It Frightens Children and Spoils Milk
Posted on | July 21, 2007
The mere invocation of The President Who Shall Not Be Named may be enough to sway juries, according to a couple of Philadelphia lawyers.
PHILADELPHIA — Apparently President Bush is now so unpopular that some lawyers believe the mere mention of his name in front of a jury could tip the scales against them.
Attorneys Michael Laffey and Robert DiDomenicis of Holsten & Associates in Media, Pa., are defending Upper Darby Township in a civil rights suit brought by Harold Lischner, an 82-year-old doctor who claims he was falsely arrested for displaying an anti-war sign at a Bush campaign event in September 2003.
With the case set to go to trial today, the defense lawyers recently filed a flurry of motions, including one that asked U.S. District Judge Gene E.K. Pratter to prohibit the plaintiff from mentioning Bush’s name.
The motion in Lischner v. Upper Darby Township said that, according to the latest Newsweek poll, Bush has “the worst approval rating of an American president in a generation,” and that 62 percent of Americans believe that Bush’s handling of the war in Iraq show that he is “stubborn and unwilling to admit his mistakes.”
Bush’s identity, they argued, “in and of itself, presents the danger that the jury will favor plaintiff.”
I envision a 2008 in which we draw curtains around the White House, and tiptoe quietly past the spot pretending that it’s already 2009, while Congress looks uncomfortable and mutters, “Impeach whom?”
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