Our mystery legal expert e-mails:
It will be interesting to see how Judge Bridges treats Dale's attempt to impeach Nick's testimony. I personally do not think that it was a wise move and nor do I think it was successful given the amount of skepticism that the judge likely has for both political parties. Too me, the attempt to impeach Nick's neutrality seemed like throwing a desperate Hail Mary pass when your team is four points up.he adds another FWIW:Just my two cents.... For what it is worth, I don't think Nixon should have been forced to resign over Watergate, which in my opinion really was a third rate burglary after the abuses of administration power in the Johnson and Kennedy administrations, so I guess it is not too surprising that I don't agree that Nick should resign.
I thought Rob did a better job cross-examining Dean than Dale did Nick.Croker Sack blogger "Micajah", who's a retired JAGC officer, gives us some legal analysis of his own and asks "How does it look from the voters' point of view?" and concludes:
For the sake of those of us who give a damn about the way a person was put in the governor’s office, the GOP’s lawyers need to do a better job than they have done so far.Posted by Stefan Sharkansky at June 01, 2005 06:33 PM | Email This
I don't know about that.
I think Rossi's attorneys have done a fairly good job with the facts they had to work with. The problem for Rossi's legal team is that there is a high legal barrier and likely insufficient evidence to support their petition.
Most if all of the errors alledged turned out to be present in other elections and many pro-Rossi counties.
However, the trial is not over yet. There may be something yet the Rossi team pulls out.
Posted by: Erik on June 1, 2005 06:58 PMThis illustrates the divide between the perspective of those in and out of the legal profession. My impression (from outside) is that Handy was the worst witness the donx had. Dean Logan seemed like a paragon of compitence by comparison. He obviously wasn't neutral, to even the most casual observer. There must be some sort of 11th commandment between lawyers that you can drag a layman through the mud, but don't suggest anything bad about one of the annointed ones. I hope the judge can see beyond this kind of prejudice. Handy is the worst kind of empty suit.
Posted by: Dogbert on June 1, 2005 07:12 PMDino Rossi won 2 out of 3 counts. Queen Gregoire "won" by 129 votes after the re-re-recount.
I BELIEVE THE ELECTION WAS FIXED AND MY RIGHT TO VOTE WAS NULLIFIED BY FRAUD.
I AM ENTITLED TO ONE VOTE. NOT 1/100000 OF A VOTE. 1 VOTER 1 VOTE!
Gregoire, Handy, Reed, Sims, Logan, Huennekens, Way, Webb, Sanchez and Moore... YOU CHEATED ME!
F*** YOU ALL!
Posted by: Splatter on June 1, 2005 07:18 PMRe: Micajah's comments about the GOP's lawyers, does he think the Dem lawyers have done a good job? I sure don't. Their witnesses have been a parade of one pathetic loser after another.
Posted by: Tucker on June 1, 2005 08:00 PMHow ironic that the same press that busted Nixon, is now trying to cover KCs' naked fanny. And the blogosphere is busting the press. The more things change....
Posted by: Dogbert on June 1, 2005 08:06 PMI'm sorry...but I believe your *mystery legal expert* needs to go back to Super-sizing French Fries!
And Micajah - God bless him! He is trying to see this trial from both a legal standpoint and as a concerned citizen. At times one perspective may wash into the other and then back again. And - in that mix, Micajah is also looking at the contest through the eyes of the Supreme Court!
I appreciate his input!
Posted by: Deborah on June 1, 2005 08:18 PM2) The cross-examination of Dean Logan was too kinder and gentler - although there were some inroads made. Where was Foreman today ? Why didn't the Republicans have him cross-examine him part of the time ?
3) The statistical argument has some holes in it, but it is clearly better than goofy Adolph for the Dems. The loop in the statistical argument has not been closed - the scattergram (I heard it was disallowed and Shark's probability calculation of 4.67 X 10-34 would help there).
The attorneys for the Rossi side need to be like Dale Foreman was yesterday, with a booster shot of junkyard dog, presence and craftiness between now and the end of the trial to boost them over that bar that will need to be lowered from Fraud to fraud.
It is clear now that regardless of the outcome, a Federal investigation is clearly warranted !
It looks like we're getting scr$wed, and that the Legislature and courts are willing accomplices.
Posted by: South County on June 1, 2005 09:34 PMEither way, I think Bridges has been a good judge in all of this, earring and all.
Posted by: JRR on June 1, 2005 10:04 PMInasmuch as theirs is a PR battle every bit as much as it is a legal battle, in a state that remains a blue state, they are probably doing the best that can be done, all things considered. Overreaching can be as fatal as underreaching.
As far as Nixon goes, just bear in mind that it was pretty much the same alliance of MSM and leftwingers that were out to get Nixon simply because he was a Republican president that we see today. Nixon's problem is that he didn't handle it well at all. Already a somewhat paranoid man, it just drove him way further in that direction. Read Ben Stein's piece today in American Spectator. Just because your paranoid it doesn't mean that it isn't true that they're out to get you.
Posted by: jaybird on June 1, 2005 10:45 PMThe only way we will be able to claim this as any type of victory is if the election IS set aside, and we focus the frustrated public on ousting these loons starting with an uphill battle to take out Sims in November.
Posted by: Joe on June 1, 2005 11:15 PM
I disagree with this analysis. One of the things that I think was accomplished here was to throw doubt on anything that the SecState's office tells the judge that is prejudicial to our case. Up until now I think that the judge had the reasonable expectation that the SecState had no axe to grind and probably weighted his opinions accordingly. Now that Handy has been exposed as a partisan hack, the judge will be looking more closely at anything the SecState had to say with an eye towards determining its bias. That can't do anything but help us.
As far as the fraud issue, I don't see how bringing up fraud which actually happened hurts us. We have already proven fraud. The bar has not been raised. Hundreds of felons voting is voter fraud. Non-citizens voting is voter fraud and is probably more prevalent than we will ever know based on the reports out of Arizona. King County elections falsifying legally required reports in order to certify the election is election fraud. The only question is when the FBI is going to step in and investigate the proven voter fraud, not whether the Republicans somehow have a more difficult task because they pointed out these examples of fraud.
I am reminded of Goldy on John Carlson yesterday claiming that Nicole Way's falsification of a legal document wasn't really fraud because there wasn't really a law requiring that you not just make up the numbers. He was very persuasive and was uttering pure rubbish.
Posted by: Calvin A on June 2, 2005 05:57 AMIt was more specific than that. Nixon went after Hiss. That was unforgivable.
Posted by: Dogbert on June 2, 2005 07:02 AMThe Rossi people just ripped them and showed fraud in the SOS office as evidenced by the Nixon memo and coverup.
Posted by: swatter on June 2, 2005 07:16 AMIt was more specific than that. Nixon went after Hiss. That was unforgivable.Yeah, that was true. The left had many reasons to hate Nixon. But two that always get mentioned by the kool-aid drinking hardest of the hard core Nixon haters is, as you say, Alger Hiss, and the other is the 1950 Senate race against Helen Gahagan Douglas wherein Nixon essentially outed her as a Hollywood communist. Note that they both involve communists, and Nixon's anti-communism. The Communist Party USA and its sympathizers definitely had Nixon on their hit list and were laying for him with a vengeance. Fast forward to 1973-74, Watergate. Has anybody in the MSM ever bothered to mention in any way that Carl Bernstein, of Woodward and Bernstein, fame was a red diaper doper baby, the child of card-carrying avowed communists? Front Page Magazine has a blurb about that today.
I had an intern reporter asked me yesterday what I thought about the deep throat thing. (He's 21 years old) I asked him what he knew about Watergate. He replied, All the President's Men. That's it. He seriously thought Woodward and Bernstein and deep throat "brought down" the entire Nixon administration. I told him go back and read some history of the 50's and he would see why "they" were after Nixon. It was a horrible time for this country. Deep throat is no hero in my book. Woodward and Bernstein now say they will fill in the discrepancies in their story. Oh how convenient. You mean they made things up?
And I agree with your legal eagle Stefan, Richard M. Nixon should not have resigned.