A Place to Take Your Cap Off

The New York Times has announced that Bush will be pushing legal reforms soon. (Its use of scare quotes around the phrase "frivolous lawsuits" in the headline lets us slobs in flyover country know what we're supposed to think about those shenanigans!)

As he often did during the presidential campaign, Mr. Bush today blamed frivolous lawsuits for dragging down the economy, getting in the way of job creation and the expansion of many businesses.

"The cost of frivolous lawsuits in some cases make it prohibitively expensive for a small business to stay in business or for a doctor to practice medicine, in which case it means the health care costs of a job provider or job creator are escalating," he said.

He also said the high costs of lawsuits here have a ripple effect in America's ability to trade with Europe.

"The cost of litigation in America makes it more difficult for us to compete with nations in Europe, for example.

"We expect the House and Senate to pass meaningful liability reform," he said.

To which I say, "It's about time!" Nevertheless, my enthusiasm for legal reform is tempered by this bit of news from Daniel Pipes (and, what is, I hope, my own ignorance about the law) : "a U.S. district court found three Muslim organizations and one individual, mostly based in the Chicago area, guilty of funding Hamas and fined them an astonishing $156 million." The article then goes on to make several points about this decision. (Some are expanded upon in the article, which is well worth a full read. )

First, it validates and operationalizes a 1992 U.S. law that prohibits sending any money to terrorist organizations....

Second, this marks the first decision by a jury penalizing Americans who support terrorism abroad and making them liable to pay civil damages.

Third, as the Boims' lawyer, Stephen J. Landes, explained, it shows that "the American court system is prepared to bankrupt the Islamist terror network," just as it earlier destroyed the Ku Klux Klan and the Aryan Nations, two extremist and violent organizations, "by bringing unpayably large judgments against them."

Finally, the case confirms a pattern of culpability among even the most innocent-appearing of Islamic institutions.

I'm no legal expert, but I do have one request to make of our President before he pushes too far with the above mentioned reforms: please make sure that we don't screw around and somehow cap the damages organizations like these would have to pay. For once, I find myself feeling warm and fuzzy about the prospect of a pack of trial lawyers getting ready to "bankrupt" something. For once, the Lakoffian phrase "public protection attorney" would actually be an accurate description!

-- CAV