Thanks to Mr. Washington for a pass-along on a local story. (I'd have gotten it up hours ago, but Blogger wasn't allowing me in.) In what may be a sign of desperation from the GOP a judge on Friday ordered the unsealing of court records in a 1994 lawsuit by Teresa Heinz Kerry and her sons in the airplane crash that killed her first husband, U.S. Sen. H. John Heinz III, further, the judge ruled that nearly all documents related to the case should be made public by Monday. What the point of this is supposed to be -- evil lawyer shenanigans they want to try to use against the hopefully future First Lady, perhaps? -- I don't know, thought it smacks of a desperate attempt to find anything to distract potential voters from the facts of this not merely bungled but dangerously misdirected administration. Fortunately, the state supreme court has granted a stay of the lower court's decision, pending a review.
It's important to note that Philadelphia Newspapers Inc., publisher of The Philadelphia Inquirer and the Daily News, petitioned to have the records unsealed, arguing that Heinz Kerry could become first lady and the records might contain information in which the public might have an interest. With that in mind it's not fair to center attention on Montgomery County Court Judge Paul W. Tressler, who merely decided that reasons given by Heinz family lawyers - including the family's privacy, the family's reliance on the sealed record for the last eight years and the family's personal security - did not rise to the level of "extraordinary reasons."
Certainly, if these court records are to be opened - forcing the public airing of a family's tragedy all over again - then I must also endorse Felix's (that's Mr. Washington to you) suggestion that the Laura Welch vehicular manslaughter of Michael Douglas case be similarly reopened. Certainly, the 1963 kill by the 17 year old who has since become by some arcane process our current First Lady must have some important bearing on the political decision. Sure, she's not even a bush leaguer, no pun intended, compared to even George's record as governor, never mind the better than 100,000 Iraqi and over 1,000 servicemen's and women's deaths he's been the blundering architect of.
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