Re: Responses to Scooter, Sam and Executive Power Blog

November 9, 2005

Re: Responses to Scooter, Sam and Executive Power Blog.
From: Dean Lawrence R. Velvel
VelvelOnNationalAffairs.com

Dear Colleagues:

The last posting on this blog, entitled Scooter, Sam and Executive Power, was reposted on Counterpunch, a site edited by Alexander Cockburn and Jeffrey St. Clair, under the title Lying, Law Schools and Executive Power. In consequence, I received nearly a dozen emails -- more emails about a single piece than ever before. Most were supportive; some not. All were greatly appreciated, and I thank the emailers for them. Several of the emails asked pointed questions or made pointed remarks, sometimes ones that would raise a furor if they became widespread in the public arena. Most of the correspondents did not register objections to their emails being posted on this blog, and those emails are appended below.

When the Scooter, Sam piece was edited for reposting on Counterpunch, its first three paragraphs were eliminated. I have appended them below, after the emails, because the second paragraph makes a point that may resonate with a lot of the emailers who read the edited version and who will receive the present posting. For I imagine that at least a few of those emailers may have been against the war, against Bush and against his incompetent, corrupt crowd for a long time, but long found themselves vox clamante in deserto, a voice in the wilderness whose views were shunned (sometimes derided?) by others. Those who suffered such obloquy may feel a kinship with what was said in the second paragraph of Scooter, Sam and Executive Power.

From: Dave Pollakmailto:davepollak@verizon.net
Date: Tuesday, November 08, 2005 10:16 PM
To: 'Dean Lawrence R. Velvel'
Subject: RE: What the Senators Should Ask Judge Alito

Dean Velvel,

You have my permission to publish this comment:

After reading your questions for Judge Alito, I'm pondering my inability to have articulated similar ones. Did my Ivy League case law education fail me or am I just that limited? I'm thinking of finding out. Do you offer an LL.M.? Dave Pollak Laconia, NH

From: Jeffrey Shonka
To: velvel@mslaw.edu
Sent: Monday, November 07, 2005 5:34 PM
Subject: Lying, Law Schools and Executive Power

The difference between most conservatives and liberals on this issue is that conservatives do not want judges to decide matters better left to the people, while liberals don't trust the people and seek to override their will through the judicial process. Liberals wish to twist the constitution with convenient rhetoric and false compassion. This is why judgeships are so important to liberals. With all of the judges in their pockets, liberals no longer need to rely on such inefficiencies as the democratic process.

Unfortunately for the left, the People have now caught up with the sham. As a result, Judge Alito will become Justice Alito.

From: Anthony Gregory
To: velvel@mslaw.edu
Sent: Saturday, November 05, 2005 4:09 PM
Subject: I like your article

I liked your article on Alito. But do you really think that a ban on carrying weapons near a school would have stopped the Columbine massacre, any better than the many other gun laws the students violated in the commission of that crime? Do you really think this is properly a federal matter, any more than the war on drugs?

From: Peter Lushing
To: velvel@mslaw.edu
Sent: Saturday, November 05, 2005 9:51 PM
Subject: Tribe on nominees

Richard Friedman of Michigan demolished Tribe in an article called Tribal Myths. Friedman is a trained historian....check out his article., 91 Yale 1283

From: Stephen Fox
To: velvel@mslaw.edu
Sent: Saturday, November 05, 2005 3:41 PM
Subject: articulating lying

Dear Dean,

I greatly appreciate your outstanding article on lying that I just read at counterpunch.org. Thank you. There's just one thing: you did not acknowledge that Special Prosecutor Fitzgerald gained his law degree from Harvard. You could have gotten away with slipping that fact in where you say (I'm paraphrasing) that not all blue collars are truthful and not all white collars are liars. Apparently, not all Harvard law grads are elitists?

Sincerely,

Stephen Fox
Associate Professor of Chemistry
University of Louisiana at Monroe

From: L. Bruens
To: Monday, November 07, 2005 4:58 PM
Sent: Dean Lawrence R. Velvel
Subject:Re: Ref. "Lying, Law Schools and Executive Power"

Sir:

Thank you so very much for your refreshing point of view.

Best of luck

Mr. L. Bruens

From: mailto:pdambournet@earthlink.netPhilippe Dambournet
To:
Sent: Saturday, November 05, 2005 3:04 PM
Subject: RE: Lying, Law Schools and Executive Power

While we're at it, how about a permanent Catholic majority on the Court?

Sincerely,
Philippe Dambournet


From: Boyle, Francis
To: 'velvel@mslaw.edu'
Sent: Saturday, November 05, 2005 12:21 PM
Subject: ok!

enjoyed your piece on Counterpunch. i have already publicly stated that the HLS Faculty and Deans are "sick and demented" for hiring the notorious torture lawyer and war criminal Jack Goldsmith. I made sure they had all the information on him before they voted. Kagan too. I have publicly stated that she and her "Vice" Dean should be fired, and that HLS is no longer fit to educate future members of the Bar and Officers of the Court. will continue to do so in any interview i give where it becomes relevant. also gave a lot of interviews against that fascist Roberts, who was a few years behind me at HLS. now giving interviews against Alito. I guess we do what we can. fab

Francis A. Boyle

mailto:fboyle@law.uiuc.edu

First three paragraphs of Scooter, Sam, and Executive Power Blog

Let me start with (the large number of) four preliminary points before getting down to cases with regard to Lewis Libby, Samuel Alito, and executive power.

The first preliminary point is, de facto, insufferable braggadocio. A close friend recently said he was concerned for me over the years, because I was saying things that he believed would cause me to lose credibility, to be looked at as some wild eyed nut. But now, he said, my long stated views are being vindicated. It is now common parlance that Bush and company are dishonest, malevolent, incompetent, uncaring of history or of people, substantive failures, generally rotten, and so forth. It pleased my friend that no longer could people look on this writer as odd man out, as some kind of nutbag, and that instead the views often expressed by this author had become mainstream ideas.

On Monday last, Paul Krugman wrote that "some of us" had "realized early on that this administration was cynical, dishonest and incompetent, but spent a long time unable to get others to see the obvious." You can observe a lot if you look, Yogi Berra famously said, but most people long cared neither to look nor to observe. They were too filled instead with the pervasive desire to believe -- the same pervasive desire that helped create Nazi Germany, Stalinist Russia, and other tyrannies.