Vicki Eisman

By way of full disclosure, I was paid years ago to lobby a legislative change. When the Texas Securities Commission came up for sunset renewal in a previous session of the legislature, two lines of type were left off the final committee version of the bill.  I pointed this out to the commission and they supported me in my attempt to repair the mistake. Since I was paid for this work, that makes me a former lobbyist.

 I enjoyed my work immensely, since it was very similar to doing appellate advocacy. As a lobbyist, I was attempting to persuade the commission and then later the Texas Legislature on an idea as to what would be better public policy.  Unlike trial work, I was free to attempt to convince people without being bothered by those pesky facts which make trials much more difficult.  I viewed my efforts as an attempt to make the world a better place, while advancing my client’s interest. I did not see anything sinister at all in my efforts.

If you haven’t been totally out of contact with the rest of the world this week, you recognize the name in the tagline of this entry as being the name of the unfortunate lady that the New York Times unsuccessfully attempted to link to Sen. John McCain in some sort of affair.  Where can she go to get her good name back?

If you have read my novel, Good Will Win in the End, you will immediately appreciate that the New York Times hit piece calls to mind the vicious and unfounded newspaper article alleging all sorts of nasty things about Sean and Jo. Perhaps Oscar Wilde was more prescient than he knew when he wrote that “Life imitates art more often than art imitates life.”

Perhaps it is time for the Supreme Court to revisit  New York Times v. Sullivan.  Since the case was decided in 1964, it has caused more problems than it ever solved.  http://www.oyez.org/cases/1960-1969/1963/1963_39/    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_York_Times_Co._v._Sullivan

If you disagree with my thesis, put yourself in Ms. Eisman’s shoes for a moment.  The poor woman has been exposed to national humiliation and recrimination for doing her job, which is and was a legal activity. She has my sympathy.