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Distortions of the media

Discussion in 'The Dungeon' started by Orvis, Dec 23, 2017.

  1. Orvis

    Orvis Well-Known Member

    I have this friend that I met a year or two years ago during our regular visits at East Parker County Coffee Company in Aledo Texas. His name is Matthew Kacsmaryk and he is an attorney. Not just any attorney but one of the few nominated by the Trump administration for a Federal Judgeship in the Northern Dist of Texas. On December 13, this year, he faced the Congressional committee for his confirmation hearing. At the same hearing there were four other attorneys being questioned. One was Matthew Petersen who ended up stepping down because of the fiasco involved with his questioning.

    The committee called up five attorneys at the same time, and all within the same Federal Dist area, so that only a certain number of Senators would have to be present in the Chambers. (Time saving thing)
    My friend said that the whole confirmation hearing was nothing more than a dog and pony show (my words) with the Senators doing everything that they could to bring the focus on them rather than the people named for the Judge chairs. In Petersen's case all the Republican Senators left except one (Kennedy) who is the Senator that asked some of the most damaging questions of all. Even the Democrat Senators didn't rake Petersen over the coals like Kennedy did. Kacsmaryk said that he personally knows Petersen and states that the man is a brilliant attorney in his specialty and Kennedy's questions pertained only to subjects outside of that specialty.

    If you remember, the questions asked were pointed toward what the names of certain "rulings" that had been handed down in the past were. Petersen simply could not remember those rulings off the top of his head. The media jumped on only this portion of the hearings which caused Petersen to just throw in the towel instead of covering the complete portion of Petersen's hearing. My friend stated that Petersen's only mistake was not having a team prepare him for the hearings like most attorneys would have done. Petersen simply did not anticipate the "off" questions and was caught off guard. Deer in the headlights sort of thing I suppose.

    The media won this round.
     
    Last edited: Dec 23, 2017
  2. HPPT

    HPPT !!!

    So wait, you don't blame Peterson or Kennedy for the withdrawal, it's the media that you see as responsible for that fiasco? That's pretty good. :D
     
  3. Orvis

    Orvis Well-Known Member

    Actually, blame for most of this can be spread in more than one direction. Kennedy, for one, then the media for not asking questions about the process and looking into the actual qualifications of all the nominees. Petersen was found qualified by the ABA and a couple of others were not I think. Why didn't the media pick up on that? Hell, why didn't Kennedy and the other Senators, pick up on that? Yes, on the surface it appears that Petersen is a non starter for a judgeship since he couldn't remember terms that he has not been dealing with. I would bet that he has numerous law-books in his own office that could refresh his memory in a few minutes. But alas, it is what it is.

    http://www.sltrib.com/news/politics...sic-questions-about-law-judgeship-goes-viral/
     
  4. fastfreddie

    fastfreddie Midnight Oil Garage

    The Federal Government is pretty good at taking things from outside the context of an issue and then addressing a situation as if those outside things were part of the context of that situation. This is one of the reasons I had no qualms about quitting...and they had just recently given me a promotion!
    Fuck off.
     
  5. HPPT

    HPPT !!!

    Orvis, you wouldn't let someone operate on your brain just because he's one of the best hip replacement specialists. :D
    But it's probably easier to blame the media than admit responsibility for showing up completely unprepared at a job interview.
     
    panthercity, jase and SuddenBraking like this.
  6. Motofun352

    Motofun352 Well-Known Member

    I was a pretty good professional Nuclear Engineer. I could hold my own in Mechanical engineering and Chemical too.....Just don't ask me to explain what a VAR is. You see, an oral quiz is the most subjective type of exam. If the inquisitor wants you to fail...you will. He'll just keep probing until he finds a weak spot then bore in....You're toast.
     
    panthercity likes this.
  7. Orvis

    Orvis Well-Known Member

    Papa, I get tired of watching the irresponsible way the media works. I know, I know. The part about how the attorney "failed to answer legal questions" is the juicy story so that's what leads. Not many reporters seem to be interested in any "back story" on a subject. They just want to find some kind of "gotcha" angle to it. I do however, trust my friend when he explained how the scenario went down. He was sitting right beside that attorney and watched it all happen. Kennedy is a smart attorney and he, above all, should know Petersen's legal background and, he should know that being a good trial judge does not have set rules about how to go about being a trial judge. I also know that appearances will create perceptions among the unknowing and allow them to make decisions that do not necessarily fit the situation. Either Kennedy knew Petersen's legal background and destroyed him just to get back at Trump (as suggested by others) or Kennedy didn't do his own homework.
     
  8. HPPT

    HPPT !!!

    Watching that sequence uninterrupted, I didn't need the media to tell me what I saw. There are two people responsible for this, and they were facing each other.
     
    panthercity, Elsinore and Newsshooter like this.
  9. Newsshooter

    Newsshooter Well-Known Member

    So do you think a good trial judge should understand how a trial works? While he may be a very knowledgeable attorney it seems like some trial experience would be a good thing, from what I remember he didn't spend much time in court as an attorney. I've seen a couple very smart attorneys that didn't make very good judges and those were at the local level.
     
    sheepofblue likes this.
  10. Orvis

    Orvis Well-Known Member

    You may be right. Of course, I would suspect that any attorney that gets an approval rating from the ABA for a Federal Judgeship might have a pretty good idea of how a trial works. I don't think anyone has said that the man has no knowledge of trial work. He simply has had no personal experience of participating in a trial from what I understood.
     
  11. motorkas

    motorkas Well-Known Member

    Kennedy knew Peterson's legal background. Peterson destroyed himself. The media did not blow off the prep, answer the questions for him, set up the confirmation hearing, make sure it was recorded, have a Republican nominate him. . .to a Republican controlled committee. . .that has been confirming very conservative judges at a record pace. . .

    I get that your friend is plugged in and had a front row seat to the show but given that the proceeding and exchange was recorded in full - forget your friend, forget the media - go find a copy of it, watch it. . .and make up your own mind.

    I have no idea how you pulled it off, but those two sentences just made Orwell, Kafka and Heller collectively say "ahhhh fuck it. . .I give up".
     
  12. TXFZ1

    TXFZ1 Well-Known Member

    Why, would he not learn this knowledge at school? Not sure what these authors have to with Orvis's statement but I bet they know there is a difference between knowledge and experience.
     
  13. dsapsis

    dsapsis El Jefe de los Monos

    Do you know what those three authors, who, by the way are all dead, have in common? Here is a hint: your conditional question is absolutely pertinent. No one needed to say "the man has no knowledge of trial work"; he demonstrated that himself. Which brings us back to the premise of the thread, and it being "squirrell!".

    The media can suck, bad, (I have personal/professional experience with this over the last few months)but democracy dies in darkness.
     
  14. TXFZ1

    TXFZ1 Well-Known Member

    Could be he demostrated that he did not prepare for the confirmation? I agree he may not have been the best canidate for a trail judge but if he passed the bar exam he should have the basic knowledge.

    This would be a great media story if he was chosen to be a judge, as it is just a smear of some dumbass that was named.
     
  15. motorkas

    motorkas Well-Known Member

    . . .very slowly.

    In all fairness I did make it sound like they were still alive. I thought about putting “from their graves” but I just assumed that Heller and Orwell were required reading in HS so it would be known that at least 2 out of the 3 were dead.

    Oscar Wilde (picture of Dorian Gray) was deleted from the list (more a societal/party reference than political).

    I'm assuming some (if not all) of the last line about the media has to do with the fires out your way. Can't imagine what you guys are going through. . .hoping for some normalcy to come your way in the near future.

    A couple of questions:

    1) Have you ever bitched about government workers being unqualified for their positions?

    2) Do you know that the position he was up for is a lifetime appointment?

    3) If Obama had nominated a similarly "qualified" person to one of the most important circuits for a lifetime appointment and had a similar confirmation with a Democrat Senator doing the questioning, would you hold the same views?

    If your answers were “no, yes and my opinion would be the same” – carry on – if not – you may just be alot of what you hate about Democrats.

    As far as the authors – “Animal Farm” “1984” “Catch 22” are the greatest hits - you can skip Kafka.

    Also, can't find the whole interview but here's a stripped down version from the horses mouth. . .Burnett's interviewing style is painful but there's no doubt those are Kennedy's own words. I commend him for knowing and doing his job.

    http://www.cnn.com/videos/politics/...inee-questions-john-kennedy-intv-bts-erin.cnn
     
  16. TXFZ1

    TXFZ1 Well-Known Member

    1) no relevance but specifically to judges I would say yes 2) yes 3) same opinion

    So, what is it that I hate about Democrats?

    Think of a business negotiation with a throw away rider that you are willing to give up to make a deal or multiple question with a tiered answers leading you to the right answer. I speculate this was the reason Peterson was nominated.
     
  17. motorkas

    motorkas Well-Known Member

    Carry on (but if I was sitting next to you and could talk it out rather than type – I’d dive into your answer for number 1 and drill down more about this whole “knowledge vs experience” thing you started with.

    Notice – there were two choices. . .if you would have answered differently – then you could make that assumption with your question . .which would have been evident (just as they are not evident with your answers – hence – no hatred in this particular case).

    Just for the sake of argument: if your speculation is correct – would’nt that mean both of those were shitty tactics/reasoning to employ in this case (unless, of course, the desired outcome of said throw away rider/tiered answers was a spectacularly embarrassing display of ignorance – which could be hung around the neck of the administration for their selection process – which put Republican Senators in the difficult position of potentially embarrassing the executive with airing the deficiencies of their candidate in public. . .and could put him on the hot seat with his constituents, colleagues and the executive branch)?

    We can speculate all we want about why he was nominated – what needs no speculation is what happened on tape (and the subsequent withdraw of his nomination). . .which is the end result of whatever tactics/reasoning they did (or did not) use.
     
  18. Orvis

    Orvis Well-Known Member

    Actually, it makes perfect sense. I'm saying that the man doesn't have to actually have argued in court to understand how it works. It's not that complicated a statement. Jeez!
     
  19. Orvis

    Orvis Well-Known Member

    Well, I can see that we have a hell of a lot of speculation on the why, why nots, of this man's confirmation hearing questions but so far, not one person, even after watching the video of said hearing, knows what really went down in the hearing other than the friend that I mentioned. He had just finished answering 85 questions from the same bunch of Senators and was still sitting beside Petersen when his time came up. I suspect he knows the details of those hearings better than we do.

    When I brought this subject up (perhaps I shouldn't have) I was still ticked a bit with how the man was treated by the only member of his own political party on the Senate committee. I completely forgot about the fact that everyone on this board has a perfectly good working magic 8 ball that answers even the tiniest details to which we have no access. :bow:
     
  20. HPPT

    HPPT !!!

    Magic eight ball is sensing some butthurt. :D
     

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