Black Watch: Today’s Top Stories
With scads of reporting this morning suggesting that the four-square solidarity among the defence attorneys is beginning to fray (particularly as regards the tenor and conduct of Eddie’s did-so-did-not cross of David Radler), I note a similar disharmony among their equivalents in the press benches. You will recall that at the end of week one, Peter Worthington, the senior partner in the firm of Steyn, Blatchford & Worthington, more or less guaranteed that Conrad would walk and, having donned the vestments of “the decider,” promptly decamped for home.
Lately he’s turned up again, and yesterday, in the face of Radler’s stoic indifference to any and all efforts to catch him in a lie (hereafter to be known as the I-never-stopped-beating-my-wife-and-neither-did-he defence), Worthington picked up a different hymnal. “It was a pretty good day for David Radler—he didn’t unravel under cross-examination by Eddie Greenspan at the Conrad Black trial yesterday… Radler, so far, has shown himself a liar with no apparent sense of shame. That may not be enough to save Conrad since he, and not Radler, is the one the prosecution is out to get.” Say it ain’t so, Pete. As every good neo- and or paleo-con knows, Worthington is father to Danielle Crittenden and, as a result, father-in-law to David Frum. In short, among scribblers he’s practically the Vito Corleone of organized conservatism and thereby a charter member of Team Tubby. If he’s losing faith, what next?
Well, maybe it’s time to call Macbeth to accounts. A distant drumbeat thumped out this morning by Rick Westhead in the Star and James Bone in the Times of London suggests that the only way to counter Radler’s counter-reformation is to put the great man himself on the stand. I think, given his track record on direct examination (remember Leo Strine?), that’s as likely as palm trees in Yellowknife. Still, the weather in the windy city is definitely changeable, and I really need to stop torturing this metaphor.
Radler rides out storm [Toronto Sun]Will Radler force Black to testify? [Toronto Star]Fast Eddie fades to black [Toronto Star]’Did you stutter when you were lying?’ [Chicago Sun-Times]Punishing Court Day for Black’s Ex-Deputy [NY Times]Judge warns Radler to stop making speeches in Black trial [Independent]Black may testify in own defence [Times of London]Black’s lieutenant acted alone, trial told [Guardian]
