Friday, March 27, 2009

The Smear of the Day

The New York Times ran an extensive article today to smear Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand. The thrust of the article is that Gillibrand is an evil person because as a lawyer, she worked to defend tobacco companies.

This just bullshit. One of the guiding principles of the American legal system, in both civil and criminal systems, is that everybody gets to hire the best lawyers they can. If you prosecute someone, they get to defend themselves vigorously; the party bringing the action has to prove their case, regardless of how venal the defendant is alleged to be.

The New York Times is propagating the same old bullshit of "those people are evil and some must be their lawyers." This is an attack, not only on Senator Gillibrand, but on the entire legal system. The New York Times is basically advocating mob justice; there is no real difference between that article and a lynch mob's attitude of "we don't need no trial, we know he done it."

So here is my hope: If the two reporters who wrote that putrid piece, Raymond Hernandez and David Kocieniewski or if their editors are ever arrested or sued, I hope that no lawyer takes their call.
on or about

3 comments:

  1. lahru3/27/2009 8:20 AM

    So I guess The New York Times does not accept advertising dollars from tobacco companies. Right?

    ReplyDelete
  2. Anonymous3/27/2009 9:36 AM

    ...or law firms.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Anonymous3/29/2009 10:10 AM

    Of course, when the two do get arrested, a lawyer will feel obliged to take their call, no matter how distasteful it is. Why? Because E-B Misfit is correct: that is how the legal system is supposed to work. Ask retrobates like Gideon, Mapp, and Miranda (whose killer was read his Miranda rights).

    ReplyDelete

House Rules #1, #2 and #6 apply to all comments. Rule #3 also applies to political comments.

In short, don't be a jackass. THIS MEANS YOU!
If you never see your comments posted, see Rule #7.

All comments must be on point and address either the points raised in the blog post or points raised by commenters in response.
Any comments that drift off onto other topics are subject to deletion.

(Please don't feed the trolls.)

中國詞不評論，冒抹除的風險。僅英語。

COMMENT MODERATION IS IN EFFECT UFN. This means that if you are an insulting dick, nobody will ever see it.