Patterico's Pontifications

5/3/2007

Josh Marshall Confirms His Biskupic Theory Involved Time-Travel

Filed under: General — Patterico @ 7:52 pm



Last month I mocked the Josh Marshall crowd for bending the laws of the space-time continuum by arguing that first:

  • Steven Biskupic was put on a list of U.S. Attorneys to be fired (something Josh Marshall believed had happened on or after October 17, 2006)

and then:

  • Biskupic subsequently saved his job by bringing the Georgia Thompson prosecution (which was concluded in June 2006).

My argument was that people don’t generally take actions in response to events that have not yet happened.

In a comment to my post, Orin Kerr questioned whether Marshall had actually made that argument:

I see Marshall arguing that the baseless prosecution shows that the U.S. Attorney was under political pressure to indict Democrats in 2005, but I’m having trouble finding the claim that the prosecution was brought to get off the list after having been put on it in late 2006.

Here is Josh Marshall today:

Now, we’ve written a good bit about Biskupic. He’s the one who didn’t find the Democratic ‘vote fraud’ conspiracy Republican operatives wanted him to find. And that apparently landed him on the DOJ US Attorney firing list.

That link goes to a post that says: “As I detailed earlier this week, Biskupic was almost certainly put on the purge list in late October of 2006 . . .” Back to Marshall’s post from today:

But then he got pulled off the list. That’s made people take a second look at his prosecution of a bureaucrat in Wisconsin’s Democratic governor’s administration. That conviction got overturned by an appeals court last month. And not just overturned, but judged “beyond thin” and “preposterous” and sent back for a directed acqui[t]tal.

That raised the question: Did Biskupic get in trouble with the failure to pursue bogus ‘vote fraud’ cases and then save his job by bringing a bogus corruption case?

Note, please, the use of the word “then.”

The answer to Marshall’s question is simple: No. The corruption case was brought in January 2006 and resulted in a conviction in June 2006 — months before Marshall says Biskupic was added to the firing list. So it can’t be the case that Biskupic was added to the firing list in October 2006, and then brought a case nine months earlier, in January 2006, to get off the list that he wasn’t even on yet.

Because time, as far as we know, still moves in only one direction. It just keeps doing that, day after day, minute after minute. As They Might Be Giants put it:

You’re older than you’ve ever been.
And now you’re even older.
And now you’re even older.
And now you’re even older.

You’re older than you’ve ever been.
And now you’re even older.
And now you’re older still.

It still astounds me that Marshall, the alleged guru of this scandal, doesn’t see this.

At least Marshall is letting Biskupic off the hook today, but because he’s heard good things about Biskupic — not because his theory defies all known laws of physics.

Michael Connelly Chat Transcript

Filed under: Books — Patterico @ 7:24 pm



The L.A. Times recently hosted a chat with one of my favorite writers, Michael Connelly. I happened to be online shortly after it started, and participated a bit. You can read the transcript here.

Democrats Cave on Timetable for Withdrawal

Filed under: War — Patterico @ 6:22 am



The Washington Post reports:

President Bush and congressional leaders began negotiating a second war funding bill yesterday, with Democrats offering the first major concession: an agreement to drop their demand for a timeline to bring troops home from Iraq.

This is a positive sign.


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