The State published some of the emails fired back and forth from Sanford’s office while he was hiking the Appalachian Trail chasing Argentinian tail, and this cracked me up:
The e-mails also show some reached out to the governor on how best to come to his defense.
“If he wants something more personal for the blog to push back, I’m happy to help,” wrote Erick Erickson, a writer for RedState.com. On June 23, Erickson ripped “media speculation” about Sanford’s whereabouts.
“I wasn’t trying to be a reporter. I wanted to curtail the story,” Erickson said by e-mail. “Well that didn’t work.”
Which made me laugh, considering this memorable Red State post, which was an instant classic in the wingnut genre:
To majority media and other Democrats : we police our own, and you don’t get to judge: Drop dead.
By all means report the facts. I’m sure you’ll be happy to cover every salacious detail. Have at it. Be sure to cover the pain and suffering of Governor Sanford’s family. While you are at it, cover the depth to which all South Carolina and nation-wide Republicans and conservatives rightly feel betrayed.
Beyond that, just shut up. Shut your lying, hypocritical, power-above-patriotism, hyper-partisan, two-faced, shamelessly double-standard bearing pie hole.
You don’t get to judge.
Policing your own is a lot like OJ looking for the real killers. Also.
Fencedude
So does that mean Erick the Redstate won’t judge Democratic politicians?
Oh, yeah. Stupid question.
blackfrancis
the day OJ finds the real killer, you’ll eat those words, Cole!
In the meantime, I suggest you stock up on groceries.
Mike E
Free O.J.!!
gex
God Damn that Liberal Media!
JK
h/t politico.com/blogs/michaelcalderone/0709/Media_pushed_for_Sanford_access_Tapper_on_slimy_email.html#…
blackfrancis
@Mike E: I’m always up for some free OJ, blood sugar be damned!
PeakVT
Beyond that, just shut up. Shut your lying, hypocritical, power-above-patriotism, hyper-partisan, two-faced, shamelessly double-standard bearing pie hole.
Another fine example of wingnut projection.
MattF
Oh, golly. They’re getting lessons in self-policing from the financial industry.
jcricket
If by self-policing they mean fellate, then yeah, I agree.
Otherwise, I think he might have missed that day in vocabulary.
fastandsloppy
But, but… Michael Moore is fat! Bill Clinton got a B.J.! Wolverines!
slippytoad
Erickson needs a knot jerked in his tail. Little shit.
General Winfield Stuck
I want that phrase, and by damn, I intend to use it at a later date.
Herein lies the entire GOP platform.
steve s
Wonder how the Red State Trike Force is coming along?
RedKitten
Poor widdle baby. It can’t be easy constantly carrying water for the side that continually fucks up and can’t keep their dicks where they belong.
I can see why Erick has his panties in a twist, though. All he’s asking is for the Left to completely look the other way and ignore it when someone on the Right does something wrong or scandalous, while reserving the right to shriek the news to the four corners of the Earth if someone on the Left is even suspected of doing something wrong or scandalous.
All poor litle Erick wants is the freedom to be a complete hypocrite, people! Why are we denying him his freedoms?
jcricket
You know those Staples commercials (“That was easy”). The GOP is like that, but in reverse. They push the “Rove” button and all that comes out is FAIL.
RememberNovember
Offering to cover up for the philandering Governor is aiding and abetting abdication of elected duties.
RememberNovember
@jcricket:
It’s the Sleazy button.
GReynoldsCT00
Jeebus, Red State has brass balls. I’m having trouble wrapping my head around the hypocrisy of it all. Ouch, that hurts!
Marco
Erick is just the king of all tools. He deserves to stand alone in a Sears showroom, big red ribbon proudly displayed. That or a whore house.
Ash Can
OK, I get it. This Erickson twit threw tantrums like this as a young child (which he still may be, as far as I know), banged his head on the floor a few too many times and a little too hard, and the rest is evidently history.
sven
I think this is the best part of that column:
You show no honor, no equity, no fairness, and no scruples yourselves. You, to put it mildly, do not police your own. We do. We’ll deal with Sanford. We have standards (you don’t), and we have a long history of punishing and purging our leaders who prove unworthy of trust.
Sanford forced out of office… ? Censored… you don’t say?
Well surely John Ensign has been… No?
But what about David Vitter his future must be… running for re-election with the full support of the party!
Thankfully Redstate is continuing to focus every column on cleaning house, otherwise this might just look like a, well…
lying, hypocritical, power-above-patriotism, hyper-partisan, two-faced, shamelessly double-standard
Just read the whole column; it seems more prescient with every passing day!
Face
I believe this was the hypocrite being hypocritical about being hypocritical.
Jon H
Tapper:
But he’ll keep brownnosing!
The Grand Panjandrum
@JK: Jake announced earlier today (on his Twitter feed) that he will open accounts at DKos and Hot Air so he can do a little clearing of the air, as it were. He’s taking quite a beating from some folks on Twitter over those Sanford emails. Basically he’s being called out for being a GOP shill.
Maybe he should call his fellow Dartmouth alums Tim Geithner and Hank Paulson so they can form a support group for the wickedly inept. (Although in Paulson’s case he did at least make himself fabulously wealthy prior to picking up the cherry bomb with the lit fuse.)
D0n Camillo
To be fair to Jake Tapper and all the other journalists involved, it is extremely hard to ask tough questions when you have Jim Sanford’s dick in your mouth.
Gus
Christ what a WATB. He really sounds like an eight year old child. I refuse to actually click a link to Red State, so I enjoy the occasional update.
KevinNYC
Also from that post is this
Um, yeah, and Sandford has been punished and purged, how?
RedKitten
Erick (I would so love to slap that man if I ever met him in IRL) is pissed off that we don’t care about the stupid, petty shit that HE cares about. Hence, we don’t have standards, according to him.
Dennis-SGMM
The redundantly yclept Erick Erickson is free from double standards because he doesn’t have any single standards.
Ash Can
@Gus: The vast majority of eight-year-old children I know comport themselves far, far better than this git. And I’m not exaggerating or being in any way facetious.
JK
@Jon H:
@The Grand Panjandrum: @D0n Camillo:
I’m glad that The State released these email messages. Jake Tapper is looking like an even bigger moron than he was before. He can open accounts wherever he pleases. As far as I’m concerned, he’s still a smug, smarmy asshole.
Griff Jenkins, the Fox News Channel reporter, is a major league dork. He looks more like a Daily Show correspondent than a real journalist.
jenniebee
And they have so much policing to do!
vacuumslayer
I’ll quit judging them when they quit judging us… and quit being such HUGE hypocrites. BTW, when people write things like this it’s just poking the bear. If anything it just makes me feel more smug and happy.
blackfrancis
@fastandsloppy: Haven’t you got the memo? You can say “blow job” now- I saw it on the teevee!
gex
@KevinNYC: The same way Vitter was.
harlana pepper
Re: second post by Erick, if I recall correctly, I believe Sanford provided the salacious details with minimal encouragement by the press
Calouste
Btw, Sanford has sodded off again to a place unknown, this time for a week’s holiday with his wife, “to work on his marriage”. Short term notice apparently, as some meetings were cancelled or rescheduled.
Maybe a trip to Vegas for a quickie divorce?
EDIT: While they are in Vegas, they can get some marriage councelling from Ensign, and he might even bring along his buddy Coburn.
SpotWeld
Policing seems to suggest they have some sort of postion of authority of those they “police”
RedState has no such position, they have no such credit within the GOP. They are used when convenient. (As is DailyKos by left wing politicians I suppose)
The thing is, while RedState likes to pretend it has some sort of ranking because of authority passed down from abovie. dKos seems very much to push it’s readers to collect themselves to challenge authortity from below.
In short. Tea Parties need to be granted the label of sucess from FOX news, Netroots just network and judge sucess by the events that are initiated after the meeting.
LD50
You’re omitting Erick’s followup quote, which shows what a thoughtful guy he is:
Oh, BTW, Erick:
We won’t shut up, and we’ll judge all we want. Blow me.
eric
you guys dont get it!! your smug little neat worlds fail make allowances for how the GOP has never let itself be tainted by the misdeeds of its members. Just look at how the GOP permanently ostrasized Abrams and Negroponte to the proverbial political Sibera for for their ILLEGAL activities.
The Deomcrat party does not have the testicular fortitude to do its members precisely what was done to and for those two.
eric
cleek
the only “policing” RS cares about is getting rid of people who aren’t sufficiently dedicated to The Movement. legal or moral issues aren’t really their concern – but don’t let them catch you deviating from the orthodoxy!
remember, RS’s purpose is simple: be the bestest GOP cheerleaders they can be: promote, defend and fluff The Party. nothing more. that’s their entire raison d’être.
Mike in NC
“Power Above Patriotism: The Sarah Palin Story”: coming soon from Regnery Press (as soon as they can find a couple of desperate ghost writers).
TR
Christ, what a pathetic tool.
jibeaux
@Dennis-SGMM:
Oh, THAT I like.
White House Department of Law (fmrly Jim-Bob)
Why does Tapper feel the need to reach out to the right (with an account at HotAir)? Seems he had no trouble doing that before he got his dick caught in the zipper.
The Grand Panjandrum
@cleek: For the love of the FSM please, please, please Erick make a video dressed as a cheerleader. (I will buy one for you if W’s doesn’t fit you!)
Calouste
@eric:
Do you mean the Negroponte who until 20 January this year was Deputy Secretary of State or do you mean a different one?
Svensker
@Dennis-SGMM:
FTW.
eric
@Calouste: Yes. and as to Abrams from Wiki
During Bush’s first term in office, he was appointed to the post of Special Assistant to the President and Senior Director on the National Security Council for Near East and North African Affairs. At the start of Bush’s second term, Abrams was promoted to be his Deputy National Security Advisor for Global Democracy Strategy, in charge of promoting Bush’s strategy of advancing democracy abroad. His appointment by Bush was controversial due to his conviction in 1991 on two misdemeanor counts of unlawfully withholding information from Congress during the Iran-Contra Affair investigation.
Tell me you think the Dems can self-police like THAT!!
eric
Jon H
Another Tapper tweet about his email:
It *is* high school, isn’t it.
Tsulagi
They do bring the laughs, don’t they?
So have they arrested yet all their Promise Keepers? You know, the ones chasing soulmates who aren’t their wives, or the ones turning married staff essentially into paid hookers who then move them, their husbands and children into their own house with their spouses and kids in some weird kind of Mormon experiment? Then have mommy and daddy try to buy silence? Or how bout their widestanding tap dancers with pants around their ankles looking to score in restrooms? Or those on madam’s speed dials prone to wearing diapers?
Yep, those base role models live in fear they will be arrested any day now by wingnut deputies. Just as soon as they can figure out how to gas up the clown cars.
Ash Can
Admittedly OT, but yet another great moment in self-policing: It seems Frank Ricci is a little less than, ahem, accurate in stating his credentials on his web site (h/t GOS).
Whoopsie. I wonder if he’ll hear any questions about that during his time in the spotlight tomorrow?
IndieTarheel-mobile
Erickson is the syphyllitic donkey of the entire blogosphere. No one with two brain cells would go anywhere near him. I feel like bathing in Lysol every time I see his name in print. Tapper is not much better. Also.
The Grand Panjandrum
@White House Department of Law (fmrly Jim-Bob):
It is both a smart and commendable move on his part. It will be interesting to see how he uses them and how the different audiences will react to him.
Violet
These emails were obtained via the Freedom of Information Act, right? Can we ask for other communications between the media and other elected officials? Some of those could also be fun!
How does one ask for communications? Does a certain amount of time have to pass or is everything available for the asking right away? I’d love to see what some of the media wh0res are doing with other elected representatives.
ninerdave
Erick from today’s RedState Morning Briefing.
“Yes, yes, Presidents get to throw out first pitches even when they throw slow girlish balls like Obama instead of the steady, fast pitches of men like George Bush.”
ninerdave
Erick from today’s RedState Morning Briefing.
“Yes, yes, Presidents get to throw out first pitches even when they throw slow girlish balls like Obama instead of the steady, fast pitches of men like George Bush.”
HumboldtBlue
Well, ol’ Erick is an idiot and Red State is his idiot progeny, but that particular post was written by what could be the most idiotic of his fellow Red State front-pagers, Pluribus Unum. I mean, the guy’s so stupid Moe Lane and Domenech are towering intellects in comparison.
The Grand Panjandrum
@Jon H:
Yes, but without the giggling teenagers.
Dennis-SGMM
Tapper insists that he no longer sucks Republican dicks. He does however still hold them in his mouth to get the taste.
Wile E. Quixote
There’s nothing wrong with Erick the RedState that couldn’t be cured by repeatedly hitting him in the face with the butt of a rifle.
I like the “we police our own” line. The next time that whiny little punk-ass bitch says anything about a Democratic politician we need to hammer that line right back at him.
Sarcastro
“I wasn’t trying to be a reporter. I wanted to curtail the story,”
Is the success sweeter when it’s immediately followed by utter failure?
Bob In Pacifica
I know that it’s a matter of belief for most Americans, more than the existence of God, but it bugs me that OJ’s guilt in the double homicides is a presumption of fact. The whole thing was a damned show trial in which, if you remember, he was found not guilty.
If you go here:
southofheaven.typepad.com/south_of_heaven/2005/04/no_aspiration_o.html
I will walk you through autopsy evidence that disproves the prosecution’s case (which was riddled with fraudulent evidence anyway). Besides, the Browns told the coroner’s investigator Ratcliffe the next morning that they talked with Nicole Simpson after 11 p.m. By then Simpson had loaded his bags in the limo and was heading to LAX.
Okay, carry on.
Nylund
To be fair, it should be noted that Erick didn’t write the “we police our own” post. Red State has a deep bench of crazies, all deserving of ridicule. I’m just surprised Moe Lane let those others out-crazy him on the Sanford story. He usually seems so hell-bent on being the most insane of the bunch. He must be losing his gusto.
Dennis-SGMM
@ninerdave:
Heh. Here’s Bush being booed by the fans when he threw the first pitch in the Washington Nationals’ park.
kay
@Dennis-SGMM:
Does it seem cut and dried unethical to you? He’s telling them that if they give him access, he’ll write something more favorable than what he’s reading elsewhere.
I understand how this is “competition” in terms of his career: he’ll get access that other outlet won’t get, and he’ll “win” the Sanford contest. But win what? He’s all but promising he’ll treat them favorably.
You have to wonder about the AP. They won. The Sanfords gave them exclusives. What did the AP promise?
White House Department of Law (fmrly Jim-Bob)
TGP@
Smart? Maybe if it results in story leads and sexy commentary. Commendable? In what fucking universe?
Here’s what’s probably going to happen: The HotAir crowd will tolerate Tapper as long as he doesn’t run afoul of them (for example, by posting something objective or critical of a (-R)). Then when he does, he’s Emmanuel Goldstein; an embodiment of everything that’s wrong with the elitist liberal media.
Kind of lose/lose, IMO.
RedKitten
Obama would have whupped W’s ass on the basketball court, but that doesn’t count for anything.
We all know why, so it need not be said.
steve s
Erick, do you like movies about gladiators?
Michael
Speaking of “not self policing”, that fucking gasbag Dobbs is picking up the birther cudgel.
loudobbs.com/
I’m literally sick – these fuckers are openly inciting violence.
Colette
@Bob In Pacifica: For what it’s worth, which asymptotically approaches zero, I have had a personal conversation with one of OJ’s trial attorneys in which he told me, “of course he did it.” He was quite open about his personal conviction of his client’s guilt.
Brachiator
“Policing your own.” Another euphemism for a circle jerk. Howie Kurtz would no doubt approve.
General Winfield Stuck
@ninerdave:
Numbnut McCarthy devotes a whole page on Obama’s pitch fail compared to Bush’s alleged strike.
It is becoming increasingly clear that these imbeciles are retro-evolving to the protoplasmic stage of human existence.
Punchy
OT:
With respect to TDS last nite, the most painful interview in the history of interviews.
Grung_e_Gene
Ha ha The Pro Human Pain and Suffering Chicken Hawk Party of Deferments and their ignorant brainwashed followers are so Sucktastic!
ninerdave
@Dennis-SGMM:
I’d forgotten about that. HA! Thanks.
NonyNony
OT, but the baby blue Satan just linked to this about CALPERS going after the ratings agencies in court.
I know John has been wondering for a while about why the ratings agencies seem to have been immune to scrutiny over all of this. Sounds like someone else has been wondering that as well.
freelancer
In the vein of
Here’s Sean Hannity’s buddy, “A Great American”
fucking bums
vacuumslayer
@ninerdave: I guess the RedState women aren’t terribly offended by blatant sexism. What is a “girlish” throw anyway? My husband will attest to the fact that I’ve got a pretty decent throwing arm.
Dennis-SGMM
@kay:
Not just unethical but entirely devoid of ethics. Anything Tapper produces from now on will be legitimately subject to question. If ABC keeps him on the payroll then they are just as ethics free as he is.
Just Some Fuckhead
Good on ya, BIP.
Zifnab
@Jon H: It’s not cheating unless I get caught. And when I get caught, it’s your fault for ratting me out!
apistat
Am I the only one that thinks we really shouldn’t read too much into most of the stuff from the emails that were released?
From my point of view it looks like a bunch of reporters feigning sympathy in private in order to gain access or get an exclusive on what was obviously a pretty big story. Shit, even Colbert wrote a sympathetic email.
I’m not saying it was right, but I think it was much more professional motives than partisan ones.
edit: I certainly don’t mean to apply this to people like Erickson, who is a partisan tool of the highest order.
Violet
OJ has a hearing coming up. He wants to be released from prison while appealing his case. They think he could be a flight risk. Gosh, I wonder why?
He may have been found not guilty of murdering his wife, but he doesn’t seem like a very nice character.
General Winfield Stuck
@vacuumslayer:
Skillet pitching?
Zifnab
@Dennis-SGMM:
No shit, Sherlock!
Seriously, Tapper has been a right-wing tool for years. When your claim to fame is tattling on Obama for his smoking habit, you’re a douchebag to the core.
He’s been on my shit list for a long time. Watching him say something even vaguely unbiased is like hearing words of wisdom from Peggy Noonan or Fred Haitt.
Dennis-SGMM
Bush developed that powerful pitching arm by throwing our money at Halliburton, Blackwater, Boeing, Goldman Sachs, Citibank…
Trollhattan
Whatever happened to “We’ll fact-check your ass”? Oh, right, the inconvenience of facts.
Violet
@apistat:
It’s not exactly news that reporters will say whatever it takes to get an interview. But it’s kind of interesting to see the emails themselves.
It feels like I’m looking behind the green curtain a la “Wizard of Oz.” I kind of like seeing the ugly maneuvering that goes on. The press is in this whole mess as deeply as anyone else. We might as well know what they really think and do. I’m all for more of this kind of information being released.
Zifnab
@ninerdave:
Oh, that Erik. He just can’t get enough of George Bush’s balls.
steve s
@General Winfield Stuck:
Andy McCarthy:
Andy McCarthy claiming his six-year-old can accurately throw a baseball 60 feet is stupid, but not unusually so for The Corner.
cleek
@apistat: that’s what i was thinking, too.
one can’t discount the fact that access demands schmoozing. though some of those reporters were no doubt more sincere than others.
Calouste
@Brachiator:
Considering the average spelling skills in wingnuttia, it seems odds on that what the redstate poster actually wanted to write was “We poliSH our own, and you don’t get to judge”.
vacuumslayer
@Zifnab:
I wonder if they all have a poster of Bush in that fake pilot’s uniform on their bedroom walls so they can masturbate to it nightly. Honestly, these assholes are so caught up in silly artifice. Well, I guess you have to be when nothing you believe in is of any substance.
kay
@apistat:
But if they gain access based on an implied promise of sympathetic treatment, what happens if they get the interview, and have to write something unsympathetic?
They could do that, write it anyway, but the next email they send is not going to be well received. Short career.
I guess my worry is the only ones who are gaining access are those trading it for a promise. Like a bidding war, least rigorous wins.
vacuumslayer
@steve s:
Snark of the thread! *claps*
asiangrrlMN
Have y’all seen this? Forgive me if it’s a repost. It seems that The Wild Bull of the Pampas (love that moniker) cancelled some important meetings to meet up with his lover.
In addition, he has now cancelled meetings to spend time with his wife.
So, I guess when you fuck up your personal life on the state’s time, you should try to mend it on the state’s time as well? Nice.
jake 4 that 1
Ooo, Gov. Sanford! You must be soooo tired after all that [makes air quotes] hiking on the Appalachian Trail. Can I rub your feet? Or anything else that’s sore?
slag
Leave the Republicans alooone!!!
Also, the Republican self-policing strategery appears to be strikingly similar to that of “majority media and other Democrats” when the issue of the Bush regime’s proclivities for torture and illegal wiretapping arises.
Strange how the “majority media” keeps wanting to “curtail the story” like that.
John Cole
@steve s: Someone slept with Andy McCarthy?
LD50
Which, given infallibility of our legal system, proves he didn’t do it.
You’ve convinced me.
But wow — who did do it?
JenJen
O/T, but I’m worried for what happens to Meghan McCain after she drops this bomb:
Not a big Meghan fan, but honestly, she’s the only Republican making any sense at all these days. C’mon, though… is there an over/under on when she takes the John Cole route and leaves that party behind?
LD50
This may actually be the best solution. Given what complete douchebags SC’s governor and lieutenant governor are, it’s probably best that no one run that state for a while.
LD50
Around the same time as Cheney’s daughter, i.e., after the will can’t be changed.
slag
@JenJen:
I’m pretty sure she’s too much of a dumbass to do that.
Violet
@LD50:
Agreed. She professes to love the Republican party, yet she seems to be against everything it is these days. There has to be money involved.
Brachiator
@Bob In Pacifica:
Someone must have got confused. Isn’t the point of a show trial to find a person guilty without regard to the actual evidence?
Sigh. No. The investigator noted the wrong time in the notes. The phone records correct this mistake (The Fictitious Telephone call)
Please note that the Simpson case doesn’t particularly interest me, but I find the continued attempts to re-try the case fascinating.
asiangrrlMN — Have y’all seen this? Forgive me if it’s a repost. It seems that The Wild Bull of the Pampas (love that moniker) cancelled some important meetings to meet up with his lover. In addition, he has now cancelled meetings to spend time with his wife.
So, who’s watching over the state while he’s gone?
geg6
@apistat:
Speaking as the daughter of a 30-year veteran journalist, I do not think that word “professional” means what you think it means.
If you mean “professional” in the same sense as the crack hos who hang out on street corners late in the evening, then yes. It was for “professional” reasons.
If you mean in the sense of having journalistic standards and practices, well, no.
geg6
@JenJen:
Much as I can’t stand the whiny, spoiled beyotch routine she seems to affect, I agree. I’ve heard nothing out of her mouth that makes me think she’s Republican in any way. She’s just too stupid to figure it out. Which tells you something about the collective IQ of today’s GOP, when Meghan McCain, who is as stupid as a box of rocks, is the smartest one out there.
Dusty
I thought Tapper’s somewhat defensive followup quote made it sound like he just didn’t have the instincts to recognize a story when it was practically screaming in his face:
It’s like, “How could I have known there was something off about the governor of a state just disappearing for a few days? No one told me he had a mistress.” It’s not like a top reporter should have any kind of feel for phenomena to know something was off.
Molly
Job security, baby. Better get crackin’. :)
JGabriel
Dennis-SGMM:
ABC’s right-wing tilt and lack of ethics was well-established when they aired “Path to 9/11”, if not earlier.
.
DanF
Awesome. Their ethics are going Galt.
matoko_chan
But why are they cretins?
Even their lies are stupid.
Check out Captain
EdStupid here.Big Fat Liar
He breaks down doctors by profession income, so specialists take a lot of the top 15 places with “lawyers” coming in 16th.
If “doctors” was a category then interns and residents and GPs would pull that placeholder way down.
But of course, Captain Stupid’s commentariat probably believes that corporate lawyers and PI lawyers make the same as law clerks and small town DA’s.
morons.
When are they going to admit that the GOP is the party of the leftside of the bellcurve?
6% of scientists are republicans means 94% of scientists are NOT-republicans.
Bokonon
What Erick meant is “We PROTECT our own!!” Because it is all about the politics, and getting power, and staying in power. All the time.
Plus, if you are righteous to begin with, you don’t become unrighteous unless you LEAVE THE PARTY. As a GOP office holder, you just need to confess your sins once you are exposed. Plus, you need to hang tight and stay in office … since the party faithful and interest groups sank some goddamn large amounts of cash into getting you elected.
Witness – David Vitter. Contrast with – Elliott Spitzer.
The “policing” is sort of the slap-on-the-wrist punishment that gets handed by the party to any scandal-plagued GOP politician that isn’t gay. I mean … the sort of stuff that Vitter and Ensign and Sanford have been caught doing should have been freakin’ career ending. And I think that it is telling that the words “I am sorry … I hurt my marriage” had no sooner left Vitter’s lips than he started pointing out the enemy and attacking the liberal media. And it worked!
JenJen
Ahhhh, that didn’t take long. Meghan McCain clarifies on Twitter:
By that, I believe she means she’s totally on board with the rest of his asshattery.
White House Department of Law (fmrly Jim-Bob)
100@
Didn’t you see Mannequin?
Shalimar
The funniest part of the “we police our own” Redstate post (which wasn’t by Erickson btw, it was one of their other voices) was that just a few hours earlier, at roughly the same time that Sanford was giving the press conference where he confessed to his affair, the most recent front page post was by Senator David Vitter, arguing for Sanford’s pet issue, refusing stimulus money. Nice job policing they did with that moral scumbag, they gave him the keys to Redstate to say whatever he wanted.
Bob In Pacifica
Brachiator, that’s not what Investigator Ratcliffe was saying a few years later when an acquaintance of mine tracked her down and talked with her. She said that the Browns definitely said they’d talked with their daughter after 11p.m., after they got home.
(This opens up the whole problem the prosecution had with the timeline. There are problems with the timeline based on people at the recital, problems with the times at the Mezzaluna. Even Kato seems to be moving the end of the basketball playoff game up an hour, which conveniently gave OJ more time.)
A coroner’s investigator talks with witnesses. That’s her job. She asked the Browns the next morning what was the last time that they talked with their daughter. By the time Ratcliffe talked with them the coroner had already been kept away from the crime scene (by the LAPD detectives, in violation of state law) long enough to allow the bodies to cool to the ambient temperature, thus making it impossible to determine exactly when they’d been killed by measuring their temperatures.
So aside from doing her job professionally, Ratcliffe knew how essential it was to find out the last time anyone talked with Nicole to determine when she was last alive. The two Browns were there when Ratcliffe called. It’s hard to believe that both of them forgot when was the last time they talked with their daughter. Or that Ratcliffe somehow mistook after 11p.m. when they actually said 9:40p.m.
Not sure where you got this, that Ratcliffe just wrote down the wrong time. That may have been Mr. Brown’s excuse, but it doesn’t pass the sniff test.
Collette: I’d be curious as to which attorney that might be, but if you read the Stephen Singular book, written early in the case, you will find some disturbing things about Johnnie Cochran’s office and how they were disinterested in some very important case leads. I myself found F. Lee Bailey’s work exceedingly weak, especially with things about Mark Fuhrman that were left unexplored after his direct testimony.
In any case, the autopsy evidence blows out the prosecution’s theory of the case, even without the Browns’ wavering on the last time they talked with their daughter. I won’t go so far as to say that that Simpson didn’t have something to do with it (although there’s more to argue against it than for it), but not the way that the prosecution said.
Bob In Pacifica
Also, Brachiator, how many phone companies generate bills on the 4th of July? That was the date the document was generated. And it actually wasn’t a bill. And why use phone bill facsimiles and not the luds, which were available and would have shown all calls? Billing offices aren’t open on the 4th of July, a Monday in 1994. Marcia Clark went to the phone company billing office on a day it was closed to get a document that was incomplete.
Having followed the case I don’t think that the prosecution ever proved the case. And most people think he’s guilty but not based on the evidence. I watched the cable shows presume his guilt every night. Geraldo Rivera was as right about the OJ case as he is about just about everything else. That is, wrong.
Bob In Pacifica
Brachiator, I notice you have so far avoided the autopsy evidence. Please take a jpeek.
I looked at the case first in the wider societal view, how it was covered and what it did for America. At the time a fairly new, widespread cable network industry was devoting huge hours of time commenting on how guilty Simpson was. There were surveys about how many white people thought he was guilty versus African American people, and this was halfway through the prosecution’s case. In the morning you could hear Howard Stern making fun of him and you could go to bed watching Letterman give his top ten reasons for OJ being guilty. It was all OJ all the time, it was all about OJ being guilty and there was no counterbalancing voice.
If you go back you will see a some familiar faces building their careers on slagging OJ. John Gibson for one.
I found time and again that the defense team failed to pursue leads or state the obvious. The exception seemed to be Barry Scheck, who was the best attorney by far. But the defense was compartmentalized by attorney, so while Scheck covered the integrity of the evidence, he did not touch much of the rest.
To your question, why would a show trial not convict a person? To show he got away with murder. That was the message repeated over and over. OJ got away with murder, and is still repeated. And the racist submessage was that he got away with murder because of low-IQ blacks, or blacks who stick together or the liberal justice system, etc. All of those memes were regurgitated over and over after the trial. Most people still walk around with them in their heads.
The OJ case was one of several national stories that steered the country rightward. The Polly Klaas case. The Susan Smith case. No political connection? Newt Gingrich took time out from schtupping his girlfriend on his desk to announce that Bill Clinton’s immorality was the cause of Susan Smith murdering her children and the explosion of immorality. 1994 was the year of the Contract With America. 1994 was the year that “3 Strikes” passed in California.
I won’t argue that Simpson was set up and used for political purposes because I don’t have that linkage.
However, I think that the evidence for Simpson’s guilt isn’t there, the conduct of both the prosecution and the defense at trial was peculiar and suspicious and the incredible presumption of Simpson’s guilt, not based on facts, was at the time unprecedented.
Brachiator
@Bob In Pacifica:
Is this thread still on? A few sideline issues.
What someone said to an acquaintance really doesn’t matter. If there is verifiable evidence of a conversation between the Browns and their daughter after 11 pm, then I guess that Simpson could pursue relief from the civil case (since there is no criminal case with respect to the original charge). However, either Simpson has not pursued this, or he has not prevailed when he tried to pursue it. This makes it a non-issue.
I did a quick google search and provided a link. Those more interested than I am in the case can determine whether the information presented in the link is accurate.
Strictly speaking, a theory of a case can be entirely wrong, but if all of the evidence points to a particular person, then that person could still be found guilty. In a similar vein, understanding a person’s motive for committing a crime is not necessary in establishing that person’s guilt.
I find assertions that Simpson had “something” to do with the crime but was not the actual killer to be odd. But that’s just me.
I think the societal impact of the Simpson trial is overblown, as compared to, say the Rodney King trial.
This is absurd, unless you are saying that the judge and the prosecution wanted Simpson to be acquitted. Celebrities and the powerful get away with murder all the time. Robert Blake was acquitted, and Phil Spector just barely got convicted. In a sick way, one could argue that America has matured when a celebrity can get away with murder without regard to his ethnicity.
This is America. Racists, kinda like Republicans, re-interpret everything to prove their case and lie, deny and distort anything that does not further their world view.
Yes, and Bill Clinton getting a blowjob really upset Osama bin Laden. And teh feminists and teh Negroes and teh homosexuals have been upsetting America since 1965. And teh Jews. Always, teh Jews. And maybe Catholics, Masons and teh Queen of England.
Fools, bigots, and a good portion of the Republicans sitting on the Sotomayor panel ooze disquiet from every pore of their body and desire not simply a rightward shift, but a return to some magical good old days when they could stew in the comfortable bath of Christian white male privilege, with their Christian white women looking lovingly on and approving everything that they said and did.
Boo freakin’ hoo.
Oh yeah, and the last time I checked, Susan Smith was still in jail, and we say that not even Southern law enforcement officials bought her scary Negro claims. How you think this served the right is beyond me.
Coming back to Simpson,
The prosecution was clumsy, but the defense much better than you give them credit for. That said, neither Simpson nor anyone representing him has spent a nanosecond of time looking for “the real killers” (just as Robert Blake hasn’t spent time looking for the killer of the mother of his child). With this in mind, those who want to ride on the OJ Vindication Express are welcome to do so. But I don’t think the case is as important as you seem to think it is.