A.G. Coakley is to the right of Scalia!

is that Coakley is a bit of an zealot when it comes to law and order.  And she sometimes forgets suspects may not be guilty of the crime with which they have been charged.

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p>For example, why did Coakley arrest Sean Stevens and Peter Berdovsky if she knew they had no intent to commit the crime of “placing a hoax device to incite panic”?

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p>They were clearly earning some money as part of an advertising campaign.  And once Coakley figured out she couldn’t prove intent – not just because she lacked evidence but because all the evidence pointed to the fact they had zero intent to cause panic, their intent was clearly enterprise, not terrorism…Why then didn’t she release them and apologize rather than make them apologize and do 1.5 and 2 weeks public service each?  

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p>This is hardly a miscarriage of justice but it suck nonetheless.

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p>Do you want a senator who will use the power of her office against you even though she understands that she misunderstood the situation and rather than remedy it appropriately, uses the power to save face?  

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p>Take Shanley: He was convicted on the testimony of one alleged victim and no corroboration.  The alleged victim claimed “traumatic amnesia” which is not justified by the science. Shanley recently won an appeal. No date is set. Reason Magazine on traumatic amnesia:

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p>The whole theory of traumatic amnesia is at best unproven, at worst quackery. Richard McNally, a Harvard University psychologist and the author of Remembering Trauma, says that people forget and recover nontraumatic memories all the time, but when an experience is truly traumatic, they “seldom if ever” forget it, though they may manage not to think about it. “No one has blocked out Auschwitz,” he says. In a 2002 paper, three psychiatrists surveyed 77 studies of trauma survivors and found not a single reported case of traumatic amnesia. Moreover, McNally says, “the more repeated an event is, the less likely you are to forget that class of event.”

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p>I think she would be a good advocate for women’s reproductive rights. Yesterday on Hardball she said go after the Hyde Amendment.  

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p>I think she a strong progressive, a law and order zealot  and an inexperienced legislator.

to describe this case in terms of “left” and “right.”  Joining Scalia’s opinion were “liberal” Justices Stevens, Souter, and Ginsburg, and “conservative” Justice Thomas; dissenting were “conservative” Chief Justice Roberts and Justices Kennedy and Alito, and “liberal” Justice Breyer.  This case is one of a line of criminal procedure cases that have made some very strange bedfellows on the Supreme Court — in all of these cases, both the majority and the dissenting opinions have generally had some “liberal” and some “conservative” Justices signing on.  

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p>Furthermore, it’s not like Coakley was an outlier on this.  Thirty-five states (ALABAMA, ALASKA, ARIZONA, ARKANSAS, COLORADO, CONNECTICUT, DELAWARE, FLORIDA, GEORGIA, HAWAII, IDAHO, INDIANA, KANSAS, KENTUCKY, MARYLAND, MICHIGAN, MINNESOTA, MISSISSIPPI, MISSOURI, NEBRASKA, NEVADA, NEW HAMPSHIRE, NEW JERSEY, NEW MEXICO, NORTH CAROLINA, OHIO, OKLAHOMA, RHODE ISLAND, SOUTH CAROLINA, SOUTH DAKOTA, TENNESSEE, UTAH, VIRGINIA, WASHINGTON, WYOMING) plus D.C. signed on to an amicus brief backing her position.  (Sorry about the caps — copied and pasted the list from the actual brief.)

Coakley went for murder, without allowing the option for manslaughter.  My understanding is that murder requires intent to cause death, whereas manslaughter does not.  I never thought that the defendant intended to cause the death of the baby in her care.  Fortunately Judge Zobel intervened.

This must be assumed as the O’Reilly campaign has begun its attacks. Yes, the same campaign that questioned Kerry’s military service. Hmm.

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p>Martha Coakley has proven progressive credentials and has not sat around playing it safe, but fought hard for Massachusetts and those not always afforded government protect, homeowners, the environment, and equal rights. Martha has been proactive and effective practicing Obama’s philosophy of if it doesn’t work – try something else, if it does work – do more.

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p>With Martha Coakley we will have a tenacious fighter advocating for the issues we hold dear.

In my book, and probably in the book of a majority of Massachusetts voters.

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p>Try again.