Word: jacksonism
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...target of those judicial projectiles was Thomas Penfield Jackson, the judge who presided over the Microsoft trial. The reason for the appellate court's displeasure: Jackson's intemperate comments to the press while the case was pending--notably, comparing Microsoft at various points to a French emperor and a D.C. drug gang. Or as Chief Judge Harry Edwards acerbically put it, Jackson's propensity to "run off [his] mouth." The legal system, Edwards said, "would be a sham if all judges went around doing this...
This particular tongue-lashing wasn't just a dispute among judges. It has potentially enormous implications both for the Microsoft case and for the entire software industry. Microsoft insists that Jackson's public comments showed judicial bias, and thus are grounds for reversing his liability ruling against the company. Even if the appeals court doesn't go that far, Jackson's statements may very well provide it with a basis for reversing the sweeping remedy order that would divide Microsoft into two companies...
That Judge Jackson crossed some sort of a line is hard to dispute. Buried in a footnote of World War 3.0, one of several new books about the Microsoft antitrust case, is the startling acknowledgment that Jackson granted author Ken Auletta "about 10 hours of taped interviews." That's a lot of time for a reporter to get out of any source, much less one bound by the Code of Conduct for U.S. Judges to avoid commenting on pending cases. Judge Jackson also spoke with other media, including the New York Times and the Wall Street Journal...
Making matters worse, Jackson's comments were not particularly judicious. According to Auletta's book, the judge compared Microsoft to the Newton Street Crew, a Washington gang over whose murder and drug-trafficking cases he had presided. "I am now under no illusions that miscreants will realize that other parts of society view them that way," Jackson told Auletta. He also criticized Bill Gates for having a "Napoleonic" view of himself and Microsoft...
...other side of the aisle, Democrats were clearly unsure how to act. Sheila Jackson Lee and Jesse Jackson, Jr. stood on the aisle to meet the President as he went by as if they hadn't stood in the very same chamber a month before to yell at former Vice President Al Gore '69 for not inventing rules so they could protest his loss. Robert Byrd looked like he was having a stroke, though, strangely, he didn't seem upset about it. Hillary, who gained more camera time than Laura Bush, couldn't decide what to do with her face...