by Mark Levin on Sunday, September 12, 2010 at 11:02am
Lawsuits are very nasty business. So, too, is this kind of "reporting" by John McCormack at the Weekly Standard. http://www.weeklystandard.com/blogs/citing-mental-anguish-christine-odonnell-sought-69-million-gender-discrimination-lawsuit-again
I suppose he just came upon this information and, of course, in the public's interest wants to get it out there 48 hours before the primary election in Delaware. He doesn't take any of this personally. No, no way. He just wants to make sure the truth is aired.
Let's be clear about something. McCormack, et al, are doing all they can to hand the Delaware seat to a liberal. Should O'Donnell win Tuesday's primary, the Democrat will be trolling for opposition dirt to use against her, and he need only Google the Weekly Standard and McCormack in particular. There the Democrats will find all the poison they could ever want, including the cherry-picked information spun neatly into readily available commercials. Should Castle win the primary and the general, then Castle will be just as liberal in the Senate as he was in the House, which is very liberal, where he'll join Snowe, Collins, Lugar, Graham, and others, in a Gang of Whatever. But it's an outcome the Weekly Standard and McCormack dearly desire, as they've spent a great deal of effort to accomplish this goal.
In his latest post, McCormack goes out of his way to assure us that he did not receive any information from Ken Cribb, ISI's boss, or Castle. But he does not disclose from where the information came to him. I mean, in for an ounce, in for a pound, as they say. Why not reveal the source or sources? Or maybe it was his Bob Woodward-like investigative reporting. Maybe he secured a copy of the complaint from the courthouse. Who knows? But the boy is working overtime, that much is clear.
That aside, O'Donnell has run for the Senate twice before. The Weekly Standard, et al, didn't appear to care very much on those occasions. She must be making them all nervous this time. She must have a shot at actually winning the primary against a RINO. Otherwise, why the attack mode?
Now, what are we to read into the filing itself, in particular the issue of gender discrimination and mental anguish? The case was never resolved because after years of litigation, O'Donnell dropped it due to costs. But McCormack emphasizes that O'Donnell's claim that she was to have attended or attempted to attend Princeton's masters program was bogus because she had not received her B.A. yet. I assume if O'Donnell and her attorney knowingly provided false information in a complaint, that ISI, the organization she sued, successfully filed an ethics complaint against her counsel and successfully sought sanctions against O'Donnell from the court for such a deliberate lie. But I can't find any indication of any ethical filings or punishment from the Supreme Court of Delaware or the trail court respecting this matter. Hmmm. Well, Sherlock must not be all that interested in getting to the bottom of it. He prefers reading dishonesty or mental illness into it, as in a pattern of dissembling suggesting delusion or worse. (Incidentally, I was accepted to and attended Temple University before I graduated from high school or received my high school degree; I received it after successfully completing my first year of college. That's not to say, of course, that O'Donnell did the same. It is to say that it is possible to move along the education path this way.)
And what of the mental anguish claim? Well, people who lose their jobs for reasons that they believe are unjust, or even actionable, have been known to suffer mental anguish and allege mental anguish in lawsuits. But I guess for McCormack the phrase "mental anguish" is another opportunity to infer that there is something mentally wrong with O'Donnell. But if she believed that she was unlawfully fired and suffered mental anguish as a result, why is that worth McCormack obsessing over?
As for the alleging gender discrimination, we have no way of knowing the truth about her dismissal. But why does McCormack assume this is illegitimate? Does he have some conclusive factual basis for this other than the defendant's denial? If so, let's see it. But he has none because the matter was not finally adjudicated. O'Donnell, after litigating the matter for years, dropped the case for lack of funds. (We know she didn't have much money because McCormack repeats that point in his own piece.)
O'Donnell does not appear to have similar issues or problems generally with other employers. She apparently worked at one time for the conservative group Concerned Women for America. The Concerned Women PAC has endorsed her candidacy and contributed to her campaign against Castle. http://www.cwpac.org/home.aspx
If McCormack is going to write the definitive piece on O'Donnell's work history, why ignore this?
The reason, of course, is that McCormack is hoping to derail O'Donnell. He's smearing her by cherry-picking. That's also why he went back to the radio host no one ever heard of for that host's further comments about O'Donnell. Ok, she said she won three counties last time and didn't. That disqualifies her? That suggests she is deranged? I don't expect perfection from anyone, let alone candidates and politicians, but on the scale of what matters, this seems to me to be utterly stupid. I do know that my producer has asked Castle for the last two weeks to come on my radio show so we can discuss his "conservative" record and his $3 million - $8 million in worth, but he refuses. He only talks to friendly media outlets. And I would like to ask Castle about this, which Dan Riehl has exposes on his excellent website: http://www.riehlworldview.com/carnivorous_conservative/2010/09/why-no-interest-in-mike-castles-corrupt-lobbyist-problems.html
(I wonder if McCormack, Hotair, Powerline, or NRO will link to Riehl's evisceration of Castle? Let's watch, just for fun.)
Now, as for claiming millions in damages in her lawsuit, what's extraordinary about that? I take it McCormack is not a litigator. O'Donnell would have sat down with counsel, and counsel would have developed a formula for determining the extent to which he, as an attorney, believed damages could be sustained in the suit. Ultimately, of course, damages would have to be demonstrated and a final decision reached by the jury. But, as reported, the case was dropped because she lacked the funds to continue, i.e., to pay her lawyer. Again, why is this crazy?
Perhaps the O'Donnell Derangement Syndrome suggests something about mental infirmities by those who suffer from it, no?
Mark Levin
