My all time favorite example of a backhanded compliment – “she’s got freckles on her but she’s pretty just the same” – was one-upped today by James Gill’s “Disbarred attorney not as crazy as he seems”:
A federal appeals court ruling last week leads inescapably to the conclusion that New Orleans’ most famous disbarred attorney, Ashton O’Dwyer, may not be entirely crazy after all.
He still comes close, but the court handed him a small measure of vindication in throwing out a Katrina class-action settlement that he has always denounced as a lawyers’ scam to stiff the plaintiffs…[and]…he certainly was wronged by the cops who arrested him a few weeks after the storm, when he was attracting nationwide media attention for what he termed his “Robinson Crusoe” existence on St. Charles Avenue and his furious attacks on inept government.
He spent 16 hours at a makeshift jail at the Union Passenger Terminal, where he was locked in a portable metal cage, repeatedly pepper-sprayed and shot several times with beanbag pellets. He was never prosecuted, but nobody has been held to account for the maltreatment, for which he has produced ample photographic evidence.
Understandably, someone subjected to such might get a little crazy when no one is held accountable; but, let’s not go there today.
Today we celebrate – Merry Christmas, Ashton!