Tralllll Lawyers

by John Peters

In his exaggerated Texas drawl, this is the phrase Bush has used as a modern day Scarlet Letter to discredit his opponents in the Presidential race.  

Senator John Edwards is a tralll lawyer.  He has made large sums of money representing plaintiffs in lawsuits against doctors and hospitals.  This is not something for which Edwards needs to apologize.  Yet, Bush has managed to put the young Senator on the defensive, agreeing that there are frivolous lawsuits and promising publicly that he and Senator Kerry will clean up the practice of law, along with curing all other ills affecting the nation.

Senator John Kerry was a trallll lawyer too.  As a prosecutor, he went to trial against accused defendants all of the time. That is what prosecutors do.  That is precisely what Mr. Bush’s Justice Department is in the business of doing everyday. Under Attorney General John Ashcroft (Hey, are all trial lawyers named John?),  there have been likely more trials by more trial lawyers than ever before. Also ignored are all of the other governmental trial lawyers who are out persecuting everyone from Martha Stewart to anyone making a donation to a Muslim charity.  The federal government has perhaps the single largest collection of tralll lawyers in the nation, prosecuting environmental, immigration, tax, OSHA, securities, and scores of other regulatory “violations.” Somehow, this escapes the President’s infantile analysis as he points the Texas index finger at tralll lawyers.

Kenneth Starr was also a tralll lawyer.  Was he bringing down the country with the millions of dollars he charged taxpayers to pursue former President William Jefferson Clinton for soiling the dress of White House tart Monica Lewinski? 

Bush campaign manager Ken Mehlman has accused the Democrats of pursuing “a litigation strategy” to capture the closely contested election.[1]  This is pure, unmitigated gall on the part of Mr. Bush. After all, it was a gang of tralll lawyers whom Mr. Bush paid handsomely to argue his way into the Presidency in the 2000 election. In fact, when recount expense papers were filed in 2002, it was revealed that the GOP had spent $13.8 million on lawyers, salaries, travel and hotels for the recount effort.[2]

Mr. Bush’s attempt to make tralll lawyer a four letter word – heck, he may actually think it is four letters – would be laughable if it were not designed to discredit an entire group of professionals. What can you say about a man who will utilize the office of the President to smear the very group which got him there in the first place?  In the legal profession, we have an expression – res ipsa loquitor – the thing speaks for itself.