Monthly Archives: February 2004

Two Views of ‘What I Want in a Law Professor’

Posted on February 24, 2004 by Michael Froomkin

At Stay of Execution, Scheherazade (what a great alias!) writes about What I Want in a Law Professor, prompting Jeremy Blachman to post his list. I hope this starts a trend: it's healthy for students to think about this sort of thing, and healthy for faculty to hear it. (Spotted via Eric Muller)

Posted in Law School | Comments Off on Two Views of ‘What I Want in a Law Professor’

Text of Motion for Scalia Recusal

Posted on February 24, 2004 by Michael Froomkin

Further to Sierra Club Moves for Scalia Recual, here is the full text of the Sierra Club's Motion to Recuse Justice Scalia (also available in pdf ). Note exhibit 2, Scalia's letter to the Los Angeles Times, and exhibit 3, which includes the very funny editorial cartoons.

Posted in Law: Ethics | Comments Off on Text of Motion for Scalia Recusal

A Billion Here, A Billion There, Pretty Soon It’s Real Money

Posted on February 24, 2004 by Michael Froomkin

Army Scraps $39 Billion Helicopter. Which is most amazing?

  1. The Army spent $6.9 billion and didn't get a single helicopter.
  2. We have to pay $2 billion more just to cancel the program.
  3. This is the tip of an iceberg of crummy military procurement.

When I was in law school, I got very interested in military procurement. There are clearly enormous savings waiting to happen, but they are mostly blocked for a toxic combination of political factors. Gary Hart actually tried to do something about this in his finest hour when he was a Senator, as did Barry Goldwater. Senator Grassley occasionally makes a noble attempt. But mostly people have given up fighting the system, because it rolls right over you.

It's always odd how the loudest defenders of capitalism defend a Soviet-style state planning approach1 to buying weapons. But it's been going on so long now that no one notices.

1 Update. On reflection this is unfair. Had the Soviets ever cancelled a weapon system, I doubt they would have paid the folks who wasted $7 billion another $2 billion to soften the blow.

Posted in Administrative Law | 4 Comments

Family Ties

Posted on February 24, 2004 by Michael Froomkin

Family Ties. I don't even want to try to summarize this one.

Suffice it to say that as the Pentagon Inspector General's office is in the news for its investigation of possible criminal fraud by Halliburton subsidiary Brown & Root (a name that resonates in US history — longtime crony capitalists, they bankrolled LBJ, and many other major Texas politicians), David Neiwert offers a glimpse into the, um, unconventional family background of the head of the IG's office.

Posted in Politics: US | 1 Comment

Soldier for the Truth

Posted on February 24, 2004 by Michael Froomkin

Via the elegantly redesigned Whiskey Bar, a pointer to Soldier for the Truth, the story of Lt. Colonel Karen Kwiatkowski (Ret.), who was in the Pentagon at the time that the Veep's office started running its own rogue intellegence analysis operation designed to slant reports in favor of the Iraq invasion. Disgusted by what she saw, she chose to resign when she hit the 20 year mark, and is now on a mission to expose what she calls “neoconservative coup, a hijacking of the Pentagon.” And she has a way with words.

Q: You gave your life to the military, you voted Republican for many years, you say you served in the Pentagon right up to the outbreak of war. What does it feel like to be out now, publicly denouncing your old bosses?

Kwiatkowski: It feels like duty.

That said, she also has some very odd friends.

Posted in Iraq | Comments Off on Soldier for the Truth

How to Do Things With Smears

Posted on February 24, 2004 by Michael Froomkin

Chris Bertram of Crooked Timber has an intersting post on what speech act theory can teach us about smears:

Following the whole Max Cleland, Ann Coulter, Mark Steyn controversy the other day, I was struck by the fact that the defenders of the smearers thought it a sufficient reply to their critics to say that what was said was literally true. (Whether it was literally true is, of course, another matter.) For once, it seems to me, philosophy can be of some use in showing that such a reply is inadequate.

It's nice to see Austin's “How to Do Things With Words” applied so neatly to modern politics.

Posted in Politics: US | Comments Off on How to Do Things With Smears