Sunday, February 04, 2007

Easley's Language

An intriguing follow-up to yesterday's Neff/Niolet article breaking the news that Gov Mike Easley termed Mike Nifong his worst appointment, while also criticizing the D.A.'s handling of the lacrosse case. In his NYU speech, Easley also asserted that Nifong broke his promise not to run for a full term in the office.

The Easley press release announcing Nifong's appointment in 2005 was entitled, "GOV. EASLEY APPOINTS NIFONG AS INTERIM D.A," and opened with the following sentence: "Gov. Mike Easley today appointed Michael B. Nifong as Interim District Attorney for the 14th Prosecutorial District (Durham County)."

Compare that approach to Easley press releases following the appointment of D.A. Scott Thomas (Craven County) and Doug Henderson (Guilford County). No mention of "interim" in either the title or the body of the press release.

24 comments:

Anonymous said...

Any idea why it took weeks for the MSM to report what Easley said at the NY Law School?

Anonymous said...

just another state employee who does nothing for their pay and then tries to blame others when their actions are called to the forefront.

Easley is a joke.

Anonymous said...

Very interesting. Sure would be fascinating to know the reason Governor Easley had for this use of language. It seems that with Mr. Nifong in the doghouse, the Governor could share a little of his reasoning on this.

I suppose the 260 plus comments on the previous Easley posting should put to rest any notion that commenters here are a monolithic group politicically.

M. Simon, thanks for helping out with the link. I must have missed a number or a letter or something.

Any news from the march? I hope it goes beautifully, and I am sorry not to be there.

Observer

Anonymous said...

March went fine. I counted 114 on the turn into Campus Drive. No ugly incidents. DPD was out in force and had the march route blocked off.

Anonymous said...

Just got home from the Walk sponsored by the wonderful Duke Mothers through Durham. It was great, lots of people walking, purposely supporting the 3 Lax players, their families, and the duke lacrosse program. Very positive energy. Beautiful day to walk outside. Met a couple real interesting people who I really liked speaking and listening to. I hope I get a chance to speak with Kathy again!

There really weren’t any counter demonstrations. But I did have a chat with a true nifong supporter!It is kind of amazing to me that they are still out there. He kind of called me some bad things for supporting the lax players. I appreciated him as a human being. Did a lot of listening as he shared his viewpoints. I focused on healing and trying to bring people more together instead of increasing polarization. Make love not war kind of thing.

Towards the conclusion of our discussion, I did tell him that I thought nifong and crystal should do jail time. We shook hands at the end.

liberal durham democrat

Anonymous said...

Note also that Easley made that statement after the appointment of the SP, would likely have obtained a report on how badly Nifong behaved before piling in on him.

Anonymous said...

My best guess as to why Easley would have insisted on Nifong's assurance that he wouldn't run for DA is, first, that he clearly he is not a Freda Black supporter or he would have appointed her and, second, that he knew (well, "knew") Freda would cakewalk into the office and didn't want to wake up to headlines on the day after the primary that read, "Easley's Hand-picked Successor Loses DA Race." By appointing a lame-duck DA he probably thought he was leaving the door open for someone else to enter the race and just maybe (but probably not) beat Freda. When Nifong fired her on what sound like trumped up charges, Easley was probably delighted.

Maggie

Anonymous said...

Amanda claims she did not air brush but was a software mishap, - only in the hoax.

Gary Packwood said...

Great Post 2:22 PM

Very helpful to know the Mom's Walk turned out.

Congrats on your intelligent handling of the 'fong' supporter and your show of support for him as a person.

Look forward to reading the final summary about the WALK!

Anonymous said...

I believe Easley wants to get out in front of the stunning revelations about Nifong's conduct that have not been made public. There has been talk on some boards of manufactured evidence and other misdeeds we haven't heard about.

Anonymous said...

check the liestoppers website for theMom'smarch and updates ...

Anonymous said...

To Liberal Democrat @2:22

Glad to see that humanity trumps ideology in your case. I hope it does in mine too, which is certainly not liberal in its contemporary American usage, but you literally walked the walk.

KC said something in one recent post about how he had never contemplated that social justice ever implied individual injustice. I greatly doubt that that proposition is even close to universally accepted among the American left today, but it gives me some hope for a reasonable politics in the US to know that at least some on the left subscribe to it.

JeffM

Anonymous said...

Wisconsin police chief tickets himself $235
"Top cop pays fine, docks himself 4 points on license after traffic violation

"KEWASKUM, Wis. - Police Chief Richard Knoebel says he wasn’t about to take the easy way out when he accidentally drove past a stopped school bus with its emergency lights flashing.

For violating traffic laws, Knoebel wrote himself a ticket for $235, docked himself four points on his driving record and paid the fine the next day."


Amidst the cesspool of criminals, rogues and other unpleasant people saving their asses, pushing irrelevant agenda and covering up malfeasance, I thought this story was a nice respite.

Anonymous said...

2:22 PM
liberal durham democrat
"He kind of called me some bad things for supporting the lax players. I appreciated him as a human being."

You guys are a special breed.

Anonymous said...

did anyone catch "Forensic Files" Saturday night on CourtTV?It featured the Michael Peterson case and Freda Black spoke.

Anonymous said...

Hello 5:55

I did not see the program - and I have not been able to find out why nifong fired her.

Anonymous said...

JLS says....

Professor Johnson good get on the language of the press releases. I think now based on this we must believe Easley that he was promised Nifong would not run.

Anonymous said...

To 3:16 — Could you elaborate on the reports that Nifong manufactured evidence?

Anonymous said...

Why did it take weeks to report? Because the MSM is lazy and indifferent to agendas not of the MSM's making.

Anonymous said...

JLS says...

Yeah let me second that 3:16 can you elaborate at all about your post?

Anonymous said...

3:16 - links to the online discussions about manufactured evidence would be fine.... if you would, please.

Anonymous said...

too bad for you all that the local news media presented the full audio tape of what easley said and he not only said something negative about nifong but he also talked about the lax team's poor conduct and mentioned the racial slurs.

i also do not believe that nifong promised not to run; that does not make sense. you all are talking about freda black but she has a bad reputation in town for being an alleged alcoholic, having a black alleged boyrfriend who has been in trouble about dosmestic violence and who she supposedly helped get a lighter sentence, and for getting defendants out of jail and taking them to her house for meals, etc as inducements to testify. cheshire even said about the election that "nifong is crazy about this one case but freda is crazy all the time". freda would not be who easley appointed at all.

Michael said...

> too bad for you all that the
> local news media presented the
> full audio tape of what easley
> said and he not only said
> something negative about nifong
> but he also talked about the lax
> team's poor conduct and mentioned
> the racial slurs.

Well, the LAX captains apologized
for the slurs from what, one person on the team. So I guess Easley was okay with that statement. I'm sure that he's being very careful with his statements to echo what's been confirmed out there. No sense in making himself a target for a lawsuit.

> i also do not believe that nifong
> promised not to run; that does
> not make sense.

Why would a governor go public with a statement like this which does impugn the character of Mike Nifong without it being true? He opens himself up to a suit from Nifong.

KC put up the evidence this past weekend on the language of the Governor's announcement and there is a difference.

> you all are talking about freda
> black but she has a bad
> reputation in town for being an
> alleged alcoholic, having a black
> alleged boyrfriend who has been
> in trouble about dosmestic
> violence and who she supposedly
> helped get a lighter sentence,
> and for getting defendants out of
> jail and taking them to her
> house for meals, etc as
> inducements to testify. cheshire
> even said about the election that
> "nifong is crazy about this one
> case but freda is crazy all the
> time". freda would not be who
> easley appointed at all.

It's pretty clear that there's a
lot of strange stuff that goes on
in Durham and it's hard to sort
out the he-said, she-said. Character assasination seems to be
a pretty popular sport down there
and it can be hard for an outsider
to determine the true character
of the players.

Anonymous said...

i do not care if you do not believe me about freda black. the local people know that some of this has even made the local papers. if you check there is a paperback book about her most famous case, the micheal peterson case and it details some of freda's more controversial episodes. freda even had some witnesses to her house during that time as well. one of nifong's first actions as da was to make it unethical for members of the da's office to date defendents, etc. this is called the Freda black rule unofficially.