A very serious looking Aronberg on the left side.
FEARLESS FOSDICK
"You cannot hope
to bribe or twist,
thank God! The
British journalist.
But, seeing what
the man will do
unbribed, there's
no occasion to.
--Humbert Wolfe
Readers of several Florida newspapers have complained bitterly about the lack of coverage of GELBER’s working for our State’s largest corporate law firm as a white collar criminal defense lawyer, while refusing to disclose any of his clients. What chutzpa!
We have all been learning since June all about one DANIEL SAUL GELBER and his former law firm, AKERMAN SENTERFITT and its representation of the likes of the CITY OF ST. AUGUSTINE and its racist former City Manager, WILLIAM B. HARRISS in resisting environmental law enforcement. AKERMAN SENTERFITT employed Gelber, who may have even rendered criminal law advice after EPA and DEP investigators with guns and badges came to the Old City Reservoir on
Some once-great newspapers in Florida are demure and dainty, refusing to touch it. That’s sad.
Our Founding Fathers had great wisdom and showed how important freedom of the press was when they protected newspapers with the First Amendment -- our Founding Fathers expected newspapers would be zealous advocates to protect people from oppression.
Newspapers helped expose corruption from the earliest days of our Republic.
Newspapers brought down Boss Tweed, exposed Teapot Dome and Watergate and helped bring down Richard Nixon.
What have they done lately to earn their keep?
Not much, I reckon.
Now, too many newspapers have died.
Too many newspapers are dying.
Too many newspapers – like our local daily -- have become like what Lincoln said in the Lincoln-Douglas debates about Stephen Douglas’ arguments, "as thin as the homeopathic soup that was made by boiling the shadow of a pigeon that had starved to death.”
The most important race in the State of Florida right now is barely being covered by most Florida newspapers. This is a country where 2/3 of Americans can’t name a single Supreme Court Justice (and only 1% can name all of them).
This most important race is barely being covered by the dumbed-down birdcage liners we used to call newspapers.
This most important race is the race for the Democratic nomination for Attorney General, who is a Constitutional officer charged with protecting the people of Florida. Florida’s AG took on Big Tobacco and won a huge settlement, halting marketing to kids and recovering billions of dollars spent on indigent cancer care. Florida’s Constitution states that the Attorney General is a member of the Cabinet, with full voting power and “shall be the chief state legal officer. There is created in the office of the attorney general the position of statewide prosecutor. The statewide prosecutor shall have concurrent jurisdiction with the state attorneys to prosecute violations of criminal laws occurring or having occurred, in two or more judicial circuits as part of a related transaction, or when any such offense is affecting or has affected two or more judicial circuits as provided by general law. The statewide prosecutor shall be appointed by the attorney general from not less than three persons nominated by the judicial nominating commission for the supreme court, or as otherwise provided by general law.”
Why would you want a Big Law Firm lawyer with an undisclosed client list in that job? Why would you want a Big Firm lawyer who does not do pro bono work in a job that is supposed to protect the people of Florida from consumer fraud and monopolistic practices?
That would be like putting Dracula in charge of the Blood Bank.
Some uninformed editorial writers elsewhere in Florida have taken GELBER’s ”spin” as if it were holy writ, issuing brazen ukases. Their wrong-headed editorials claimed Dave Aronberg was wrong to raise the issue of GELBER’s being a partner in BP’s law firm. Dave Aronberg was courageous enough to stand up to Florida’s largest law firm and British Petroleum. Newspapers that took GELBER’s side without investigation exemplify shoddy journalism – they attacked Aronberg for criticizing Gelber and raising ethics issues, as if their misreading of a State Bar rule should be binding on every voter.
How foolish.
How inane.
How elitist.
Each voter gets to make the decision, not uninformed “journalists” without credentials or credibility.
These are not just technical ethics issues – they are issues involving the appearance of impropriety. They are issues that every voter must consider in making what is essentially a hiring decision – do we hire Aronberg or Gelber to be our Democratic nominee for AG?
They sound like ninnies and boobies to me – why do so many Florida newspapers take the side of the rich and powerful, against those who do most of the living and dying and productive economic activity in our State? .
Rather than assign investigative reporters, these feckless thugs assigned only shallow political reporters (whose motto is “let ‘em eat handouts”) opted for their usual shallowness (“who’s up, who’s down”) rather than learning the facts.
The Chain Gang Journalist’s Politifact column’s thin gruel pigeon soup didn’t learn as much as this blog did. It didn’t take too long for me to read 500 web pages on the AKERMAN SENTERFITT website and share the list of clients with our readers.
Shame on you, Miami Herald, Palm Beach Post, Orlando Sentinel and other tepid, timid Chain Gang Journalism papers.
Your inept editors and reporters are under-funded and uninspired. Your reporting is lackluster. You have delusions of adequacy.
Without thought, without investigation or research, they errantly presume GELBER was telling the truth, without asking questions, without demanding documents, and without so much as examining GELBER’s AKERMAN SENTERFITT Martindale-Hubbell, Linked-in, and state legislature listings, all of which showed him as a shareholder (partner).
Some uninformed editorial writers don’t know peaturkey about a durn thing and show it every day.
Frankly, the Miami Herald, Palm Beach Post and Orlando Sentinel are shadows of their former selves, leaving their news writers and editorialists to produce a thin gruel instead of meaty substance.
Of course, as JFK said, 90% of all newspaper publishers are Republicans. So why would Democrats, voting in a Democratic primary, take the word of Republican Chain Gang “Journalists” from large organizations like COX NEWSPAPERS and the CHICAGO TRIBUNE COMPANY?
Republicans would (naturally) like Democrats to nominate the weakest possible candidate for AG, so they can beat him. Nominating GELBER for AG would be the functional equivalent of a boxer leading with his chin. Republicans would have a field day talking about GELBER’s secrecy in refusing to disclose any of his clients. They would beat GELBER like a rented mule.
On the other hand, Dave Aronberg is the strongest candidate, a real Democrat, and he would win.
Dave Aronberg, a real Democrat, reminds me of Robert Kennedy, committed to justice and speaking truth to power. Like Robert Kennedy in 1968, Dave Aronberg reaches out to both Democrats and Republicans, as shown by his election and re-election from a conservative district that spans from East to West in several counties.
GELBER has sent trashy mailings saying Dave Aronberg is a “typical politician.” That’s chutzpa. As the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit held in Motorola Corp. v. Uzan, 561 F.3d 123 (2nd Cir. 2009) regarding “chutzpa”:
“Chutzpah” as a legal term of art is analytically similar to “unclean hands,” though not necessarily coterminous with that concept as understood in the law of chancery. The 'classic definition' of chutzpah has been described as 'that quality enshrined in a man who, having killed his mother and father, throws himself on the mercy of the court because he is an orphan.' Leo Rosten, The Joys of Yiddish 92 (1968); see also Thaler v. Second New Haven Bank, Civ. No. B-713, slip op. at 1 (D. Conn. Apr. 10, 1974) (“When the apocryphal child murdered his parents and then sought mercy as an orphan, he set a standard for courtroom chutzpah that has not been rivaled until the filing of this lawsuit”); Scher v. Nat’l Assoc. of Sec. Dealers, 386 F. Supp. 2d 402, 404 (S.D.N.Y. 2005) (quoting the unpublished opinion by then-District Judge Newman and explaining the extraordinary circumstances of the civil suit brought by Seymour Thaler, a convicted felon and former New York state senator). Cf. Yates v. City of New York, 2006 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 54199, at *1 (S.D.N.Y. Aug. 4, 2006) (using this “vastly overused” but nonetheless “most appropriate” term to describe “an individual, [who] after being mauled by the 450-pound Siberian tiger he had been raising inside his fifth-floor apartment along with an alligator, sue[d] the city and the police who entered the apartment in an effort to rescue the animals for do
GELBER is like “the apocryphal child [who] murdered his parents and then sought mercy as an orphan.”
GELBER is not a likable guy. That makes him a bad candidate for the Democrats if he were nominated to run for AG.
GELBER is more like a “typical [Republican] politician” – they cower to power, kiss up and kick down. They appeal to the lowest common denominator instead of what Lincoln called “the better angels of our nature.” GELBER reminds me of every slick tv and movie corporate lawyer, a John Crisham caricature, a honky-tonk medley of villainy, like Snidely Whiplash without the moustache or panache.
The fact of the matter is that GELBER won’t identify his AKERMAN SENTERFITT clients, plays fast and loose with the truth and thinks that pro bono legal work is being a “big brother!” Oh, bother!
I recently told this last datum (GELBER thinks it’s pro bono legal work to be a “big brother”) to one of my retired judge friends living in Florida – he laughed.
GELBER’s false advertising doesn’t pass the laugh test.
GELBER doesn’t know why he’s running for Attorney General.
GELBER’s naked ambition made him drop his dream of running for United States Senator, a job for which he would be supremely qualified, having been chief counsel to one of Congress’ best subcommittees – the United States Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations (which was then chaired by the homophobic Senator Sam Nunn of Georgia, for whom GELBER worked for four years; Nunn is a retired senior partner with the law firm of King & Spalding).
Increasingly, GELBER, erstwhile AKERMAN SENTERFITT shareholder/partner/of counsel, seems angry at and out-of-touch with real people. GELBER issues lying campaign ads claiming Dave Aronberg has only two years of legal experience, or when he makes an issue of Dave Aronberg being too young and never trying a jury case.
What a red herring.
GELBER’s first attacklette is about age – Aronberg is younger (40) than GELBER (50). How trite. How revealing.
GELBER’s age attack on the younger, more qualified candidate reminds me of the scene in the tv series “The West Wing” where President Jed Bartlet (played by Martin Sheen) is interviewing a pompous jerk who is being considered for a Supreme Court nomination. Said pompous jerk condescends to a younger lawyer (Sam Seaborn (Rob Lowe) who is helping President Josiah Edward “Jed” Barlett question him – the pompous jerk doesn’t like being questioned and ends up by saying, “this sideshow is over. With all due respect, Mr. President, I find this kind of questioning very rude,” saying “you have me taken to school by some kid.”
Jed Barlett responds, “That Sam is young, drives me nuts too, but he took you off for a ride, sir, because that’s what I told him to do.”
We need an Attorney General who is young enough to care and does what the people of Florida told him to do – represent them and not the special interests. That Attorney General is Dave Aronberg, who passionately cares about helping people. Dave Aronberg is still young enough to be passionate, unjaded, and unfazed by power lawyers and the trash they emit.
GELBER’s second attacklette is about jury trials. Yes, GELBER has jury trial experience – but not one representing an individual against a large organization. GELBER prosecuted cases for the federal government. He now descends the rich and powerful, with secretive investigations under the Sarbanes-Oxley Act, the clients for which he refused to disclose.
Jury trials are an endangered species, thanks to the likes of AKERMAN SENTERFITT. Jury trials are an endangered species because of the immense expense that defense law firms have invested in cheating people out of their sacred rights to jury trial. Many lawyers work their entire careers without trying a jury trial. Legislators and judges have betrayed their oaths by taking away our Seventh Amendment right to jury trial – which the late U.S. Supreme Court Chief Justice Rehnquist said was a “bulwark against oppression” – with summary judgment and cramdown mediation and arbitration.
Oligopolists don’t trust juries – that’s why they’ve funded the “Alternative Dispute Resolution” movement for years, as Judge James L. Guill and I documented in a 1989 Judges’ Journal article, “A Rush to Unfairness – the Downside to Alternative Dispute Resolution.”
Thus, for the oligopolists’ candidate (GELBER) to brag on his jury trial experience in running for a Constitutional officer’s job proves once again that “Hypocrisy is the homage vice pays to virtue.” (Francois de La Rochefoucauld).
Florida’s Attorney General is a Constitutional officer. He does not try jury cases. He sets the tone for 500 lawyers – he leads our state in consumer protection cases, including winning cases against Big Tobacco (which AKERMAN SENTERFITT brags of defending in more than 40 jury trials).
In the past, some candidates for State Attorney General have played “bait and switch” with the voters – acting as if the job of State AG were primarily criminal, rather than civil. Then, when they’re elected, and you call their staffs (e.g., about Sunshine and Open Records violations) they say, oh, that’s the job of your local State’s Attorney and your FDLE (both of whom too often turn a blind eye to organized crime and white collar crime by local governments).
GELBER is in that mold – reading his propaganda, you’d think he was running for Miami State’s Attorney (for which he’s supremely qualified), rather than for Florida’s State AG.
It is up to us.
Do we nominate a wolf in sheep’s clothing (GELBER)?
Or do we nominate a committed consumer protection advocate, a mensch, a real man with real convictions (not a compromised corporate lawyer) who can win and make a difference in peoples’ lives?
Lazy newspapers aren’t helping us make this decision.
Let GELBER run for the U.S. Senate (as he had originally announced) the next time there’s a vacancy (which could be as eariy as 2012 of Senator Bill Nelson retires).
GELBER reminds me of Dick Tracy’s “Fearless Fosdick” – a stiff, stilted, self-caricature, a man who brags that everyone in his family is either a teacher or a prosecutor.
GELBER is singularly thin-skinned, as lugubrious a goober as ever made a chair squeak, someone who thinks that it’s all about him.
It’s not – it’s about who is fit to lead the State of Florida in the biggest civil litigation we’ve ever seen in history – the case of the State of Florida v. British Petroleum, Halliburton, et al.
We deserve a lawyer who is not a former hired gun with BP’s new law firm.
We deserve a lawyer who won’t have conflicts of interest.
Dave Aronberg deserves our support for Florida’s Attorney General.
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