Lawyer's affidavit breaks the rules (re: swiftie liars)

[nosmokes]

original

September 12, 2004

Lawyer's affidavit breaks the rules

By Garrett Epps  

Clackamas County assistant prosecutor Alfred French is probably hoping his 15 minutes of fame will end early.

After bursting into prominence with an affidavit denouncing Democratic presidential nominee John Kerry, French was forced to concede that he did not have first-hand information about the statements he made. He has now been suspended by his boss for lying in an unrelated matter. And numerous Oregon lawyers have filed complaints against him with the Oregon State Bar, charging him with swearing to false or misleading statements.

As a human being, I wish Al French no harm and hope he can soon return to his normal life of service. But as a Kerry supporter and a citizen, I am bothered by what the French affidavit tells us about the willingness of the "Swift Boat Veterans for Truth" to peddle unfounded smears against my candidate. And as a member of the Oregon Bar, I am troubled by the confusion among the public - and some bar members - about the responsibility of lawyers to tell the truth.

French, who served as a Swift boat officer during the time Kerry was in-country and in the same area, stated in a sworn affidavit that "Kerry has wildly exaggerated and lied about his record in Vietnam." He states that both of Kerry's Purple Hearts were given "under false pretenses," and that Kerry lied about mutinies and possible crimes committed by American units in Vietnam during his time there.

Please note that French does not say that in his opinion, Kerry could not be telling the truth. In the first paragraph, he states that "I am able to swear, as I do hereby swear, that all facts and statements contained in this affidavit are true and correct and within my personal knowledge or belief."
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Copyright 2004 The Register-Guard

[swag]

1. Poor sweater-vest Al. He shouldn't have slandered a war veteran.

[shrub chipper]

2. Sweet !!!!

:spank:
It couldn't happen to a more deserving Asst. DA.

[EST]

3. Yes-a huge bunch of patriots here at DU

read his affidavit immediately after the first not-so-swift ad hit the air. The outrage was AWESOME, in the non-hackneyed meaning of the word. I don't recall exactly where I got the total number, but I seem to remember there was someting like fifteen or twenty thousand e-mails sent to his boss. It got so bad that his in box overflowed and some of us had to hang around a day or two before we could get ours accepted! Took a few days, but most or all of us got a nice little return message from his boss (I have it stored around here somewhere) saying something to the effect that they couldn't see slapping him around for his political views.

Supposedly all the attention, pointing out that if the dickhead hadn't the ethical balls to control his lying in one area, he probably had a lot of other skeletons in his closet, wasn't going to make any difference. Whatever, wasn't more than a couple of days and they decided to suspend him for some earlier sin, sleeping with his secretary or something. The cheerful, smiling threads here were a sight to behold!

[nosmokes]

4. yah, i live in oregon and i never got a reply to my email,

even the boiler plate version that a lot of y'all were sayin you got.

i guess i just don't rate.

>sniff<

i'll just go eat worms...

[EST]

5. Eat worms-heehe

Would you put that in writing?
Mebbe, since you live in Or-ee-gun, Mr. French's boss figured a passive little mea-ain't-culpa email might provoke outrage that is actually effective instead of just expostulation!

As an aside-do you suppose it is possible we, that is, all thinking citizens, might ever get to the point where can present points of view by telling the truth instead grabbing a bunch of misrepresentations, half truths, and outright lies and claiming it as evidence with the assumption that it won't be challenged or have repercussions? (sigh) I can dream, can't I?

edit: for punctuation

[nosmokes]

7. to dream the impossible dream

to fight the unbeatable foe
to bear with unbearable sorrow
to stride where the brave dare not go...

hah!

din't know we could sing widout yodeling here in orygun, didja?



i don't know if it's gonna be possible to get to the point of presenting points of view in a civil manner, w/out halftruths and the rest unless and until we demand a higher level of discourse from our media. as long as a sizable portion of our population listens to people that are filling the airwaves shouting at each other and using invectives against honorable people without any basis for it, when the person sitting in the white house can lie about taking the country to war, then what's the big deal about an ADA signing an affidavit that's not totally true.

[Gothmog]

6. Yeah

DUers flooded the DA's office with e-mails and complaints on this guy.