"The facts of the case demonstrate two critical things," said Gableman's attorney, James Bopp, Jr. "The first is what was stated in the ad was true, not false. And second, that then-Judge Gableman took every reasonable effort to ensure the ad was true."Confirming what I said a long time ago, it seems the only defense to this textbook example of the worst kind of political sleaze (deployed in a judicial contest, of all things, and in response to somebody else's ads) is treating it as a disconnected set of individual statements.
That shouldn't — and I expect it won't — wash with the three-judge panel soon to convene and evaluate the merits of this case.
This was not a letter-size handout containing a series of bullet points. It was a television advertisement produced calculatedly to convey a much more conclusory and far more insidious message.
That message has to be perceived as a whole, which whole is comprised of not just what Gableman is arguing is an innocent collection of separable propositions, but all of the elements of the media put to effective use, including the juxtaposition of mug shot images, the lachrymose narration, and the ominous musical score.
Because that overarching message is the one that Gableman intended, and that is the one that needs to be adjudicated.
Gableman wasn't simply out to inform the public that Justice Butler had been a criminal defense lawyer and that Reuben Lee Mitchell was a child molester. To claim that that's all he was up to is preposterous.
The AP opines that Michael Gableman's removal from the bench is "highly unlikely." That may well be, but I wouldn't be so sure about it. Personally, I would characterize that particular sanction less as a punishment but rather more a denial of his reward.
Then perhaps he can join Larry Flynt in the pantheon of free speech martyrs and take to the rubber chicken circuit with Joe the Plumber.
WisPolitics.com has Gableman's Statement of Facts (.pdf; 9 pgs.).
7 comments:
ἐνθύμημα
"Now, I don't know or have never met my candidate; and for that reason I am more apt to say something good of him than anyone else."
-- Will Rogers
His pleading excludes any specific response to paragraphs 10(D) & (E) of the complaint. Does that matter?
Astute catch, but I haven't got that far yet. I'm stuck at paragraph 5, trying to figure out who were these "innocent criminals" Louis Butler worked to put on the street.
They must be friends of the married bachelors.
Let's play Calvinball!
Head. Hurt.
Fascinating.
The Gableman camp unveiled this defense many months ago; in short: as a judicial candidate he has a first amendment right to lie by inference. His answer formally disputes any falsehood in the ad: it is "true" that Butler "worked to put criminals on the street"; equally true that Butler found a loophole for Mitchell; and, true that after Mitchell eventually attained release from prison he went on to rape again. But, Gableman claims, the ad never said that the later rape occurred "because of Louis Butler's conduct." So. Butler devoted himself to putting criminals on the streets; in the course of working for Mitchell he found a loophole; and guess what? that scumbag raped again.
What the Gableman answer does not directly say, but which is implicit (and harkens back to his earlier, less formal defense) is that if the ad gulled the public into actually believing that Butler's efforts on behalf of Mitchell secured the latter's release from prison (and consequential opportunity to rape again), then tough. Gableman has a first amendment right to lie by inference. As has been mentioned many times by now, this defense itself seems like reliance on a loophole. And I rather suspect that this is what iT has in mind when he says that the defense won't "wash with the three-judge panel" deciding Gableman's fate.
I'm as far as you can get from an expert in election law, so I can't say whether in this context there's a right to lie by inference, at least in the abstract. But as iT also notes, quite astutely, context is everything, and in context this ad screamed out that Butler had secured Mitchell's release. I don't see this as a remotely close question. How would the ordinary viewer construe "loophole"? Simply, "A way of escaping a difficulty, especially an omission or ambiguity in the wording of a contract or law that provides a means of evading compliance. Butler, then, as was his aim, found a way for Mitchell to escape criminal liability, and the result was that Mitchell went on to rape again. Except that Butler's efforts were unavailing, so the premise of the ad is demonstrably false.
iT's analyses, I should add, are unfailingly incisive and fill a vacuum left by the mainstream media.
Great points as usual, Counselor; many thanks.
And I couldn't agree more with your suggestion -- 'if so, then tough' -- that, if nothing else, the ad was meant to appeal to the lowest common denominator of the electorate, those who haven't the slightest clue about the position they're voting to fill.
And such candidates will do whatever it takes to keep it that way.
That may be what galls me the most about the whole process: the advantages taken of it by certain candidates to engage in the basest of pandering, thereby insulting not only their own prospective supporters but the entire judicial institution.
And, obviously, every other thinking person. Their opponents they simply defame.
greenbaypressgazette.com Staff
wbluhm wrote: (Warren Bluhm is the Editor)
"Our electronic archives don't go all the way back,"
What are you saying wbluhm, the GBPG has no archives prior to 2005? Did you check the micro fiche at the library? 2920 days passed and you could only muster 2 PG complaints of pork-barrel spending. That's fair and balanced reporting. Mr. Murdoch would be proud.
OK, you caught me in a white lie. With only 1,000 characters to work with, I only looked through the electronic archives for the words "pork barrel" and grabbed quotes from the first two editorials that looked relevant to the question. We have archives back to around '01 or '02 (and forgive me, but I wasn't going to go back to the microfiche) and I only looked back to '05.
By the way, all these comments about the Press-Gazette traditionally having a conservative opinion page slant? Yeah, it does - so?
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