Thursday, April 23, 2009

Norm: what part of “appeal” don’t you understand?

01coleman From the lede in a Strib article this monring:

Norm Coleman asked the state Supreme Court on Wednesday to set a slower timetable than his rival seeks in the next phase of the protracted U.S. Senate race.

Coleman, a Republican, proposed to the court that his appeal of Democrat Al Franken's victory in the recent Senate election trial be argued no sooner than mid-May, two weeks later than Franken suggested on Tuesday.

The Coleman camp said in documents that while it recognizes a need to resolve the case "as expeditiously as possible," the two sides and the court "must be given enough time to fully develop and consider the issues on appeal."

Come on, Norm, do you mean “develop” or do you mean “find?” If it’s the former, these are issues that your lawyers preserved properly in the trial record for appeal. They’ve been arguing them for months already. The appeal issues are already identified and quite well “developed.” Spot knows that Ben Ginzberg is saying, “God, I just need more time to think!” But the time for thinking is over. You need something else, but sadly, no amount of meditation, peyote, or other religious rite is going to make things better either. You don’t need more time; stop stalling.

If, on the other hand, you really mean “find,” and Spot thinks maybe you do, it’s too late to try to find other issues to bring up in the appeal, which is, after all, a reconsideration of the record made. At every turn, you have revealed the your undertakings after the recount as a complete “throw everything against the wall and see if anything sticks” exercise.

Face it, Norm: it’s time to walk that long mile.

 losers-with-dirty-faces_thumb[8] Image by Tild.

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