Reply #39: You don't think Luskin and his boys have been spinning? [View All]

[sofa king]

Here's an example from June of 2005:

http://www.needlenose.com/node/view/1642

The author of that blog says: "Okay, so the first thing we know is that this wasn't information that was painstakingly dug out by an intrepid reporter -- the anonymous lawyer made it his personal mission to spread the word as far and wide as possible. That alone points a finger in the direction of Karl Rove's attorney, Robert Luskin, who's made several similar multiple-outlet PR forays in the past two weeks. Add in the apparent motivations behind the story, and the chances are approximately zero that the source could be anyone else."

There is of course two years' worth of similar print on the subject. But I get the impression that's not what you mean.

You being a legal mind and all, you wouldn't be pulling a nasty trick on me by parsing the phrase "defense attorneys for people who haven't been indicted," would you? I realize that in logical terms, there is no such thing as a defense attorney for the unindicted. However, Karl Rove does have Luskin in his employ, and Luskin has commented on Rove's behalf on the Plame Affair, and Luskin is suspected by many observers to be the friendly source of information being delivered to the press on a regular basis.

At any rate, I completely agree with you that the sketch is laughable--with some qualifications. If you're sticking to a legal standard of evidence, then the grand jury deliberations are invisible and unknown, and in that reality, nobody knows anything and the people who pretend to know and those who attend to their prattle are suckers.

But just as radio traffic analysis in wartime can be used to make guesses about enemy movements by measuring the volume, location and pattern of their coded and therefore secret deliberations, so too can we make guesses about where Fitzgerald is leading the jury by observing the visible process which surrounds their unknown activity.

Parts of those guesses will certainly be wrong, perhaps even hilariously wrong, but the picture does not have to be infallible to be accurate.