Betsy Devine: Funny ha-ha and/or funny peculiar

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Geeking it up, and getting just too darn geeky?

March 22nd, 2007 · 1 Comment

I’ve been DailyKossing my phone-jamming investigation posts recently–the latest one (even I admit) is incredibly geekish–my 2-page deconstruction of the 20-page appeals court decision.

I don’t expect “real reporters” who arrive at the NH phone-jamming from “USAgate” to know where all the bodies are buried, either from Tobin’s original trial in December 2005, or from his Tobin’s January 2007 appeal, when I was the only “reporter” present. So my new Daily Kos post is a “reporter service” piece, I admit that.

But such are the pangs of vanity that it hurts anyway that only five people have “recommended” that diary post in the hour since I first put it up on Kos.

Looking on the bright side, if the US Appeals Court was going to set just one defendant free, James Tobin seems like a really decent guy–aside from his unwillingness to help implicate co-conspirators higher up in the RNC.

Tags: New Hampshire!

1 response so far ↓

  • 1 Betsy Devine // Mar 23, 2007 at 8:48 am

    Paul Kiel’s at TPMMuckraker has more on this, plus extra insight from some commenting lawyers.

    This comment, by “rea” seems especially useful:

    “The essence of the Circuit’s decision is that the conduct that Tobin engaged in in this case does not fall within the meaning of harassment as that word is used in the statute.”
    No.
    What the Court said was (a) there was an error in instructing the jury, requiring a retrial, (b) there was sufficicent evidence to convict Tobin if what the statute requires is an intent to harrass, rather than a purpose to harrass, and (c) there is an open question, which the appellate court did not resolve for procedural reasons, about whether the statute requires a purpose rather than an intent.