke must suffer for its well-deserved misfortune, its paid by the hour lawyers will do naught but profit richly.

Drew followed with - - -

Ex-prosecutor has squarely struck the nail on the head - I have had occasion to be deposed in a number of suits, as well as being the respondent in a number of civil suits.

When you are one of many respondents, and when you cannot count on any of your co-respondents to hold up under pressure, your best (and frankly, only sane) move is to insist on separate counsel.

When the insurance company provides counsel to your employer and any number of individual fellow employees, there's never any guarantee that you won't find yourself thrown under the bus, either by "your" counsel (who occasionally has a vested interest in defending the employer just a little bit harder), or by one of your co-respondents, who thinks they can dodge a bullet by re-aiming the gun at someone else.

In many respects, it would be interesting to see what (if any) indemnity that Duke has provided to its employees in the suits - it could be that Duke will be pulling the strategic strings while at the same time retaining the ability to do the bus-tossing of its employees.

We saw how well they (the University administration) acquitted themselves when the LAX players were "the other guy".

If I were an individually-named respondent, I would tell Duke to take their counsel on a long walk off a short pier, and would insist on hiring my own counsel (at University expense) for any depositions or trial appearances.

I don't know much about the courthouse involved, but it's quite conceivable that they might need to move any proceedings to an alternative facility, in order to accommodate the (presumably) scores of attorneys and respondents.

I've seen it happen when a series of depositions needed to be scheduled in a vacant theatre in NYC, in order have sufficient space for nearly 200 lawyers and another 40 respondents.

The "action" took place on the stage, and the questions, objections, and other legal mouthpiecing came from the seats in the audience. A very expensive way to run a case, and in this case, the costs will likely all fall on Duke's tab.

I would suspect that many of the lawyers could view a case like this as a partner-maker, since the billings will be extraordinary.

If I had a few bucks to spare, I'd open an all-night photocopy and printing/binding service in Durham, or else get a catering business put together.

Lawyers always work late, but rarely work without extensive creature comforts. This case could become a little "profit center" in the Durham economy for some time.

Anonymous added - - -

What a wonderful word - "dissemble" - to disguise or conceal behind a false appearance, per an internet dictionary. I have always thought that this allegation, termed by the Cooper [38 players and some family members] suit "a fraud upon the court", if true, constitutes a premeditated, nefarious act of a potential criminal nature - not to mention a really stupid decision.

As they say, the cover-up is often worse than the crime.

The real question is how high up the chain of command did this decision go, or, if discovered later - who knew what, when? It is very hard to imagine what university official would take this decision on his/her own, and would not seek to cover one's ass with written advice of outside counsel - especially if forced by one's duty of employment to sit through such a proceeding in silence.

The fact that such discussions were held by persons is probably privileged for those having the discussion, but the reporting within the organization that counsel should be / had been consulted, is probably not (I am not a lawyer).

Did non-lawyer higher-ups exercise their authority and assume responsibility? Did anyone argue that Duke could not carry on this alleged charade?

That decision process will be interesting to discover.

Justice Scalia at Duke: did the N&O and H-S miss the story?

First, excerpts from The Chronicle’s brief story about Justice Scalia’s address and other activities at Duke Law School yesterday; then my comments.

The Chronicle begins - - -

Justice Antonin Scalia dispelled some media portrayals of the Supreme Court and described his judicial views in an address at Duke Thursday.

Scalia spoke to a group of approximately 200 students and spectators in the School of Law's Star Commons.

"The press likes to paint the court to make it more interesting, as if we're all on each other's throats. Nine scorpions in a bottle," he said. "It's not that at all."

Scalia, an originalist interpreter of the Constitution, believes that freedom of speech and press under the First Amendment protect all forms of communication.

"The two are fairly understood as standing for all expression and communication," he said.

Scalia responded with humor to one question concerning the free speech of exotic dancing.

"I like it," he joked, adding that it does not fall under the protection of the First Amendment. "I draw a line there, I don't think that means communication."

Scalia, who has conservative views, referred to liberal-leaning Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg as the closest of his colleagues.

Having served under former chief justice William Rehnquist, Scalia said he has not seen much change in the way the Supreme Court operates under Chief Justice John Roberts.

"Not really much, he hasn't run it much differently from Rehnquist," he said.

After Justice Scalia's address, he visited classes, talked to student groups and served in a panel of judges for the final round of Moot Court Board's 2009 Dean's Cup Competition. …

The rest of the story’s here.

_____________________________________________________

Comments:

I searched the online Raleigh News & Observer and Durham Herald Sun sites and could find nothing on Justice Scalia’s appearance at Duke.

I’m away from Durham now so I couldn’t search their print editions.

Both newspapers say they’ll survive in the changing and increasingly competitive news reporting world because, to a large extent, of the breath, depth and quality of their local news reporting.

A Supreme Court justice’s address at Duke Law School and his subsequent participation in a Q&A, visit to classes and service as a Moot Court competition judge are important, newsworthy local events.

But both newspapers appear to have failed to cover them.

If you see Scalia coverage by either paper, please let me know so it can report it.

Regarding Scalia’s description of Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg as “the closest of his colleagues:”

I know they are close friends who, among other things, share a love of opera. As part of a fundraising event some years ago, the sang together in the chorus of one of Washington’s major opera companies.

I’ve been told the justices and their spouses have dinner together each New Years Eve, but I don’t know that for a fact.

Can anyone shed light on the matter?

The Churchill Series - Jan. 29, 2009

(One of a series of weekday posts about the life of Winston S. Churchill.)

It was on June 26, 1897, a beautiful English summer day, that a twenty-one year old Army subaltern, Winston Churchill, made his first public speech in Bath.

He delivered it in a tent at a holiday fair sponsored by a conservative group, The Primrose League, which Churchill’s father, Lord Randolph, had helped found.

We’re told the speech was well received; and perhaps some day we can talk about what Churchill said.

But right now, let’s give Churchill a chance to tell us something about the setting and introduction he received.

Churchill was in his fifties when he recalled the events with gently mocking humor and a wink to us, who he knew understood that by age twenty-one, he was already familiar with the fluff and foam of politics and eager to swim in its waters:

[When] a bell began to ring, we repaired to our tent and mounted the platform [and] as soon as about a hundred persons had rather reluctantly [gathered] the Chairman rose and in a brief speech introduced me to the audience.

At Sandhurst and in the Army compliments are few and far between, and flattery of subalterns does not exist.

If you won the Victoria Cross or the Grand National Steeplechase or the Army Heavyweight Boxing Championship, you would only expect to receive from your friends warnings against having your head turned by your good luck

In politics it was apparently quite different. Here the butter was laid on with a trowel. …

As [regards] my adventures in Cuba, on the Indian frontier and up the Nile, I could only pray the regiment would never hear of what the Chairman said. When he descanted upon my “bravery with the sword and brilliancy with the pen” I feared that the audience would cry out “Oh, rats!” or something similar.

I was astonished and relieved to find that they lapped it all up as if it were gospel.

I bet we’re all smiling.

BTW - Descanted is new to me. An online dictionary says: 1) An ornamental melody or counterpoint sung or played above a theme. 2) A discussion or discourse on a theme.
__________________________________________________________
Background from Martin Gilbert, Churchill: A Life. (pgs. 71-2,77)
Churchill's "recollection" is found on pg. 203 of My Early Life.

Don’t Blame the Partisanship on House Republicans

So says blogger Betsy Newmark who begins - - -

Of course the Democrats want to portray the zero Republican House votes for the huge spending plan as mere partisanship. That's where the White House spokesman cast the blame.

White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs cast the administration's inability to pick up any Republican votes as a reflection of the politics Obama campaigned against — not a repudiation of a president who worked the Republican side of the aisle even harder than he did his own party's side.

"Of course we're disappointed that it's going to take longer to change the way Washington works than just a little more than a week, but the president feels good about the efforts that he's made to reach out to people to work with them," Gibbs said in an interview quickly set up after the vote.

First of all, it is not really "working" with the other side if they don't have input into the bill as it is being written and into the basic approach that the bill took place. Otherwise, it is simply being courteous but also deciding that your side won and so you don't have to do more than lip service and make polite moves to "reach out" to the Republicans without actually changing what you were going to do in the first place.

The rest of Betsy’s post is here.

_______________________________________________

My comments:

Not only is President Obama not really “working” with the House Republicans, he's using them as props for his bipartisan pose.

And the Republicans know it.

Will the American people catch on to what Obama’s doing?

If they do, it won’t be because liberal/leftist news organizations such as the NY Times and NPR point it out to them.

For that you have to go to Betsy’s Page and other truth-telling sites.

Scalia at Duke today & a favorite Scalia story

Yesterday Naureen Khan at The Chronicle News Blog reported:

With relatively little pomp and fanfare, Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia will be coming to Duke tomorrow to speak about “his life in the law.” He will be appearing at the Law School’s Star Commons at 12:15.

Oddly enough, the Law School has done little advertising for one of the most well-known conservative justices on the Court, appointed under President Ronald Reagan.

It should be a rousing address, nonetheless. When Scalia came to Harvard Law School last October, he defended some of his controversial views in favor of strict interpretation of the Constitution, shouting “I don’t have to prove that originalism is perfect!” to a packed audience. ...

***********************************************
My comments:

I left a comment at Khan's post saying thanks for a concise, informative post.

Khan told readers to check back for updates and to look for a story in Friday's Chronicle.

I plan to post on the story.

In the meantime, from The real reasons Schumer opposes Roberts (Sept.5, 2005) here's one of my favorite Scalia stories as told by a Newsday op-ed writer:

New York's senior senator portrays himself as moderation's great defender. In a 2003 letter Schumer arrogantly advised Bush on how to pick a Supreme Court justice: "I start by encouraging you to use the same principles that guide me in evaluating judicial nominees. I consider three criteria: excellence, diversity and moderation."

Speaking in California last week, according to The Associated Press, Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia made an excellent point: "Now the Senate is looking for moderate judges, mainstream judges. What in the world is a moderate interpretation of a constitutional text? Halfway between what it says and what we'd like it to say?"

More re:Who should worry about Duke/Durham discovery?

Anon @ 10:05 commented re: Who should worry about Duke/Durham discovery?

Anon’s comments are in italics; my responses are in plain.

Anon began - - -

I look forward to discovery but I have never worried that it wouldn't happen.

While they stressed the court will set limits on what can be asked during discovery, every attorney I’ve talked to – all with no direct involvement in the lawsuits, but all of whom are following the suits – has said Plaintiffs’ attorneys will be able to question in all the major areas in which the Plaintiffs’ are requesting discovery.

I do hope those who should be worrying that discovery will happen are but I'm not sure they realize the gravity of their situation yet.

I think some do have a sense of the gravity of their situation. Duke’s hiring Jamie Gorelick was, IMO, an admission on Duke’s part that its situation is so grave that the best legal counsel money can buy won’t be enough. So it hired a person known for her political influence rather than her knowledge of an extremely complex area of law.

If attorneys in Duke’s Counsel’s office went along with a charade involving dissembling to students, parents and the court regarding the university’s alleged secret and illegal release of protected (FERPA) student personal information, then I’d think those attorneys know they face grave consequences from the court and the State Bar.

Keep in mind that of all the terrible things Nifong did, it was the act of lying to the court that landed him in jail.

I think by virtue of their professional training and experiences the police defendants have, or at least should have, a good understanding of the gravity of the claims made against them in the suits.

It seems to me that some, particularly the miscreants at Duke, have gone merrily about business as usual, as if they didn't have a care in the world.

Yes, but a lot of that is posturing. When you can’t/won’t tell your own insurer what happened, you know your situation is very serious even if you keep telling yourself somehow all your influence, loyal alums and billions will get you out of things with “just a few scrapes.”

Clearly they want everyone to forget about it. They want to silence their critics and MoveOn but even if that happened it wouldn't matter. The lawsuits are what they should be worried about. Discovery should scare the peedoodle out of them.

I get sufficient satisfaction knowing they are worried or they will be at some point. So many and so much will be exposed I should feel sorry for them but I don't.

Of course they want to move on. They did terrible things.

Thanks for your comment.

The Churchill Series - Jan. 28, 2009

(One of a series of weekday posts about the life of Winston S. Churchill.)

In historian John Keegan’s biography, Winston Churchill, Keegan quotes a passage from Churchill’s autobiography of his first 27 years, My Early Life.

Churchill tells us what happened when he got to the Latin portion of the Harrow entrance exam :

I wrote my name at the top of the page. I wrote down the number of the question, “1.” After much reflection I put a bracket around it, thus, “(1).”

But thereafter I could not think of anything connected with it that was either relevant or true.

Incidentally there arrived from nowhere in particular a blot and several smudges. I gazed for two whole hours at this sad spectacle; and then merciful ushers collected up my piece of foolscap and carried it up to the Headmaster’s table. (pgs. 25-26 in Keegan)

Churchill never learned much Latin at Harrow, to which he was admitted most likely because he was Lord Randolph Churchill’s son.

But he said long afterwards that he did learn there the structure and uses of the English sentence “which is a good thing indeed.” And as later used by Churchill, it became a powerful weapon in the cause of freedom.

Traveling the rest of the day

Blogging will resume late tonight or tomorrow morning.

Good luck until then.

John

Who should worry about Duke/Durham discovery?

A Jan. 7, 2009 Durham Herald Sun story, “Lacrosse cabbie, Macy's settle suit,” began:

Cabbie Moezeldin Elmostafa and the proprietors of the Macy's department stores have settled the lawsuit he filed against the chain in connection with a 2003 shoplifting incident.

Readers who read down to the ninth paragraph learned. Elmostafa’s attorney, Tom Loflin, said the following:

"We were one of the last on the lacrosse litigation train, the last to be charged and all that, but we're probably the first out of it, except that Mr. Elmostafa is probably going to end up as a witness in some of the players' civil cases," Loflin said. (emphasis added)

Some people worry we won’t have discovery and some people worry we will.

Loflin’s comment reminded me that all the attorneys I’ve talked with who are not directly involved representing parties to the suits, but who’ve been following them agree we’ll have plenty of discovery, most, if not all, of which will be available to the public because of the “in the public’s interest to know” aspects of the suits.

So IMO the people worrying we won’t have discovery need only be patient while the often slow process of litigation moves along.

On the other hand, the people worried there will be discovery are right to feel that way.

BTW – Loflin’s comment and those of the attorneys I referred to here were all made before the announcement of the U. S. Supreme Court’s unanimous Pearson v. Callahan decision which KC Johnson posted on here.

The short of Pearson is the decision makes it more difficult for Nifong to avoid responsibility for his travesties. But read KC’s post if you haven’t already.

The entire H-S story's here.

Professor Robert Reich, quote doctor

Robert Reich, a former Labor Secretary in the Clinton administration, is currently a professor at the University of California at Berkeley.

Blogger Michelle Malkin says he should be embarrassed at the shoddy quality of his intellectual engagement.

Yesterday she posted examples of it in "A reply to Robert Reich’s open letter."

Today Malkin posts "Robert Reich, quote doctor." Malkin links to this 1997 Slate article “exposing Reich’s … penchant for quote-doctoring.”

The Slate article, "Robert Reich, quote doctor," is Jonathan Rauch's May 1997 review of Reich’s then recently released book, Locked in the Cabinet.

Rauch began - - -

Locked in the Cabinet, Robert Reich's new memoir of his years as labor secretary in the Clinton administration, is an engaging policy memoir: insightful, often witty and, what's most unusual for wonk kiss and tells, easy to read, partly because it's told in long stretches of well-written dialogue that add up to scores of novelistic scenes of Washington at work. The book reads like good fiction. Unfortunately, some of it is.

Call me old-fashioned, but I've always believed that there is something special about quotation marks. Whatever is between them, in nonfiction, is supposed to reflect accurately words that some real person actually said.

Now, "accurately" leaves room for quibbling, and a memoir will be understood by most readers to be offered on an "as remembered" basis. Reich says, in his prefatory note, that he jotted notes to himself, "usually late at night," and then consolidated them to make the book. People know that Reich is not a reporter, and will adjust their expectations accordingly. Fair enough. Maybe he has a good memory.

Certainly from a former Cabinet officer, however, one would expect, if not word-for-word accuracy, at least some checking of his memory, especially when public documents are available. Suspicions mount as Reich spins out page after page of crisp conversation, especially when the same remark issues from two different mouths--as happens on pages 122 and 129. . . .

Rauch then provides example after example of Reich’s quote-doctoring and worse. For example - - -

At a 1995 press conference, just after President Clinton and Reich have failed to settle the baseball strike, Reich has reporters asking the following questions: "Mr. President, why did you invite the players and owners to the White House in the first place?" "If you can't even get these parties to agree, what hope do you have in Bosnia?" "Does this mark the nadir of this administration's influence?" "First it was the minimum wage and now it's baseball. Why do you and your labor secretary think Washington should be involved in every employment issue in America?"
Those questions certainly help Reich paint a picture of piranha journalists intent on humiliating the administration.

But none of the questions, nor any like them, was ever asked. (emphasis added)

The reporters' focus was on major-league baseball, not on Reich and Clinton, and their tone was puzzled rather than angry.

Here are all the real questions that the reporters asked: "Mr. President, you've met now with the players and the owners. In your opinion, who is more to blame for this impasse? And why won't they simply accept voluntarily binding arbitration?" "Mr. President, what gave rise to the optimism you felt during the course of the evening that a settlement might be possible?" "How do you compare this, Mr. President, to, say, President Kennedy acting on steel prices and former uses of the office and the Oval Office for labor disputes?" There was a question about legislation. And (most scathingly), "Mr. President, if the season begins with replacement players, would you throw out the first ball?"

Rauch provides other extensive examples of Reich’s quote-doctoring (that’s saying it kindly. Later in the review, after providing irrefutable documentation of an important matter, Rauch says the evidence “leave[s] no doubt. Reich appears to have fabricated much of this episode[.]”

Rauch closes with - - -

I asked Reich what was going on in each of these cases. In reply, he pointed to his Note to the Reader: "I claim no higher truth than my own perceptions. This is how I lived it." He said that his notes accurately reflected how he felt and what he perceived. In the three cases cited above, he felt varying degrees of hostility. "I am not representing the book to be anything other than it is, which is my account of my experiences, my perceptions, what I saw and heard around me," he said. "That's all I can say."

In effect, Reich is saying that he's not writing journalism or history. He's writing ... well, what? He elides the very distinction between history and myth, memoir and novel, reality and perception. The problem is that those are real people he misquotes, real history he rewrites.

Steve Wasserman, a former Random House editor who now edits the Los Angeles Times Book Review, points out an irony: Books are often viewed as better sources for history than newspapers, but newspapers, which are generally much more careful than the average publishing house about such niceties as checking quotes, are often the more reliable source.

Reich's memoir, if that's the proper word for it, is now ensconced between hard covers and will be read for years to come as part of the historical record. That is a shame. Quote me.

____________________________________________________

I'll be traveling most of today and will wind up at a place with poor connectivity.

But if all goes well, I plan to post again tomorrow concerning Reich, the quote doctor.

The Franken-Coleman Court Battle Yesterday

The AP reports - - -

Minnesota voters testified Tuesday their ballots had been unfairly rejected as Republican Norm Coleman argued thousands of disqualified absentee ballots should be counted in the U.S. Senate race.

"Perhaps my signature is not as good as it once was," Gerald Anderson, of St. Paul, told the three-judge panel hearing Coleman's lawsuit. "It gets cloudy and crooked. I am 75 years old."

But that shouldn't have disqualified his vote, he said: "I want it back. I'm entitled to my vote."

A statewide recount gave Democrat Al Franken a 225-vote edge. The personal stories that Anderson and five other voters told are just one front on Coleman's effort to have more votes counted. …

______________________________________________________

My comments:

Usually Dems argue “every vote should count.” And never mind the “vote” was cast by a guy who died three years.

The dead coming back to life to "vote" in places like Chicago and Florida is just part of the Dems Hope and Change program.

The rest of the AP’s story’s here; the Minneapolis Star Tribune’s story of the day's events is here.

The Churchill Series - Jan. 27, 2009

(One of a series of weekday posts about the life of Winston S. Churchill.)

Detective Inspector Walter Thompson, Churchill’s principal bodyguard during WW II, recalled many times Churchill and he narrowly avoided being killed.

One such time occured one night during the Blitz when Churchill was at 10 Downing Street as the air raid warning sounded. Since structural and ground conditions prevented the construction of a satisfactory shelter at Downing Street, Churchill would be going to a reinforced shelter a few blocks away.

The shelter had been constructed to provide offices and quarters for Churchill and other government officials who'd have to carry on with duties during the raids. It was in the basement of the Treasury Annexe.

A car was always available to take Churchill to the shelter. But that night, as usual, Churchill insisted on walking despite Thompson’s urging they use the car.

As Thompson describes it they had just completed their walk and entered the Annexe when they heard a tremendous explosion outside; and Churchill went out to have a look.

The pavement where we had been walking twenty seconds earlier was now a crater. (Thompson later learned a thousand pound bomb had hit. - JinC)

As we went to the edge, the water main burst and we were drenched. I hoped this would teach him a lesson, but it did not. Hardly a month went by when we could not have been wiped of the earth.

The Annexe is now called The Cabinet War Rooms. It is much as it was when Churchill and others used it. You can learn more at Cabinet War Rooms. The Web site contains useful information for those planning a visit. A small Churchill museum has now been added to the part of the shelter open to the public.

If you haven't visited already, I hope you do someday.
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Tom Hickman, Churchill's Bodyguard: The Authorised Biography of Walter H. Thompson. (pgs. 101-119)

McClatchy suspends quarterly dividend indefinitely

The AP reports - - -

McClatchy Co., the nation's third-largest newspaper publisher, said Tuesday it is suspending its quarterly dividend after paying out its dividend for the first quarter of 2009 so it can save up cash to repay its debts.

The publisher of papers such as The Miami Herald and The Sacramento Bee said it declared a quarterly cash dividend of 9 cents payable on April 1 to shareholders of record on March 11.

But the company said in a news release that after that, the dividend would be suspended "for the foreseeable future" so it could conserve its cash.

McClatchy, like others in the newspaper industry, is seeing a decline in advertising revenue which is hurting profit. Advertisers have been pulling back amid the recession, and increasingly shifting their marketing dollars to the Web.

McClatchy said its first-quarter dividend is worth half the per-share dividend paid in the same period last year.

Shares of McClatchy rose 2 cents, or 2.4 percent, to close at 85 cents.

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My comments:

Advertisers were shifting their dollars to the Web long before this recession started.

They were following readers who were abandoning McClatchy newspapers.

The market understood this even if McClatchy’s top execs have denied it for years.

As recently as five years ago, McClatchy traded in the mid-70s.

In March 2006 when the economy was still growing, McClatchy traded in the mid-40s.

So what did McClatchy do?

CEO Gary Pruitt, ignoring the clear warning his company’s 40%+ stock price decline signaled, went out and bought the Knight-Ridder chain.

McClatchy's taking on more newspapers then was as smart as a captain of a sinking ship taking on more anchors.

In less than five years McClatchy has dropped from the mid-70s to penny stock status with Pruitt and other top execs getting performance bonuses all along the way.

Can you believe that?

All I can say tonight is pity the small shareholders and the many honest, able people who work for McClatchy.

Any wonder they are so angry?

Hat tip: Louisiana Wise Man

Dowd Report's Excellent Fisk

Sunday, Jan. 24, I posted A few very recent Caroline Kennedy articles.

I cited four MSM articles including the column that day by the NY Times’ Maureen Dowd, the only person over 16 who thinks maybe Teddy really was hurrying with Mary Jo Kopechne to catch the last ferry off the island when he made a wrong turn off a hardtop down a dirt road that led across a narrow bridge to a “lovers lane” parking area.

Regarding Dowd’s column (“Which Governor Is Wackier”) my only points were to call the column to readers' attention and note with one example how the "glow of Camelot" still influenced Dowd; such that she said downright foolish things.

Dowd Report commented and chided me because: "That Dowd article is a lot more vicious than you make it out to be."

I promised Dowd Report I’d say more about the column and link to DR’s post on it.

I’m late doing that, but here goes:

DR provides an excellent fisking of Dowd's column and leaves on doubt about its meanness.

Example:

So in Dowd’s rampage she is calling a pox on everybody’s house. The presumed rival to Caroline was Andrew Cuomo, so she now implicitly endorses him over Paterson.

Paterson wasn’t thinking of New York, only of how an upstate ally who was a woman would bolster his own chances for re-election. We can only hope that an avenging Andrew Cuomo takes him out in a primary.

Since her campaigning for Caroline went so well, Dowd also names her preferred choice for taking out Gillibrand in revenge.

Carolyn McCarthy, who ran for Congress on an antigun platform after her husband was killed and her son wounded by a gunman on the Long Island Rail Road in 1993, said she may challenge the “N.R.A. poster child” in 2010.

There’s a lot more to Dowd Report’s fisk.

You can give it a look here.

And the best of luck to Dowd Report.

Tim Tyson, the Raleigh N&O & Whiteys’ Place

On March 27, 2006 the Raleigh News & Observer ran a story, “Rally calls for action at Duke” (reg. req’d), which began:

A cacophony of clanging pans pierced the crisp morning air Sunday as a group of Duke University students, neighbors and activists spoke out against sexual violence.

Bundled in sweaters and sweatshirts, about 100 people gathered at 610 N. Buchanan Blvd., where a woman said she was raped this month at a party hosted by Duke men's lacrosse team players. …

"This is a wake-up call to challenge sexual assault and racial violence," Manju Rajendran, 25, a Durham resident and organizer of Sunday's event, said through a bullhorn just after 9 a.m. "We're trying to break the silence. ... Women have a right to dignity and respect." ...

Attendees at the event Sunday criticized Duke for being too lenient on team members.

Some protesters carried signs including one that read, "All rapes deserve outrage." ...

The biggest signs the protesters carried were banners; one reading “CASTRATE” and another “GIVE THEM EQUAL MEASURE”

But the N&O’s story said nothing about those threatening banners; nor were there any N&O editorials, op-ed or “news analysis” stories condemning the threatening crowd and their banners.

Does the N&O’s silence tell you the mob and its banners were targeting Whiteys? If it doesn't, you must still be waiting for Mike Nifong to produce his “smoking gun.”

The same goes for understanding why the N&O used only one sentence to describe a group of racists on May 18, 2006 shouting threats, including death threats, at a man outside and then again inside the Durham County Courthouse.

The man, one of those whose attempted frame-up Tyson enabled, had to be a Whitey and the racists black.

If the frame-up victim and his racist threateners races were reversed, the story would’ve started on the N&O’s front page with banner headlines.

All the above came to mind today when I read on the N&O’s editorial page an opinion piece by Duke professor Tim Tyson and saw the headline the N&O’d given it.

Tyson, one of the most attention seeking of the Duke faculty members who eagerly embraced false accuser Crystal Mangum’s hoax and the frame-up attempt led by a now disbarred Mike Nifong, begins by telling readers:

God probably dozes off during public prayer anyway. But the Rev. Joseph Lowery's mischievous benediction for the Obama inaugural may have made the Creator giggle. It ended with a plea to "help us work for that day when black will not be asked to get back, when brown can stick around, when yellow will be mellow, when the red man can get ahead, man, and when white will embrace what is right. Let all those who do justice and love mercy say amen." Loud laughter and a chorus of "amens" followed.

Tyson uses the rest of his op-ed to persuade us Rev. Lowery’s singling out only whites as needing to “embrace what is right” was not in any way inappropriate or racist. It was a just a joke.

You know about "Jew" jokes, "Amos and Andy" jokes and "Whitey" jokes, don't you?

Tyson likes the one he says Lowery told at President Obama's Inauguration. He found it a God-given knee-slapper.

Tyson's upset that others didn't get what he says was Lowery's great joke about Whitey.

Tyson want’s Whiteys to lighten up and understand “God has a sense of humor” The N&O went along headlining the op-ed: “Amen to a spirited blessing.”

Suggestion for the N&O:

Start a new section called Whiteys’ Place for stories like “Rally calls for action at Duke” and op-eds like “Amen to a spirited blessing.”