Patterico's Pontifications

12/15/2008

Praise for Anita Busch

Filed under: General — Patterico @ 10:06 pm



Commenter DCSCA left a comment in praise of Anita Busch tonight, which (like Busch’s sentencing statement) helps bring alive the horror experienced by the victims of Anthony Pellicano.

I don’t normally elevate comments to posts, but this one is worth reading. Click “more” to read it.

The personal courage displayed by Anita Busch over nearly seven years of hell is nothing short of heroic.

Consider the methods and damage inflicted by Pellicano on victims. It is literally a form of domestic terrorism even G. Gordon Liddy could admire.

Have you ever been wiretapped? Had your phones, computer, even your car bugged? Have you ever truly, actually, had your life threatened? For real? Just for doing your job? Have you ever lived in fear of harm coming to you, your kids, or friends, or colleagues or extended family at any time? Not for an hour, a day, a week, a month, but literally for years?

Have you ever had the routine of daily life shattered, your career smashed like a pane of glass; your savings drained; your privacy invaded– so deeply violated, penetrated and brutalized that it is as close to being physically raped as you’ll ever get? Have you??

And your employer, ‘a great metropolitan newspaper,’ (to borrow a well-televised phrase), living on life support from old press clippings from the last century; the people you invest your time, skills and trust with; expect professional support from; all but abandon you when ask for help. Then exhibit qualified, fleeting support, evaporating daily and distancing itself at every opportunity. While at the same time, carefully concealing an association with the very person who shredded your life from the start? In short, not believing you while spinning support for him?

Have you ever lost your ability to sleep for months? Had your health decline to ruin and your core beliefs in the sanctity of your home destroyed? Or experienced the betrayal of the public trust by a bad cop illegally digging through your records? Or lost trust in simply talking on a telephone with a friend, or your sense of normalcy at going to the grocery store without fear of your car exploding with the turning of the ignition key? Of being threatened in a public place or feared being run down in the street?

Any one of these acts is traumatic in itself. And many of the victims terrorized by Pellicano’s ’services’ suffered one or all of these trauma— and more. Ms. Busch was subjected to most of this as well. She was a victim. And she is a survivor.

And why? Because a clique of wealthy Hollywood sociopaths, driven to settle petty scores over ego and money, hired a thuggish P.I. to do the dirty work for them. And an employer that left her twisting in the wind for doing her job. Indeed, the facts point to the Los Angeles Times actively working against her on the QT, hush-hush, supporting Pellicano through Philips’ stories and other internal mechanisms at that sorry waste of ink and pulp.

Every Pellicano victim over the years of this absurdly long case– and many of them are average citizens– will carry the scars for life. Even the convicted themselves. And for what? Money– and not very much at that in the grand scheme of things.

15 years for Pellicano seems light for a dim bulb who disgraced himself, his profession and his family. 15 years for a low watt intellect too stupid to finger the SOBs who hired him to save his own ass, isn’t nearly long enough.

Time served and the rest of his days in prison is just the down payment on an eternity in Hell. And the Tinseltown garbage –individuals and corporate media both- the ‘clients’ who hired, fawned, fussed over and funded him; used him to play their expensive, high-school-with-money-games, will be there with him in the end.

They’ve been exposed. Thanks to law enforcement, Ms. Busch and her devotion to truth.

And the Busch-Philips-Pellicano episode is a piece that fits into a larger, more disturbing picture. It’s yet another one of a growing list of ethically embarassing and questionable incidents at the Los Angeles Times. It’s clearly a dying tomb.

Kudos to Anita Busch for her tenacity, integrity and courage. Truly a first class package in a bulk rate world.

Well said.

8 Responses to “Praise for Anita Busch”

  1. That is a well thought out comment. It is amazing the LA Times couldn’t even stick with its own on this. Hollywood is truly a terrifying place.

    I know G Gordon Liddy is indeed a criminal, and the corruption he was part of was unacceptable, but I can’t imagine a fair person placing that BS in the same category as Pellicano’s crimes. Perhaps I am just uninformed and Liddy did threaten a specific person’s life, but I think I’d have heard of it.

    Still, that comment is completely right that what happened to Anita and God knows how many others was awful and she is a hero for helping stop it. It’s a shame we don’t know everything about Pellicano’s motives and masters.

    Juan (4cdfb7)

  2. Not being an attorney, I’m wondering if Ms. Busch could file a civil suit against her employer – and if the evidence of the paper’s complicity in this could come out in discovery.

    Just think how fitting it would be if she could get a multi-million dollar judgment that might finally sink the paper.

    Gesundheit (47b0b8)

  3. Powerline notes that the Minnesota rag is taking away Katherine Kersten’s column. She who is the lone dissenting voice at the Star Tribune. Intellectual honesty is sadly lacking on the left. It would be something if newspapers were subject to their own Fairness Doctrine, such as libtards desire to inflict on right-leaning talk radio. Imagine a regular column in the LAT written by Mr. Patrick Frey. Still, I wonder how many people are even aware of what this blog reveals about LAT’s madness. A big court settlement for Ms. Busch would put additional nails in LAT’s coffin.

    So what will libs manage under Obama vis a vis silencing dissent? So nice that Obama has managed to unilaterally absolve himself and his staff of any hanky panky vis a vis Blago. Imagine if blogs are silenced because they are seen as unfair to libs? No LGF or Powerline to call dickwads like Rather and Mapes on their attempts to steal an election. But the dinosaur with all its muscle is unable to raise questions? Will assclown Franken manage to steal the Minn. US Senate seat?
    Is there much doubt that the Obama ass-kissing media wants to provide cover for him? Problems when he takes office? All due to the evil Rethuglicans. More bureaucracy, rules and increased taxes will make the ship of state and economy right? Monetizing those trillions of fed bucks in bailouts won’t cause any harm down the road? jajaja

    madmax333 (0c6cfc)

  4. The abandonment of Busch by the LA Times is probably the most underreported fact of this whole shabby story.

    Bradley J. Fikes (e24bda)

  5. Well done, DCSCA.

    DRJ (b4db3a)

  6. Being a reporter means having thick skin. People will get mad at you if you do your job well. LA is full of embarrassing stories and that beat would require reporters who are willing to at least act unafraid of the truth.

    But every single LA Times reporter knows, in their heart, that absolutely nothing will outrage the paper to the reporter’s defense. If this case didn’t, absolutely nothing will. Sure, the paper still gets mad at stuff that is contrary to its editorial position, but they do not care about the ideals of journalism.

    The people have a right to know many things they won’t, because LA Times reporters have few places to turn when they are attacked. Their own paper doesn’t care.

    Say what you will about the New York Times, but that is not the case with them. There is a reason why the LA Times is not respected in the way the New York Times is. Sure, both are papers of huge American cities, in decline, with scandals and deep bias. But one is trying to be a journalistic institution. One isn’t.

    Juan (4cdfb7)

  7. Many thanks for your kind comments on my essay about Anita Busch’s ordeal. And thank you Patterico for elevating it for others to read and consider.

    In epilogue, just 24 hours after being sentenced to 15 years in the Big House, in an AP interview from behind bars on what must be a slow news day, Pellicano says he was “careless” and has “no apology” for the victims he “spied on.” (This is considered news? Fresh, not frozen road kill as mystery meat in tonight’s prison stew would be news. )

    He also denies being behind the “harrassment” of Anita Busch. Of course, everyone in prison is innocent, right Pelican?

    ‘Harrassment’ is a decidely tame term. This was more than just mussing her hair.

    “When you investigate someone, you intrude into their lives,” said Pellicano, noting that he was a licensed private detective. “My practices are no different than others’. I was just better at it.”

    If he was better at it, why was he caught, convicted and sentenced to 15 years in the pokie?

    As I said last night- ‘a dim bulb.”

    But at the end of the interview, in what is clearly delusions of grandeur, (or just plain delusional,) the Pelican boasts the belief that his tapes will aid his appeal and, depending on interpretation, show him in a better light.

    There must truly be some Liddy in this jailbird as this line of thinking is pure Nixonian. And the clients, victims, et.al, recorded by him will be thrilled that he envisions the possibility of marketing his infamous audio library to make a buck.

    “If there were a way to help my family without breaking my own laws so to speak, I would consider it,” Pellicano said. “There would be a mass sale of books, there would be eyebrows raised and some heads would roll, including some in government.”

    Live long and prosper? Fascinating.

    Like Katrina, the story here for the AP, any and all isn’t Pellicano but the wreckage and ruin left behind. And the clean-up it’s going to take for the victims throughout their lives.

    No doubt ‘White Heat’ is in the prison Betamax library so he can keep his Cagney prison persona fresh. We all know Brando’s Corelone would never have been caught dead in jail. In months to come when the cell door slams shut, he can write his ailing Ma and proudly boast to her he made it…

    ‘Top of the world!’

    =CLANK=

    DCSCA (d8da01)

  8. […] phone conversation can have the same reach. Comments allow a guy in pajamas to correct an error or make a point that would otherwise be left out of public discourse. I would not be writing this post if it were […]

    The Jury Talks Back » Re: Comments on comments (e4ab32)


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