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Hey, Somebody Had To Fix Franken's Scalia Mess



Whether the left was busy overdosing on Tofurkey, or protesting at shopping malls (we're certain they weren't with Cindy Sheehan in Crawford, nobody was), the Radio Equalizer isn't sure. They were very, very late to the Franken-Scalia party, however.

After widespread New York City media criticism (previously covered here), along comes The Nation a week later, claiming Al Franken was actually right to confront US Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia.

Yes, we can read Al's mind: "Hey, where the #!%#&?! were you guys last week?"

Why didn't more lefties race to Franken's rescue when this first broke? Did even they see the irony in pressing Scalia over ethics issues, given Air America Radio's sleazy corporate behavior and Franken's awareness of it (previously proven by Michelle Malkin and myself), despite his dishonest denials?

In keeping with typical leftist intellectual dishonesty, The Nation's John Nichols omits any mention of the Gloria Wise Boys & Girls Club scandal, where $875,000 in taxpayer grants were diverted to the liberal radio network.

How does that really compare to Scalia's hunting trip, or his dinner with Cheney?

An excerpt:

According to a scathing article that appeared in the Scalia-friendly New York Post, "Franken stood up in the back row and started talking about ‘judicial demeanor' and asking ‘hypothetically' about whether a judge should recuse himself if he had gone duck-hunting or flown in a private jet with a party in a case before his court."

Franken's reference was to Scalia's refusal to recuse himself from deliberations involving a lawsuit brought by public-interest groups that said Vice President Dick Cheney engaged in improper contacts with energy-industry executives and lobbyists while heading the Bush administration task force on energy policy. A federal court ordered Cheney to release documents related to his work with the task force, at which point the Bush administration appealed to the Supreme Court.

After the administration filed its appeal but before the court took the case, Cheney and Scalia were seen dining together in November, 2003, at an out-of-the-way restaurant on Maryland's eastern shore.

After the court agreed to take the case, Cheney and Scalia spent several days in January, 2004, hunting ducks at a remote camp in Louisiana.

Watchdog groups called for Scalia to recuse himself -- Charles Lewis, director of the Center for Public Integrity, argued that fraternization involving a justice and a litigant with a case before the court "gives the appearance of a tainted process where decisions are not made on the merits" -- but the justice responded by announcing that, "I do not think my impartiality could reasonably be questioned."

Several months later, Scalia and the other justices remanded the case back to the appellate court for further consideration -- a decision that effectively made the issue go away during the 2004 presidential contest.

Scalia, a friend of Cheney's since the days when they worked together in the administration of former President Gerald Ford, had participated in a decision that was of tremendous benefit to the vice president in an election year.

Yet, when Franken raised the issue at the Conversation on the Circle event, according to the Post, Scalia "chided Franken as if he were a delinquent schoolboy." And Time Warner chairman Dick Parsons said of author: "Al was not quite ready for prime time."

In fact, it was Scalia, not Franken, who was caught with his ethics down.

Scalia took issue with the comic's use of the word demeanor. "Demeanor is the wrong word. You mean ethics," the justice claimed, before adding that, "Ethics is governed by tradition. It has never been the case where you recuse because of friendship."

Actually, Scalia was wrong on all accounts. Because U.S. Supreme Court justices decide when to recuse themselves for ethical reasons, they operate under looser standards and softer scrutiny than other jurists. Thus, the term "demeanor" was precisely correct. Legal dictionaries define "demeanor" as one's "outward manner" and "way of conducting oneself." By any measure, with his refusal to recuse himself from a case involving his friend Cheney, Scalia chose to conduct himself in an unethical manner.

While it's convenient to pin it all on the New York Post, until The Nation is ready to come clean on the Gloria Wise scandal, they haven't a leg to stand on here. "Ethics" and "Al Franken" really don't belong in the same sentence.

That confronting Scalia resulted in the one time Al didn't get his legendary "Frankenfluff" treatment, probably wasn't coincidental.


Oddly, Al Franken also jumped into Washington state politics today, in a widely distributed AP story. The issue: embattled Spokane Mayor Jim West, who faces an upcoming recall vote after a barrage of recent allegations about his personal life.

From the story (excerpted here):

SPOKANE, Wash. -- Six months after a newspaper outed Mayor Jim West as a closeted homosexual and accused him of offering city jobs and perks to young men in exchange for sex, residents are nearing the end of a cringe-inducing saga.

Ballots are already in the mail for a special Dec. 6 election that will decide if West remains in office or is recalled. Officials are investigating whether he abused his office.

"I think Spokane has been suffering from a low-grade depression," said Tom Keefe, a local attorney who is spearheading the effort to recall West.

And why not? Consider some of the details that have greeted residents on television or in The Spokesman-Review newspaper:

One young man accused West, 55, of offering him $300 to swim naked with him.

An investigator said West offered an $80,000 a year job as city human resources director to a young gay man, identified as Witness No. 2, with no qualifications for the work, saying "it's totally my choice."

The Spokesman-Review on May 5 began a series of stories that contended West offered young men city jobs in exchange for sex. Several young gay men told the newspaper they were offered perks, trips, jobs and appointments by West.

The recall election is based on a single count alleging West misused his office by offering to help an 18-year-old man he met at Gay.com get a City Hall internship. The person the mayor thought was a young man was really a middle-aged computer expert hired by the newspaper.

For the national media, the West story was interesting primarily because he was a longtime conservative Republican state legislator who often voted against gay-friendly bills.

Liberal comedian and author Al Franken calls West "the anti-gay gay mayor."

"Not every anti-gay Republican is a repressed homosexual," Franken joked during an appearance in Spokane, "I just want to make that clear."

West also went on the "Today" show early in the scandal to explain that he voted against gay marriage and similar bills because it was the will of his constituents.

West has declined to identity himself as gay, or "psychoanalyze" himself or talk about when he knew he was attracted to men. He is not in therapy, he told The Associated Press, even though his private laundry has been hanging for months on the national clothesline.

"I'm asexual more than anything else," West said, describing his life as work, TV, pizza and beer.

Predictably, liberal gay groups have pounced on West, for the sole reason that he's a Republican. Were he a Democrat, they'd be marching in the streets to support him.

Franken's rhetoric follows their talking points with precision.

Since it seems likely West will be recalled, it's hard to understand why Franken felt the need to kick a guy on his way out of Dodge, except to take an easy shot at somebody.

Someday Al will get all of the anger out his system, once and for all.


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Frankenspeech by Agent Tim Online, Frankencharity by IMAO