Blogs are touted as the savior of democracy – a voice for the people, a place where our cherished freedom of speech enjoys the freedom of information.
…and, by the way, did I mention the bridge I’ve got for sale up in Brooklyn?
Blogs are in the information business – news you can use but news that can use you, too.
Last week blogs were big news. The defense team for the King of Torts, indicted Mississippi attorney Richard “Dickie” Scruggs, cited the unfavorable environment created by blogs in the Motion for Change of Venue.
The named blogs responded with a “moment of silence” and noticeable absence of some of his most vicious critics. However, it wasn’t long before they were back in business -feasting on Mississippi Attorney General Jim Hood with a side dish of Scruggs and the others for desert.
Hood is a state-wide elected official and his conduct is fair game for public conversation – but this game was anything but fair. Although he recently won reelection by a larger percentage of vote than any other candidate, few of his supporters comment on these blogs. Understandably so - take a look at the titles of these posts: AG Jim Hood Goes on Offense…and Fumbles the Ball; What's the Name for Hood Posts; and Hood Pours Gasoline, Strikes Match, and Sets Self on Fire.
I don’t know who picked up the tab for this feast but I know who paid the price – the people on the Coast – particularly those with State Farm claims unsettled. Banned from one blog and then another, and threatened by yet a third, robbed Hood of his strongest supporter and those who read these blogs of a balance view.
I came to offer Promise – for every voice to be heard. Meet bellesouth a fearless fighter for the people on the Coast – a diva of a defender with a sack full of rock solid fact and a spirited opinion up against a Goliath of critics who turned on her when they had nothing of substance to throw back.
(Note from Sop: To the extent this intersects with insurance we are allowing some Jim Hood discussion. We have begun the process of contacting the Office of the Mississippi Attorney General in hopes Mr Hood will comment to the extent he can on what his office is doing for us on these insurance issues. Given the pilloring he has taken, unfairly in certain respects in our opinions, we intend to provide a blog outlet that will simply allow him to present a differing point of view, just as we welcomed the Rimkus Engineer's viewpoints on our Aiken threads.)
Also a quick hello to Mr CLS and our thanks for reading us. - sop
Wednesday, February 20, 2008
Robin' Hood of Support
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8 comments:
I used the term firehouse syndrome in my last post, aka a blogging community can become a victim of group think. I saw the exchanges involving Belle on Rossmiller's blog, Yall and Folo and thought her behavior deviated only from the prevalent viewpoint, not any accepted rules of behavior I derived from my 5 years of active financial blogging.
On financial blogs being shouted down is often a good thing because group think (also known in less polite company as the circle jerk) can be traded against. Smart investors are also very open minded so it doesn't happen much on the financial boards.
Political blogging is a different thing compeletly and it seems to me that a lack of diversity of opinions is not healthy. My experience has been people will not post where the level of personal invective is high. Since there are no shortages of opinions on Dickie Scruggs or Jim Hood it may be finding any sort of balance may be an impossible goal.
Hey Guys and Gals, thanks for the support. I was really shocked at the behavior of those blogs because I am not interested in posting vitriol (although I received a lot of that on Y'all Politics) but I do support a valid argument on the issues. It seemed quite evident that I was called out only when I got too close to the truth for them and those bloggers were there to show only one side of the argument.
I was struck by the vitriol aimed at Hood when I came upon the subject of the senatorial election date dispute (you know the one where Barbour broke the law which stated that the election shall be held within 90 days of the vacancy). I went back and searched the CL and found these same bloggers and the CL have been after him for over a year. I cannot understand how the CL allows Sid to continually post about Hood. Sid just gnaws and gnaws away at him. It didn't work to bring him down all last year or before the election and yet he still gnaws.
Sid Salter has the same right to rip Jim Hood that we have to rip the insurance industry. The part I find distasteful is the double standard that these commenters use with respect to Mr Hood, decrying his taking money from trial lawyers while acting as though money given to the GOP is somehow pristine.
State wide campaigns cost money to run and we lost a senatorial candidate yesterday because of money.
The bottom line is the voters spoke last November and I believe a Hood-Hopklins matchup today would yield a similar result.
Jim Hood should certainly monitor events in Oxford but there is no purpose to be served in beginning a state investigation at this point.
Is Jim Hood perfect? No. But the rhetoric strikes me as less interested as being constructive than destructive. An attorney general weakened for it's own sake short changes all of us.
And until the so called pundits can rationally explain what can be accomplished by trying to grind those who have already plead guilty and are currently cooperating into the ground I doubt my viewpoint will change.
I agree with sop - obviously, or I wouldn't have written what I did.
I'd rather see a blog host limit discussion on both sides of an issue than allow the majority opinion to make those with differing opinion an issue - moderation implies that would be the case IMHO.
Assuming a balanced discussion is the intent - I suppose should be my bottom line.
Is Jim Hood perfect? Of course not, but who is? He seems to be a better prosecutor than a public relations guy. But I have looked at the MS AG site and I am impressed with all that his office has done. One can go back and look through the years and it looks as though he was a little slow in getting things revved up but now he's crusing on a whole host of issues that no one is giving him credit for. Also, I don't think one can blame Hood for all of the SF shennigans. I saw where it took Oklahoma 6 years to get an indictment against SF for using the same engineering guys as they tried to send down to the coast after Katrina until they got caught. That was Haag Engineering. SF was found guilty of using these engineers to find fault with construction rather than a tornado.
P.S. It was that information, btw, that got me booted off Rossmiller's site. Nothing to see here, folks, just move along...
Our long lost friend and original co moderator Steve did some excellent research on Haag, specifically engineer Tim Marshall after Anita Lee at the Sun Herald had stories published showing improprieties on Haag's part in both Oklahoma and North Carolina. It was that expose' that lead State Farm to stop using Haag down here IMO.
You are absolutely correct about the problems in Oklahoma City except it took 7 years for the people there to obtain justice rather than 6. Even worse is the tornado damage patterns were obviously in Oklahoma City; there was no wind-water slabs to figure out, the wind damage was obvious.
In the end State Farm used the court system in Oklahoma as an implement of destruction against their policy holders and I have a real problem with that, as big a problem in fact as rigging the court system the other way.
I think we all understand that two wrongs do not make a right but in light of how State Farm and Allstate have withheld properly discoverable documents and violated court orders in doing so casts a different light on why Dickie Scruggs made sure Jim Hood's office had a copy of the Rigsby obtained documents.
sop
Yeah, you right they use the court system. And they are using it in our republican friendly state as far as it will go. I said 6 years because they were found guilty after six years and then they settled a year later, even after they'd been found guilty! They sure like to pay their lawyers but don't want to pay on those claims do they?
Which case is it, McIntosh v. State Farm where KLG took over for SKG and they have been trying to get those lawyers disqualified? I have to go look and see what's up with that, but SF is getting bad press for misstating the facts.
Here is the link to LNL on that subject.
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