Kathy, you’re part of the club now. You don’t have to fill in your stuff, it’s already filled in. In any case, the point to the apology was not out of concern for Jeralyn’s feelings. It was because I have worked to build up a certain tone, and that I hope that tone is expected out of me. I haven’t blogged like this post in a very long time. I am not sorry for the sentiment, so much as sorry for the lack of inconsistency, I guess.

Pug: lulz

Of course, so did John Edwards, Chris Dodd, Bill Richardson and Joe Biden. I guess they’re just a bunch of fools. Actually, they were fools if they ever thought Hillary Clinton would abide by the rules to which she agreed.

As a lawyer, I just want to point out that there are A LOT of stupid lawyers who make a lot more money than they should. (The reason has to do with the fact that legal licensing requirements are more about restricting the supply of lawyers than they are about making that supply good). There are also a LOT of successful bloggers whose success is predicated less on their actual ability to provide competent analysis than it is on their willingness to throw around invective and ad hominems while essentially ignoring any and all relevant facts. Oddly, these “skills” are also often the hallmark of a crappy, stupid lawyer- hence the legal axiom: if you have the law on your side, pound the law; if you have the facts on your side, pound the facts; and if you have neither, pound the table - a good lawyer can almost always make the facts or the law come out in their favor; a bad lawyer winds up with sore fists from pounding the table so much.

So there’s you explanation for Jeralyn’s success: she’s a crappy lawyer who attained success thanks to her participation in an organization that artificially restricts competition by limiting membership to those people lucky enough to be able to afford law school, bar exam fees, and bar dues (none of which have a thing to do with the actual practice of law). Because she’s a crappy lawyer, she makes an excellent “fever swamp” blogger.

And yeah, I’ve looked at her resume. A lot of her “honors” appear to be a result of her regular appearances as a talking head, which in turn appear to be the result of her ability to schmooze through her local bar association. I’ve known a couple of talking head lawyers over the years, and let’s just say they’re no more or less likely to be competent advocates for their clients as any other set of attorneys.

Call me a self-hating lawyer if you will, but those are the real facts about the legal profession. I’m just one of the few willing to admit it.

I wasn’t apologizing to Jeralyn, I was apologizing for a slip in tone that I have worked hard to maintain for a while now. I still stand by my words, but they are harsher than what I usually drop.

But I guess I was way the hell out of the ballpark on that one. Granted, at the time I also didn’t think that Obama was going to survive Super Tuesday, so it was all moot point.

Thanks for stopping by, come again, and I really don’t usually go off the rails quite like this.

Indeed, it was clear to me in early February that Clinton was more than willing to try to play these absurd anti-democratic arguments if she ever thought it would be expedient for her to do so. That’s when I decided I could never, ever support her.

I don’t write like this anymore. Used to a lot, but this is kind of rare, and whenever I do write like this, I get this weird buzzing feeling just as I click the publish button.