Wednesday, March 07, 2007

Scooter, Annette and Dennis

So I go to Arizona last week (for the winter meeting of The Federation) and come home and come down with the flu. I think these warm climates just weaken us. I think I am (I hope) in that beginning stage of recovery where you are up all night because you have slept the last two days. Hence, I blog at 3 in the morning.

What strikes me at this odd hour is the similarity between the reactions of Harry Ried to the Libby verdict, the Wisconsin left to the story about Annette Ziegler's conflicts and, I must be fair, of the Wisconsin right to the report of a DOT attorney traveling to Pennsylvania to argue about Dennis Troha's tax bills. All claim to be outraged, but they are, in fact, exultant. All are rejoicing in the presumed ethical faults of the other side - not necessarily because they are that interested in ethics (although they may be) - but because it is the other side that has (apparently) stepped in it.

Ried is the worst because the facts are well known. He responds to the Libby verdict by observing that "It's about time someone in the Bush Administration has been held accountable for the campaign to manipulate intelligence and discredit war critics." But he knows - he knows - that the case was not about that. Fitzpatrick found no crime in the supposed "outing" of Valerie Plame. The case had nothing to do with the manipulation of intelligence. If intelligence was manipulated, Joe Wilson did not uncover it because his trip to Niger was singularly unenlightening on the subject of Iraq's nuclear program. The case was about whether the fact that Libby remembered old conversations with Tim Russert and Matthew Cooper differently than they did means that Libby was lying about the conversations. That would constitute perjury and obstruction of justice. But there was no crime in what Russert and Cooper claim he told them. If Libby had just said the same thing that Russert and Cooper said (or had the jury concluded he was honestly mistaken), there is no crime at all.

The local left's glee over Annette Ziegler's apparent failure to disclose a conflict in some cases involving West Bend Savings has nothing to do with a fanatical attachment to judicial ethics. That is reflected in the fact that all of this first began over Ziegler's alleged "tardiness" in recusing herself from a case involving Wal-Mart - something that every one who has been inside the bar in a courtroom immediately recognized as a nonissue. They wanted a "gotcha." That wasn't one, but apparently Clifford's hitman (or "private investigator") eventually dug one up. Good on him but, if Ziegler hires some "out of town talent" to root around in Clifford's past and finds a failing (there are very few of us that have not flubbed something sometime), will they be outraged or circle the wagons? Last fall, I heard countless folks on the left tell me that they were voting for the Governor because while, to dress up the language a bit, he may be ethically "different" but he is on our side. So I'm betting on the latter.

I don't want to jump into the same thing on the revelation that the state DOJ sent a lawyer to Pennsylvania to argue for the reduction of Dennis Troha's tax bill in that state. I do not do tax law, but I would want to know if there is some tax allocation issue, i.e., states essentially arguing over the same money, that required the agreement of Pennsylvania and Wisconsin and the extent to which there were similar efforts made on behalf of people who did not contribute to the Doyle campaign (or who are not huge state institutions like Schneider National). The press reports are conflicting on that. My guess is that this is still going to stink, but, for now, I'll stand down.

14 comments:

Anonymous said...

If you have a case against Clifford, I want to hear that. Matter of fact, I want to hear what both candidates are trying to hide from us. However, I do not think you should be writing for outside interest (Federalist Society)that undermind the citizens of this state.

I am a conservative for many years, before it became popular, and I am offended that she (Ziegler) tried to allign herself as a conservative when she has serious ethic problems.

Rick Esenberg said...

How has the Federalist Society (which has many members in Wisconsin) undermined the citizens of this state?

Anonymous said...

Do they (Federalists Society) or don't they want to put a Judge into our Supreme Court that has serious ethic problems?

Anonymous said...

You misspelled Harry Reid.

Jay Bullock said...

Fitzpatrick found no crime in the supposed "outing" of Valerie Plame.

That's not what Fitzpatrick said. What he said was that he could not make a case of it--in part, he claimed, because of the obstruction he faced from people like Libby.

illusory tenant said...

The local left's glee over Annette Ziegler's apparent failure to disclose a conflict in some cases involving West Bend Savings ...

"Some cases," according to the Journal-Sentinel, means "at least two dozen cases." I doubt if even the acolytes of Mao Zedong would be evincing glee over that set of circumstances.

Anonymous said...

It appears that we have one of the largest scandals unfolding in Wisconsin Circuit Court history. We should all be calling on the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court to take action now.

Rick Esenberg said...

Jay

He would have been no closer to a case had Libby agreed with Cooper and Russert on their conversations. You can assume that there "must have been a crime" that people are not talking about, but, ask yourself this, were you prepared to make the same assumption in the Georgia Thompson case.

Terrence Berres said...

In reply to Anonymous (12:16 PM), The Federalist Society does not endorse candidates.

Anonymous said...

terrence berres - it appears that you're trying to hide a bull elephant behind a tooth pick.

Selective condemnations and/or white-washing a candidates ethical problems are endorsements.

Either you're for the rules and the law or you're not.

Terrence Berres said...

In terms of the rules and the law, if the Federalist Society does not endorse candidates, then no one has the authority to endorse a candidate on its behalf.

Anonymous said...

terrence berres - conservatives are starting to speak out against Judge Ziegler - we hope that you will not want to place an unethical judge into the Supreme Court.

Anonymous said...

Rick,
Ziegler's problems are not some isolated "gotchya" of the kind all of us are prone to with enough attention. Her problems are long-standing, recent, and directly related to her job and the one to which she aspires.

Her Wal-Mart recusal only came after people started raising the question of her failure to recuse herself or at least provide notice of an appearance of conflicts. It is doubtful she would have recused herself without the current attention.

Also troubling is the willingness of outside groups to dump hundreds of thousands of dollars (will it go to the millions?) to get her elected. They want an activist judge and they see her as an activist.

While your analysis of Libby's convictions is legally correct, you improperly take it out of the context,which is what Reid and others are pointing out. Why did Libby leak the information to reporters? Why were there discusssions about Plame in the first place? Obviously, it was to continue the administration's slash and burn mentality with regard to any dissenters to their war efforts. If you can't convince the public with facts, you can always try to distract them. You can also send a message to other potential ddissenters that they should keep their mouths shut.

The problem with Ziegler and the Bush administration (and if proven, the Doyle adminstration) is that the public is sick and tired of liars, cheaters, and unethical leaders steering us in the wrong direction and then failing to take any responsibility for their mistakes. You would think the last election taught them sometheing about the mood of the electorate. Perhaps not.

Rick Esenberg said...

Anon

Attacking the credibility of a critic is not a crime, it's politics. Joe Wilson - in addition to overstating the significance of his report - portrayed himself as this neutral arbiter of the truth when, in fact, he was a participant in bureaucratic in-fighting. The fact that his wife recommended him was politically relevant. Disclosing her identity was apparently not a crime (or it would have been charged)and has nothing to do with the way in which the Bush administration handled pre-war intelligence. The CIA thought Wilson's report supported the WMD thesis and, if you read it, it most certainly did not disprove it.