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• Wednesday, November 19, 2008 10:38 AM

  To be fair to omooex

  There's a potential argument he's failing to make, and PDA has picked up that thread already. A history of bad judgment may become relevant when someone is headed for public office.

  So, if an attorney has a history of associating with/taking money from/working for sleazy, homicidal corporate clients, then that's a problem, because that's really bad judgment.

  And insofar as a history of defending such clients in a criminal court can suggest that just such a history of association may exist, then the existence of the one may be a reason to suspect the existence of the other, and reason enough to look for it.

  And if an attorney has a history of sleazy actions in defending sleazy corporate clients, than that is also clearly fair game for criticism, because that's really bad judgment.

  But we've had zero evidence of that here. Holder was not on the payroll of a banana republic, nor even of a banana company. He did not take kickbacks or intimidate witnesses. He merely defended a client that needed defending. You can't call it bad judgment unless he chose rich sleazy clients over and over again for years, to the exclusion of all other types of cases. Then you can hate him all you want, but it's going to be an uphill battle to convince the world without some of the above elements being present.

  (Another argument could conceivably be made that corporations don't deserve the same legal rights as individuals. But I have no idea how that would play out here. Corporations pay fines for tax problems all the time, and so they should. And if the fine is big enough to make it worthwhile, they should be able to argue against it. Duh.)

  —Baldie McEagle Read Baldie McEagle's other letters
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