From Seattle writer and consultant Matt Rosenberg...: With Friends Like These.....

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With Friends Like These.....

June 16, 2004

For lawyers, these guys are logically impaired. A Seattle law firm has taken out a half-page newspaper ad in the Seattle Times and the Seattle Post-Intelligencer to protest the Times' coverage of a controversy involving the presumptive Democratic nominee for governor, (Washington State) Attorney General Christine Gregoire.

Gregoire's campaign claims no knowledge of the stunt, but it makes them and their supporters look childish and thin-skinned. One can only imagine how she'd handle the pressure and responsibilities of being governor. The P-I reports:

The ad lauds successful litigation under Gregoire, including the national tobacco lawsuit, and criticizes the Times' coverage of the lawsuit by (Janet) Capps, who was forced to resign after the AG's office failed to meet a deadline to appeal a jury verdict against the state of nearly $18 million.
In April, the Times published a front-page article based on its review of internal documents. The Times found that a 2000 report into the botched appeal "was rewritten to downplay broad management problems at the urging of Gregoire's top deputies."

The $4,444 spent on the ad buys will be reported to the state Public Disclosure Commission as an independent campaign expenditure on Gregoire's behalf. But the belligerent barristers might just as well have handed the dough to Gregoire's opponent, Republican Dino Rossi.

In case you missed the original story, here it is. Doubtless, many folks will now be going back to take another look at it, and this recent Times editorial.

Hat tip: Magnolia's very own P. Scott Cummins.

Posted by Matt Rosenberg at June 16, 2004 04:36 AM

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Comments:

Okay, okay, I'm part of the "Pappa Rossi" out there - and have known and liked Dino for twenty-some years. He is going to prove difficult to demagogue. And looking at it now, a few days after this ad ran, it does appear that this is just one more mis-handled grenade going off in the Gregoire camp. Still, it was fun to get up on my high horse, and rant:
"So now we have the legal profession placing media for their political favorites. That chills my love of democracy to the bone. I want to know if lawyers Bill Bailey and Steve Fury, given their presumed lawyerly comprehension of "precedent" in the courtroom, really understand what they have done. To put it in terms they would understand: the gravamen of the action militates deleteriously. Or, as regular folks would shout: "don't go there!" Or maybe we should just thank them for having the guts to conduct themselves openly - in ways, it is increasingly clear; the entire legal profession presumes primacy over the rest of us."

Posted by: P Scott Cummins at June 16, 2004 08:45 PM

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