Foot In Mouth Disease Strikes Again

By Curmudgeon

The Standard-Examiner this morning has two excellent examples of political figures finding ways to open mouth, insert foot.

The first example comes from a front page story in today's Standard-Examiner. An attorney sued to prevent Davis County putting a second referendum on the ballot regarding fluoridated water after one had already passed. He won the suit [which claimed petitioners wanted the second referendum had missed the deadline for filing by two years]. He then, having won the suit, asked the County to pay his costs of filing the suit. The county said no. A court agreed. He appealed, and added fees for having to file the appeals. Utah's Supreme Court agreed with the attorney and has told Davis it has to pay in a 4-1 decision. The only dissenter was Associate Chief Justice Michael Wilkins who, according to the story, wrote that, by awarding attorney fees, any challenge of a flawed initiative petition will be entitled to attorney fees “so long as a referendum or initiative effort is successfully removed from the ballot.... One might reasonably expect all such future petitions to be challenged in court, leaving the bill to be paid by the public treasury.”

Huh? That last statement makes sense if and only if the Judge is presuming that all challenges to referendums on constitutional or legal grounds will be successful, and that therefore all future petitions for referendums will be found unconstitutional or otherwise unlawful. Because the County pays only if it loses the case and the referendum is removed from the ballot. And people wonder why public respect for the courts is declining? Perhaps paying for Judge Wilkins' tuition for a refresher course in Elementary Logic for Beginners might be a wise use of public funds.

The standard the Utah Supreme Court [except for apparently dozing on the bench Judge Wilkins] got it exactly right: when a citizen or citizen group sues a government entity and wins, the government should pay the legal costs of the winning side. When a citizen sues the government and loses, if the suit is judged to be frivolous, the suing party is assessed the government's court costs.

The second example comes from Condi Rice, who in a brief story in the world news roundup on page 2 of the Std-Ex, delivered herself of this gem:

"The United States doesn't have permanent enemies; we're too great a country for that."

This woman is running our foreign policy these days? She once said she was impressed by George Bush's fine and incisive mind. Now I understand why. Compared to hers, it may well be....

Sigh.

Weep for the Republic.