Redstate

Thompson and Gillespie were spotted having lunch in late March. I don't think Gillespie, as chair of VA GOP, can work for a candidate, but his connections can.

But is it fair? Many if not most politicians were lawyers at some point, just because being persuasive is a prerequisite to politics (or, as with Thompson and Reagan) drama. We can't expect our politicians to all be MBAs, POWs, 9/11 heroes, or pumpers of iron.

and you wonder if "lawyer trashing" is an ad-hominem attack? Give me a freaking break. What was originally intended was that politicians would be citizens who served for a brief period. It was not intended that they would be a class unto themselves.

There's a reason for lawyer jokes and that politicians are less trusted than telemarketers. The reason is that the legal profession ceased to serve either justice or the people a long time ago and politicians are, as a class, pond scum.
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Those who live by the sword get shot by those who don't.

In our society, lawyerdom was set up for people who are convincing - it's what you do if you're smart enough to be a doctor but you don't like blood. Are there a lot of awful lawyers? Absolutely! It's a great career path if you're a flim-flammer or a sociopath. But there are good lawyers out there too and they do occasionally become politicians. Attacking "lawyers" generally is attacking "smart people." We owe a lot to smart people: the wheel, Newtonian Physics, the transistor, the phonograph, the lightbulb, Swiss Cheese, the guillotine. The list is endless!

rates as about the dumbest statement of the week. Of course the week is young.

I know lots of lawyers and lots of engineers, chemists, and physicists. As a group, the lawyers aren't fit to shine their shoes. There's a big difference between being able to struggle through a bar exam and being smart. Of the literally thousands of lawyers I've known and worked with, maybe two were smart. And frankly, they had less use for the legal "profession" than I do.
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Those who live by the sword get shot by those who don't.

If I had to pick out one defining characteristic for the members of my future profession, it would be misanthropy, rather than intelligence.

That is not to say that there are no smart lawyers (see my fellow contributors on this site), but there are just as many really dumb ones.

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[F]or by the fundamental law of Nature, man being to be preserved as much as possible, when all cannot be preserved, the safety of the innocent is to be preferred...

-John Locke

lawyers are either dumb or "lack intelligence". I was tired when I wrote the above and I was getting really tired of the interloper and that was an "I'm outtahere" attempt to blow him off. (girlie my foot) Since you are of the profession and I am consistently mouthy about my disdain for lawyers in general you deserve an explanation.

My issue with lawyers is generally trimodal. On one point is with the criminal bar (in lots of ways, an apt name), one is with "trial lawyers" and the third is with politician/lawyers.

With the criminal bar first. By way of disclosure, I've done prison & jail ministry for the better part of 25 years. That said, I'm no "catch & release" kinda guy, my heart stopped bleeding a looooooooong time ago. On the other hand, I do happen to believe in an arcane concept called "justice" and from long, first hand experience dealing with people who are in "the system" (and to be perfectly clear, I NEVER involve myself in their "case", my only involvement is their soul) it's obvious that the biggest oxymoron going is "criminal justice".

Bottom line, unless you can hire a GOOD private attorney everybody represents the State. The job of the prosecutor is to assemble a huge charge stack that represents everything that the defendant could possibly have even thought about doing, tell him that the sentences will run consecutively and then bargain for the "best" deal he can get on a guilty plea. The job of the court appointed defense attorney is to bargain for the best deal he can get his client on a guilty plea. The whole system is absolutely overwhelmed and it deals with processing large numbers, not dispensing justice - for either the accused or the victims.

With respect to the "trial bar", John Edwards. Tobacco settlement. Asbestos settlement. These folks are the slimiest excuse for human beings on the face of the earth. They trample the remotest concept of justice for the sole purpose of finding a pocket deep enough that there whole profession can curl up in it. They make me physically ill.

And then there's the politician bar. These guys I actually reserve "hate" for. They write the laws in a way that can only be described as the "lawyers full employment" fund.

The above comments are general in nature and obviously don't address individual situations, but I think (or at least I hope) you get the idea where my contempt for segments of the profession comes from.

Finally, with respect to business/contract attorneys, I harbor no ill will to that class of folk. I've had professional and personal dealings with literally thousands of them over the course of my careers and have generally found them to be pretty much like everybody else in the work-a-day world. Most try to be diligent at their job, some are good, some need lots of supervision, a few are really excellent and a few should be greeters at WalMart. In about the same distribution as any other class of working folk.

I trust I've managed to somewhat clarify my comments. I'm not yet through my first cup of coffee, so there's a better than even chance this all came out as drool on the screen of my monitor, but I hope not.

Anyway, thus endeth the threadjack.
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Those who live by the sword get shot by those who don't.

There's a reason lawyers are misanthropic, and that's because they spend all their time around other lawyers.

In other words, I don't disagree with any of this.

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[F]or by the fundamental law of Nature, man being to be preserved as much as possible, when all cannot be preserved, the safety of the innocent is to be preferred...

-John Locke

I understood your point. I just felt I owed you an explanation. Shucks, if you were to beat up on mortgage bankers I probably would disagree with you either, but it would be nice to know why you held your opinion. I work in a "target rich" environment too.
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Those who live by the sword get shot by those who don't.

I probably disagree with MBecker on just about everything. But not this last point. Once, in frustration about some act some lawyer politician did (I think it was Clinton, the epitome of the species) I promised myself I'd never vote for another lawyer again. It turned out to be a promise I couldn't keep.

Heck, I'd like to see some non-lawyers appointed to the Supreme Courth.

Nope. Just another point to disagree. :>). Sometimes, they're necessary.
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Those who live by the sword get shot by those who don't.

Ok, I wrote in haste when I said lawyers were smart. What I meant was that they have people skills and are CONVINCING but lack the technical skills to become doctors or rocket scientists or whatever. Still, it seems that no such skills are needed to become a politician. I personally have computer skills (Word and Excel - though this is not meant as a resume) and am great at taking dictation but am terrible at acting (I tried drama in High School and was laughed off stage at my first and last performance). I don't think I'd ever be a good politician or actor or lawyer, but give me a spreadsheet showing trends in the latest pandemic and I'll give you a digest of where quarantines make sense and where schools should be canceled. THe digest of this post: politicians are not like you and me, they don't need technical skills. They just need to know the big picture and who to pick to get the delegated job done. Politicians aren't doers, they're decisionmakers and delegators. They don't have time to make furniture and clean swimming pools, so it doesn't matter if they can't do such things.

They're glorified communications majors.

Leaders don't need to be the technical subject matter experts, but they do need some technical skills if they are going to be effective. At times, the ability to make the right 80,000 foot decision depends on it.

Yours is a rather offensive and elitist argument; "the really smart people are doctors and lawyers while the people they treat and lead toil with the mundane matters of the physical world (cleaning pools, making furniture, chemistry, rocket ships) like commoners do. Lawyer leaders are above any need to understand or waste their time with those things since they're making the really big decisions above everyone else, sort of like royalty".

Not that I'm a big populist, but that's about the opposite of what the republic was founded on, India perhaps, but not this republic

"Honor is self-esteem made visible in action." - Ayn Rand, West Point, 1974

Not to even mention the differences in hair.

Ronnie had some...Fred...well let's just say he's follicle challenged. By the way, other than the Breck Girl, Mitt has the best hair in the race. As Dilbert has pointed out, "Tall and good hair".

I wonder how Fred is on Jelly Beans?

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Dennis Miller for President...no more wimps!