It takes two incidents, right? (One anecdote is data, two are a trend, three is proof.) I pointed Monday to Howard Dean’s remarks about “brain-dead” Republicans, which either means he’s saying the voters are brain-dead, or the people for whom the voters voted are brain-dead (even though they beat Dean’s party handily at the federal level). Not the savviest political move, it seems to me.
Now a second politician is doing it: My fair city’s own District Attorney Steve Cooley, who is quoted as saying that the jurors in the Robert Blake trial were “incredibly stupid.” Yup, that will make voters feel really good about you: When you lose your case, you publicly blame citizens like them. Doesn’t show a great ability to understand how your audience is going to react to your words, it seems to me. And, curiously, an ability to speak carefully and in a way that doesn’t alienate your audience is a pretty important skill for a lawyer.
UPDATE: John Steele at Legal Ethics Forum discusses whether Cooley’s comments violated legal ethics rules. I don’t think they do, but given the political cost of such statements, I don’t think there needs to be (or ought to be) any extra formal sanction for them.
Comments are closed.