Leader Lawsuit Watch Day 9
ArchPundit
To sum up, the Illinois Leader is threatening to sue for John Kerry’s divorce records even though those records are public. Dan Proft claims it changes nothing
July 2004
Leader Correction Watch Day 8
The Leader has still not correct Jill Stanek’s assertion that the custody file was sealed from time it was completed.
And in fact, it appears that Jack Ryan lied directly to her:
I have heard directly from Jack twice that the custody documents were sealed from the get-go. Unless he was lying, there are no unredacted documents sitting on any Dem (or GOP) desks.
What’s funny is the continued attempt to blame this fiasco on the press or Democrats. This was one very stupid Republican’s fault.
Lance!
Fantastic ride today and put 15 seconds on Jan and a little less on Tyler. He looked in top form–certainly better than last year. Tomorrow’s a sprinter’s day so expect the big teams to circle around the leaders and stay with the Peloton.
And he started without the Yellow today–not having it means Postal isn’t obligated to chase down any breakaways.
I’m Just Saying
That if you can’t get action in Chicago, perhaps it’s more you and less your politics.
I might also suggest some house decorations that go beyond the bottom fifty percent of dorm room decorating, but hey, what do I know.
Every Day This Story Keeps Going
One has to wonder if the person passing the unredacted file around out there isn’t motivated to point out the last six redacted paragraphs. McCulloch points out that the Daily Herald ran a story saying the judge pulled six paragraphs at the last minute:
Susan Seager said that while some of the information concerning the allegations made by both parties about the others? behavior may be harmful to the child, the public has a right to see the documents, especially since Ryan ?declared himself to be a family values candidate.?
The judge cleared the court of all spectators, including Seager, for about 40 minutes to conduct private arguments with the two lawyers representing Jack Ryan, a millionaire investment banker, and Jeri Ryan, of TV?s ?Boston Public? and ?Star Trek: Voyager.?
When the public session resumed, Schnider said he had reconsidered his earlier inclination to unseal about a half dozen paragraphs contained in the documents.
Schnider said the sections contain ?personal accusations? that don?t refer to the couple?s child or reveal any information about the child.
But he said he agreed with arguments made by the attorney for both parents that ?the publicity that would be generated would become known to the child and will have a significant deleterious effect on the child.?
?This is a child whose development would likely be affected by the release of information regarding his parents that might also be embarrassing to the parents,? Schnider said. ?That?s as clear as I can be.?
Schnider then said he would unseal other sections of the documents that, while likely harmful to the child and embarrassing to Jack Ryan, would be in the public?s best interest to see.
The judge?s ruling closely mirrors a recommendation made earlier this month by a referee appointed by Schnider to examine the 40 or so documents.
The documents were originally sealed by Schnider in 2000 and 2001 and relate to a divorce that was granted in 1995.
McCulloch’s Rebuttal
Is largely consistent with what he told me on a previous occasion and what he has said in other venues including WBEZ’s 848. His story hasn’t changed and is generally consistent with everything we know. The issues he addresses are the areas that one can question, but without the full unredacted file no one can answer. And he makes the point he doesn’t know the truth regarding the original claims by Jeri Ryan. None of us do and probably wisely, Jack Ryan and her aren’t discussing their different claims.
And Chuck Goudie reports that he received a similar type of claim before the files were released.
The reality is that someone was lying back in March and it wasn’t Rod McCulloch. Could he be off on some specific details. Yes, but ultimately, Jack Ryan decided to attack McCulloch and his character as have some of Jack’s supporters. Some continue to do so including Jeff Berkowitz and Jill Stanek.
What’s most interesting is that Rod McCulloch also ran Al Salvi’s 1998 race for Secretary of State race in which Salvi attacked the running of the Secretary of State’s office under George Ryan. McCulloch also was pointing out the problems and lost business over that as he did over the release of Jack’s files. Those who taking shots at him might remember that.
McCulloch was trying to stop the Republicans from making a significant mistake. Going back to an early post on this, and as I said, what other reasons did he have to do this:
McCulloch is a veteran Republican operative and pollster and that is why his actions don’t make sense as just your normal dirty trick. It seems likely that regardless of the veracity of the claims, his career working for Illinois Republican candidates is over. Then again, someone who might lie about such claims isn’t likely to be that smart anyway. But mostly, even the dumbest guy realizes Borling isn’t going anywhere.
The last point McCulloch reiterated to me on the Tuesday after the files were released.
The question to me at this point is why do people still think attacking McCulloch makes any sense? He has largely been demonstrated to be accurate to this point and he had nothing to benefit from in releasing the file-and indeed, seems to have lost work and he’s done exactly this kind of thing before with George Ryan. Or perhaps Jack! is still spinning since he seems to think he’s going to make a comeback in a later race.
Rod McCulloch’s Response to Jeff Berkowitz
More than the content directed at Jeff Berkowitz, I think this is noteworthy in its description of how McCulloch saw the file and what he says was in there. I’ll have some commentary in the next post. I made a small edit to a paragraph that doesn’t go to any of the arguments made.
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Jeff, you folks must truly be the “Vince Foster was murdered” crowd. You Ryan guys are far worse sore losers than Al Gore and his supporters ever were. Do you figure that you and the small group of dedicated Jack Ryan Kool-Aid drinkers are the only people in Illinois politics that haven’t figured out that Jack Ryan leaving the U.S. Senate race because of circumstances surrounding sex clubs in “Paris, New York, and New Orleans” bears out what I was saying in March?
So much to refute, where to start? First of all, Ryan’s paid triumvirate of fellow liars, Jason Miller, Dan Proft, and Jeff Davis, have, in my view, disqualified themselves from working in serious campaigns in Illinois, as much as Ryan has disqualified himself as a candidate. By signing confidentiality agreements before accepting their large paychecks, they in effect signed a contract to lie for the candidate. I don’t think I’ve ever heard of that before in Illinois politics. Don’t get me wrong, there have been liars in politics since I started more than twenty years ago. And they have lied for all manner of reasons (protecting their candidate, keeping themselves out of trouble, because they couldn’t help themselves, etc.), but never in my experience because they signed their honesty away.
Davis is, or was, a friend of mine. I am quite sure I have moved down on his Christmas Card list. Proft has proven himself on more than one occasion to be shameless and Miller was already way out of his league when he got here. I’ll deal with Proft in a minute.
You, Berkowitz, on the other hand, are not a liar, you are just playing the role of the useful idiot. I must say it’s not very becoming. What is it about New Trier Township residents and their blind spot on Jack Ryan. You unfortunately echo the lying triumvirate’s arguments that because I didn’t get every detail (in their narrowly constricted version) correct that I must be lying.
First, I did sign an affidavit, which was different from the statement faxed around. John Chase from the Tribune among others has a copy.
Second, I have never said, or sworn that I saw the actual documents. I believe they were and that’s what I swore to and said at the time. But I haven’t and can’t totally rule out the possibility that they were clever reproductions. If they were reproductions, what was in there was pretty darn close.
Third, I had about fifteen minutes of viewing those documents in a frenzied, hurried environment. Which is about the same amount of time, incidentally, that the Dan “the Liar” Proft claims he had.
Fourth, from the moment I arrived at the state party’s fund-raising dinner (Hard Rock Hotel on Michigan Ave.) Friday night, all manner of people came up to congratulate me, including several strong Ryan supporters from early on. These people ran the gamut from one of Jack’s best volunteers from the Northwest suburbs, to a noted northside Ward Committeeman, an early Jack! supporter, to a noted national leader, and all manner in between. I will be charitable and just say that you must have been too busy chowing down to notice. At the end of that fund-raiser, you did hog several moments of my time where you made all sorts of absurd allegations and must not have listened to a word I said.
After the fund-raising dinner, there was a cocktail party on the 4th floor, which you did not attend. After a few drinks, the congratulations became longer and louder, almost to the point that it was embarrassing. Campaign workers from Rauschenberger, McKenna and Oberweis campaigns surrounded me at various times for several moments. This is not surprising since they were chanting almost in unison “Go, Rod, Go!” back in March. But the topper may have come from one of the few downstate County Chairman to support Jack. He and that county’s former Republican Chairman and their wives were in a corner of the balcony just outside the main room where this cocktail party was held, when I came out on the balcony to get away from my new-found admirers. The former Chairman waved me over when he saw me and regaled the others with his version of David vs. Goliath. The new Chairman informed me that because he had been an early Jack Ryan supporter, he killed a proposed campaign contract for me earlier in his area, but now since he knew I was telling the truth, we might be able to rehabilitate it.
“Conquering hero” might have been a little strong, but compared to the icy stares I received at some functions in March and April, it was pretty close. I say again that rather than congratulations, sadness is in order. There are times when you almost wish you weren’t right, and similar to when I was out front in the effort to warn about George Ryan, this is one of them.
Proft insists in effect that I couldn’t possibly have seen the documents because he (the great and powerful one) only saw them himself for fifteen minutes. As if these people (Proft, Miller, and Davis) were the only three people around Jack who ever had access to these documents. Laughable.
Now let’s examine the accuracy of what I actually said. I said there was an allegation of an affair. Jeri Ryan now says she has no reason to believe that Jack was unfaithful. In the documents I saw, there was an allegation by Jeri’s lawyers about an affair. If for whatever reason Jeri has now backed off that claim, fine, I said at the time in March that this was a minor part of the statement. The Ryan folks must think we have forgotten about all the redacted parts.
Second, I said that Jeri alleged that he forced her to have sexual relations against her will. This is not an allegation of rape, and your unthinking nod towards Proft on this point is beneath your intellectual level. This allegation could include a wide range of things, including sexual activity in an “avant garde” night club in Paris that Jeri was “uncomfortable” with, particularly after she had already repeatedly declined to do these things in public. Since that part of my statement was ACCURATE, I think I’ll stand by it. I never claimed that she alleged rape, or physical assault, which her recent statement ruled out. At the time of my statement, in every interview I gave, I said that this allegation was tied to the third one: the sex clubs.
Finally, I said that she alleged that he took her to sex clubs in Paris, New York, and New Orleans and forced her to have sex in public. We know that she alleges he asked her to do so in New York and New Orleans and we know that according to his own account he did indeed take her to a club in Paris where they left after they both became “uncomfortable.” Uh-huh. I think I’ll stand by that statement as well.
Bottom line is I’ll stand by my description of a fifteen minute look at those documents and proudly take the abuse of the sore losers. The political world of Illinois knows what happened. I don’t guess it has occurred to Proft, Berkowitz and the rest that if they really believed what I said was inaccurate back in March, instead of lying for Jack, they could have corrected it with the “true” version, oh, that’s right, they signed documents making them lie. But we’re supposed to believe them now.
Finally, there is a little reported fact that makes this story even juicier. It is in the Daily Herald story from the day after the Judge’s ruling. It comes from an Associated Press story that I haven’t seen anywhere else. Look at the end of the story, where it talks about “six paragraphs” that are worse than what he released. He says that he was inclined to release them, but the Ryan lawyers talked him out of it. As someone once said, you could look it up.
I know what’s in there too, but I didn’t want to go there.
Rod McCulloch
Tune in Over the Weekend
I will be blogging and while I’m not promising, there may be some interesting stuff. Hopefully I’ll catch up a bit tomorrow for today or even tonight.
Not Even Slowing Down
A. I don’t feel that way, necessarily. I really don’t feel that I’m through with politics. I mean the voters, the people decide, not me. But I still do have this idea, which I’m confident about. This idea that take the Great Society programs, which empower institutions and then empower individuals instead. . . . And I think that’s worth fighting for.
So we will have Jack Ryan to kick around again. Brings a smile to my face.
Gidwitz Out
Trib reports he doesn’t want to make the run. All that oppo for nothing….sigh
Another name has come up, Dr. Andrea Grubb Barthwell, an African-American doctor. Someone is either floating the name out of courtesy or is on some seriously good crack. Just because someone is African-American doesn’t make them a good challenger to Obama. Without any support on the ground she’d be a disaster.
Update: From Roll Call, it looks like she is getting support out of DC.
That possibility appears to be a long shot, however, according to one knowledgeable Illinois Republican.
?She is a complete unknown who has made no effort to reach out to people in Illinois or the committee members and party leaders who will ultimately make this decision,? said the source.
Hard to say where exactly this is coming from, but my guess is that it is one of two things:
1) she sees a chance to jump up the ladder quick in the GOP and has her friends backing her
2) National GOP sees this as a chance to do some outreach to African-American voters. Not a bad strategy, but it’d kill the down ballot this time.