Wednesday, January 21, 2004
Nothing To See Here!!!
Hypothetical situation: You're the defendant in a very high-profile court case. The judge presiding over the case happens to be a personal friend of yours. That's the beginning of a problem right there...
But you take it a step further: Three weeks after the case is accepted by the court, you go on a duck-hunting trip with said judge/friend!
Well, now that's just friggin' obvious!!!
Sound crazy??? Implausible??? Just too wacky to be for real???
WRONG!!!
A scant three weeks after the Supreme Court of the United States decided to rule on whether or not Vice President Dick Cheney's secret meetings with energy industry lobbyists violated US law, justice Antonin Scalia and VP Cheney were off on a duck-hunting trip in Louisiana...
Truth is always way stranger than fiction...
The excuse that Scalia gave rings painfully hollow, as well. He claims that Supreme Court justices are regularly invited to the White House for dinners, events, etc...This situation is far more specific in that Scalia's decision can basically exonerate a good friend who's found himself in a much-deserved heap of trouble. A hunting trip is slightly more personal than an open event at the White House...
The federal code of judicial conduct requires that any justice "shall disqualify himself in any proceeding in which his impartiality might reasonably be questioned."
This situation literally defines the phrase "conflict of interest", but as with every outrage that the current administration unleashes on the country on a daily basis, it will probably be ignored by an obedient media and allowed to blow over by a Democratic party with a pair of raisins where their balls should be...
Here's your link. Read up and get pissed, the Democrats probably won't do it for you...
http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/ap/20040118/ap_on_go_pr_wh/cheney_scalia_5
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