Comments on: Vicki Iseman: Blanket Defamation

By: bmaz

bmaz — Thu, 01 Jan 2009 19:04:27 +0000

Heh heh. Know how you get in “Best Lawyers in America”? Make sure your firm subscribes to their service, buys a couple of their reference books at a couple of hundred bucks a pop and then have your firm administrator nominate the lawyers in your firm you want listed. Then you have your attorney friends in your town send off a couple of glowing confidence votes and viola you are in the “Best Lawyers in America”. Bout the same as for Martindale-Hubbell, although getting an AV rating in M-H is a tad more difficult (but not that much; they gave it to my old firm).

By: masaccio

masaccio — Thu, 01 Jan 2009 18:42:46 +0000

Here is the website of Iseman’s lawyers. They are personal injury lawyers, with a long list of areas, including slip and fall. And, get this,

6 of Our Attorneys are Listed with the Best Lawyers in America

Maybe that explains the typo in paragraph 21.

By: masaccio

masaccio — Thu, 01 Jan 2009 18:29:37 +0000

I agree, we need to clean house at DOJ. I’m ready to move on….

By: bmaz

bmaz — Thu, 01 Jan 2009 18:10:23 +0000

Problem with that is that not only does the NYT fight suits like this every time, there are media consortiums that will back it in doing so. Nobody want to open the door to this crap; there will be no quiet settlement. That will not happen.

By: Rickbrew9x

Rickbrew9x — Thu, 01 Jan 2009 18:05:54 +0000

I think Vicki has just lost her mojo on capital hill because she has become too well-known, the Congress has changed parties, the practice of lobbying itself has become a dirty word after Abramoff and she is getting a little too long in the tooth for her “flirting” to continue to successfully open the right doors.

If she is not a particularly self-analytical person, she may attribute everything that is currently happening to her professionally to one clear piece of national publicity - the New York Times article. It certainly was not a career-enhancer for a lobbyist who has traded on her looks and personality. Of course, it was focused on the main character - John McCain - not Vicki.

Or she may just have had a litigious tort lawyer latch onto her, for whatever reasons. The question regarding who is paying for the law suit is a very interesting one. Could this be legal “greymail?” Bring a lawsuit against the NY Times for a clearly high amount, publicize it, and try to get a settlement from the NY Times?

Those alternatives are not mutually exclusive, either.

One thing is for sure though, she is now going to be radioactive on Capital Hill. No politician is going to dare be seen with her. If her lobbying career has already died, then this could just be an effort to get a nest egg to fund the transition to a new career.

By: SaltinWound

SaltinWound — Thu, 01 Jan 2009 16:48:54 +0000

Mary, the labored sentence you quoted could be interpreted this way: she did all of those things, and all she’s denying is that it breached the public trust. In the light of day, it still seems to me that she’s going after McCain with this.

By: Mary

Mary — Thu, 01 Jan 2009 16:39:53 +0000

I haven’t made it past 20 or so in the comments, but I’d think the paper will have fun with this - it sure opens the door to some juicey opportunities to try for disocvery against McCainco as the sideshow on this, but with counts like the one pulled in the post

Ms. Iseman exploited an alleged personal and social friendship with Senator McCain to obtain favorable legislative outcomes for her clients, engaging in “inappropriate” behavior that constituted a conflict of interest and a violation of professional and ethical norms in breach of the public trust.

they’d have to deliberately fumble the ball to get to discovery on this. It’s pretty garbled, but as a lobbyist, she didn’t hold a position of public trust to be breached. It may be there on a closer reading, but I’m failing to find a legal claim that matches up with the statements they are saying constitute a claim.

OT - reported elsewhere this morning some story about Burris and trying to convict an innocent man. I don’t know whether the story is right or wrong, fair or unfair, but the point that stands out is that members of his staff quit rather than work for wrong. That’s the failure of the last 5 +/- years (depending on when you want to beleive that even pretty dense lawyers would realize they were volunteering to work for state sponsored torture) - federal prosecutors and agency lawyers, by the droves - thousands and thousands, all failed to have that base line morality.

It doesn’t really matter now who gets stuck where on the DOJ heirarchy - bc the institution is the people and they’ve had years to show who and what they are, and that won’t change now.

By: klynn

klynn — Thu, 01 Jan 2009 15:27:41 +0000

Unusual access to the committee chair…gone.

So who is paying her legal fees? Certainly she has backing. Knowing that would make this stupidity much more clear.

Which of her clients has the most to gain from this suit happening?

By: radiofreewill

radiofreewill — Thu, 01 Jan 2009 15:27:01 +0000

Pillow-Talking Vicki certainly picked an inauspicious time to be marketing herself as the righteously angry Joan of Lobby…Patron Saint of Neocon Deal-Doers.

By: radiofreewill

radiofreewill — Thu, 01 Jan 2009 15:07:20 +0000

I’m with JimWhite!

Texas Tech better bring their whips and chairs or Ole Miss will Maul them - those guys can play football!