Great Moments in Public-Private Synergy

From page SR-7 of the Mitchell Report:

I sent a memorandum to every active player in Major League Baseball encouraging each player to contact me or my staff if he had any relevant information. . . . Through their representative, the players Association, I asked each of them to meet with me so that I could provide them with information about the allegations and give them a chance to respond. Almost without exception they declined to meet or talk with me.

From today’s newspapers:

In a declaration filed in federal court in Houston as part of [Roger] Clemens’ defamation lawsuit against Brian McNamee, assistant U.S. attorney Matthew Parrella said he told McNamee he was not a target of the investigation but could become one if he failed to cooperate.

If McNamee made any false statements to federal investigators or to the law firm hired by baseball to investigate drugs in the sport, Parrella said he could face prosecution.

Emphasis supplied.

Ask yourself: if you were asked to voluntarily come in and talk about your coworkers’ conduct to a private law firm hired by a business association to which your employer belonged, and knew ahead of time that you would face federal prosecution if they believed that you were not being truthful, would you do it?

I sure wouldn’t, and I bet George Mitchell wouldn’t let any of his clients do it either. So forgive me if the above statement he made his report doesn’t cause me to be outraged at the players, which I’m sure is what he intended.


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Jay
15 years ago

Oddly specific blogging question:

Whenever a blogger (seems to be a somewhat universal convention) adds emphasis to a blockquote, they say something such as “Emphasis supplied” or “Emphasis mine” after the quote.

Why not add that note the before, so as to give the reader a little heads up to said emphasis? Doesn’t that make more sense?

Craig Calcaterra
15 years ago

Jay,

I can’t speak for other bloggers, but the reason I do it the way I do is because that’s the way I was taught to add emphasis to blockquotes in legal briefs.  Lawyers have a style guide called the Blue Book which specifies that (or at least it did ten years ago, which was the last time I looked at the Blue Book).  I think it’s mostly a flow thing.  Get the argument out first and then deal with the formalities of citation later.  Hard to say.  Your way might be better.

Jay
15 years ago

Fair enough.

Years of legal precedence > One random blog commentor

Thanks for the explanation.

TLA
15 years ago

Sorry to lower the level of discourse, but the former Senate Majority Leader is a blowhard.  I prefer to give him the same treatment as his blowhard, pinstriped target.  Which is to say, I avoid talking about either one of them.