Andrew Young SLAPPs Back Too

If you, as an individual (as opposed to being one of many insulated under the layers of a corporation), have never been sued, you can never understand just how traumatizing it can be.

When lawyers say, "It's not personal", they are full of BS.

It's not just a lie, it's a damned lie.

It's about a personal as it gets. Especially when the people suing you are calling you a liar.

It's part of the reason I've been so fascinated by the case of the Edwardian sex tape. I cannot help but see it as a Machiavellian attempt to obfuscate the facts and obstruct justice and intimidate people who have already been manipulated and used and victimized by a seasoned liar & king-of-the-malignant-narcissists (paging Sue Polinsky for one of her spot-on character evaluations) . . . a blood-sucking trial lawyer who once tried to pass himself off as a champion-of-the-people.

Of course, whether or not this champion looked in your direction depended on whether or not you were "right people".

In a sense what Hunter's lawyers are doing is a kind of SLAPP suit. And we all know how I feel about that (candiate Sam has apparently decided that best response to my retort of his beyond-lame threats is silence . . . whatever . . . I think he'd be better off showing some legal humility and demonstrating he's capable of seeing a bigger picture & changing his mind).

Andrew Young has spent a month in court (think about the legal fees - I sincerely hope someone is helping bank-roll him) fighting off a pack-of-lawyers-most-likely funded by John Edwards himself . . . lawyers-I-am-more-than-familiar-with . . . lawyers who have tried every trick in the book to paint Young and his wife as liars and thieves . . . even as their main objective is to retrieve and destroy all copies of a sex video mostly like made with equipment purchased with campaign funds.

In short, Presidential candidate, John Edwards, stole from people who gave money to his campaign to fulfill his life-long dream of producing soft-core porn . . . starring his mistress and future unborn love child.

But hey, let's crucify the guy who found the video, and came forward with the truth.

The fact that Young did not sell the tape (especially given the way both Edwardses treated him/his family), lends him all the credibility he will ever need with me.

So I'm glad Abraham Penn Jones finally saw the writing on the wall and decided to move on to the actual merits of the case.

The print media (particularly the N&O) has laid the Edwardian viewpoint on with a trowel . . . their stories slanted heavily & laden with quotes from Hunters' lawyers . . . even as the commentary on the story by readers indicates that the general public is just not buying it.

If this lawsuit was a PR move it was a bad idea.

Indeed, it seems most of us, no matter what our party affiliation, would like to see the Feds go all Blackbeard (most Carolinians - North or South - are actually not-at-all conflicted about from which Carolina we hail) on Edwards and hang his head up on a yardarm.

A comment by one of those disgusted readers on of one of the N&O threads led me to this WRAL video of Young answering questions from reporters after the judge came to his senses and purged his contemptible contempt order. Young and his lawyer talked about being happy about the judge's decision and ready to move on to the actual merits of the case. His lawyer talked about looking forward to deposing the plaintiff (Reille Hunter) and possibly even Edwards himself (oh to be a fly on that wall!).

When asked to clarify some of his remarks in Court, Young had this to say:

They've repeatedly called me a liar and a thief and so on and so forth . . .

They kept on asking . . . why are we standing up for these things . . . and the reason for that is . . . because if somebody calls you or anybody else or any member of your family a liar or a thief . . . little people have the right to stand up too . . . not just the people with money or power . . .

Young nails it. We might as well prick our fingers and be blood brother & sister.

Nothing, and I mean NOTHING, pisses you off more than being called a liar by a liar. Not everyone has the means or intestinal fortitude to stand up and fight when it happens. But if you do, you should.

And it's why I will chase Randolph Hospital's Bob Morrison and Steven Eblin and the two-bit Band-aid station hospital that bankrolled their despicable SLAPP suit for as long as it takes to hold them accountable.

As a PR move, the lawsuit was just a bad idea.

The "plaintiffs" in my case . . . third-rate masters-of-their-corporate-domain-wannabes . . . repeatedly lied in the discovery phase of their own *&^%$#@! "libel" lawsuit. Then, these non-profiteers negotiated a deal on the lies.

That makes them unconvicted felons.

What makes all of this so much worse is that Randolph's useless/worthless/inbred Board of Directors has consistently rewarded these two mill-town suck-ups for their illegal ways & means with big salaries and bonus packages (patience, chickadees, the update will be coming to Housecalls shortly).

Meanwhile, the great state of North Carolina (the same one that elects/appoints judges like Abraham Penn Jones) . . . has looked the other way . . . from the agencies that are supposed to oversee hospitals . . . to the ones that are supposed to monitor doctors . . . to the ones that are supposed to police lawyers . . . all the way up the food chain to our Chief Legal Eagle himself.

Along the way, politicians like John Edwards and his blogger (not) wife, could not be troubled with the trials and tribulations of a doctor in public service . . . a doctor whose life fell into the gaping black holes of indentured servitude that they were trying to pass off as a way to fix the healthcare system.

And please don't get me started on the "journalists" like Cone and Robinson. All the Google fiber in the world doesn't make up for what you don't do with it.

So I get Andrew Young. Despite his obvious flaws, he is my hero . . . and inspiration for that which is to come. He wrote a good book, and I hope he & his legal team hand "Big John" and his army of thugs their hats.

They can use one of those hats to cover the part of Edwards' anatomy that Reille was filming.

OBTW: More on Anti-SLAPP legislation.

3/14 Update: A comment, e-mailed to me by a reader/doctor . . .

My father, who sued a few physicians in his day, would tell me that ‘it’s not personal’, when I was being wrongly sued by a patient who suffered an adverse outcome. Lawyers just don’t get this. For them, it’s all business. If they lose a case, they shrug it off and move on. Not so for physicians. Being wrongly sued becomes a festering wound that never entirely heals. We aren’t able to erase like lawyers can with a statement of “Next Case”.