Brian Cook Named New Attorney for 'Freezer Cash' Congressman William Jefferson

by Bellanca on Sep 1, 2009 11:18 AM CDT Comment 25 comments

[Bumped, because Bellanca's got your jihad right here. -- Ed.]

ANN ARBOR -- Famed MGoBlog.com entrepreneur-savant Brian Cook, fresh off the heels of his stirring, mind-numbing defense of Rich Rodriguez in the recent Michigan football controversy, and there always will be controversies following Rich Rodriguez, has been appointed by convicted felon William Jefferson to manage his appeal.

Jefferson, the Lousiana Democrat convicted on August 5, 2009 of 11 counts of racketeering, money laundering, and bribery while running a Congressional office as a criminal enterprise, was perhaps best known for being caught with over $90,000 of wrinkled, grimy U.S. notes in his home freezer.

Jefferson issued this statement through his new attorney, Mr. Cook:

"After witnessing the sterling job Brian did pointing out that the alleged abuses of NCAA rules undertaken by Rich Rodriquez were so much folderol, spewed out by representatives of a dying media model, I felt I owed it to my constituents, real and imagined, to hire him. Those scurrilous allegations made against Rodriguez, while obviously true unless there is some sort of insanity virus spreading in nonlinear fashion amongst present and former UM football players, were immediately ridiculed and refuted by Brian. I have decided to employ him to clear my name. Did I mention that he agreed to be paid in cash?"

Cook also agreed to foreshadow his legal strategy for this reporter.

"As we saw with the latest effort to impugn the heart-stirring, committed genius that is Rich Rodriquez, three lines of argument, if advanced with seeming dispassion and high-mindedness, an absolute commitment to irrelevant counterattack, incessant deflection, and robust character assassination (the president is not the only dude who's read Rules for Radicals, you know) is precisely the legal strategy that should have been deployed on behalf of Congressman Jefferson.

"I simply cannot imagine that anyone could have singled out and harassed a brilliant public servant such as Mr. Jefferson. You must remember three things, at all times, and if you don't, I will call you stupid in a really clever, post-modern sort of way. And nobody likes that because it means I'm cooler than you.

"What are the attributes of the brilliant defense I will shortly launch for Congressman Jefferson, then?

"One, everybody does it. In matters of criminal defense, asserting the "me-too" defense is most compelling, because your average criminal justice fan can't remain focused on two contradictory ideas (winning, rules) at the same time. We will show that Mr. Jefferson is a winner, and winners are what America wants. Everybody hates a little snitch who tells the teacher that the class thug just beat the snot out of somebody behind the gym. We'll show that Mr. Jefferson worked 12-14 hours a day on Sunday because that's what it takes to be a winner.

"Two, what's with these 'anonymous' types who 'say' they work at the FBI? Since when in this great country, when 20 or so people all report the same crimes, are we supposed to pay any attention? This is ridiculous on its face. If you read their depositions and testimony, it's clear that they are a bunch of life's losers, whiners, cry-babies, men who lack the backbone to be what Mr. Jefferson so clearly challenges us to be: a winner. And their stories, because that is all they are, 'stories', and that's a post-modern tic that I used twice in one graf, adding quotes to render ironic a simple word, are all the same! Get it? The stories all add up to the same thing! Obviously they got together and made it all up. What a bunch of pussies.

"Three, never underestimate the soporific effect of my simply standing up in court (after I have made fun of the prosecution in a really clever, post-modern sort of way) and quoting directly and extensively from the Federal Criminal Code. They'll beg me to stop but I won't. I will parse and interpret the obvious, and before I'm done, they'll be saying, 'What? $90,000 in ill-gotten cash next to the ice cream? What? What does that have to do with anything? I hear that Southeast Missouri State once employed a guy who did the same thing, sort of. Right? Where were we again? Can we just acquit this guy and go home now?' Meh, get ready for it, it's going to be like that."

Mary Sue Coleman had no comment whatsoever. Previously, in response to l'affaire Rodriquez, she icily noted: "Good. The me-too defense nickel package, coupled with the shoot-the-messenger blitz, and the read-the-phone-book robber up cover-3. Um-hmm. Like I run a me-too institution and could care at all if they do this sort of thing at Southeast Missouri State. Like I wanted to hire this tawdry individual in the first place. Like I heard about how terrible a coach Lloyd was, but that I can't subtract 9 from 3 and realize I get a negative number. I don't think," she added ominously, "l'affaire Rodriguez est fini."

Lloyd Carr, reached for comment while fishing for walleye in the UP, cleared his throat and said, "This Cook guy probably knows more about that criminal defense sort of thing than running a football program, or managing a university, or hiring people, would be my guess. My, he types very quickly. Oh, one thing. If Mary Sue lapses into French? Someone is going to have a bad year."

Bill Martin, who hired Rodriguez despite the latter attempting to illegally circumvent an employment contract without paying a seven-figure breakup fee, added, "Well, I'm indebted to Brian because his http://mgoblog.com/content/jihad-second-bits-and-pieces work allowed me to terminate the independent, internal investigation that President Coleman previously required me to implement in a terse, 11-word phone call. Funny, instead of saying "good-bye" she said "au revoir." Anyway, we'll see how he does with an actual live felon who laundered money next to his Eskimo Pies. I'm going sailing now -- it's happening right now -- and I won't have my phone."

Kirk Ferentz, reached by phone because he doesn't use the internet, much less read http://mgoblog.com/content/jihad-second-bits-and-pieces blog thingys, understand post-modern irony, and has instructed his staff to "hit me with a baseball bat" if he does, said, "UNI's got a real good team and hey, I have to tell you, we're just Iowa here, we're going to have to be playing at our very best to have a chance out there."

[For more information: 'duh': http://mgoblog.com/content/jihad-second-bits-and-pieces ]

###

5 recs | Comment 25 comments

Story-email Email Printer Print

Comments

God damn you

I have to bump this to the front page, because it’s too fucking good to leave here. And then I have to be shotgunned by Cook, because he has to call us stupid in a really clever, post-modern way, because that’s what he does. And then I have to respond with a picture of the Ayatollah, because I’m childish.

Do you see what you’re doing to me? DO YOU SEE WHAT YOU ARE FUCKING DOING TO ME?

storminspank: "Or we could join you can take our pants off."

by Hawkeye State on Sep 1, 2009 11:38 AM CDT reply actions 0 recs

If Cook were so smart,

he’d would have pre-empted our pre-empting his calling us stupid in his really cool post-modern fashion. So it’s really all his fault. Or, should I say, ‘fault’.

Mr. Boh Knows ...

by Bellanca on Sep 1, 2009 11:47 AM CDT reply actions 0 recs

do you have anything substantive to say

…about what’s on the site, or are you a one-trick pony?

by Brian @ MGoBlog on Sep 2, 2009 9:26 AM CDT up reply actions 0 recs

Tee hee

(//cracks beer, puts up feet, leans back and watches)

by YouCanPutYourEddsInIt on Sep 2, 2009 1:15 PM CDT up reply actions 0 recs

Is that... post-modern?

I can’t really tell anymore.

by Bucketochicken on Sep 2, 2009 2:08 PM CDT up reply actions 0 recs

Here's the Cliff's Notes version, Brian.

Name-calling, messenger-burning, motive-questioning, and silly “everybody does it — including Southeast Missouri State” is the substance of your defense of Rodriguez. That’s what I found on your website and that’s what’s in my little Swiftian exercise, above. Which evidently escaped you. It’s just naive, this approach you’re taking. Pounding the table in this fashion is a loser of a defense. You might as well just say, “Leave us alone, we only did it for the children, and who doesn’t love the children?” Which, I believe, is the short form translation of Rodriquez’ recent press conference. But if you’re going to deliver a Checkers speech, you have to bring the wife and the dog. Then you cry in order to demonstrate your humanity, and your wife can dab at your eyes, while the dog whimpers sympathetically.

I don’t do name-calling and bickering on the intertubes, and thank you for calling me a name too, that’s really great!, but that is the substance of what I found on your website. If you want to defend the University of Michigan by asserting a moral equivalence with Southeast Missouri State, close ranks behind a coach who personal life is so confused he’s in default on $8mm of very recently accrued liabilities (a grown-up’s analysis: your coach is bankrupt in a business afflicted by extra-legal gambling; translation: RichRod could not get hired as an entry-level intelligence analyst, because he would be too easy to corrupt) and who lost 9 games in the same year that UM beat Florida and Tebow, and imply in all 170,000 words (they just keep coming and coming and coming) of Rodriguez-as-victim gloss that anyone who doesn’t agree has ulterior motives, fine. You’ve found your niche. Agree with me or I’ll call you a pony, I believe, is your position.

The NCAA, if it chooses to investigate this, can require any present or former UM player still on the NCAA plantation to answer questions about this matter. I did not read that on your web site. I would worry about that, in this instance, if I were in full shoot-the-messenger mode.

I also did not read what I am willing to heartily wager: those Michigan boys won’t be at the athletic complex this coming Sunday for anything approaching their schedule last year. I wonder why not? If all of this is a manufactured slur of a good man’s name, why not have them there a good 12 hours on Sunday, as well? It’s voluntary, right? What’s to hide?

I thought a little faux-Swiftan satire might be fun and I’m sorry it wasn’t.

In the end, this will be seen as an unambiguous set of technical violations, and it will be one more source of doubt that has accumulated in very short order about the class, character, performance, and judgment of someone who came of age in a very, very, very different place than Ann Arbor, MI. Again, the very worst of defenses is to name-call, impugn, and say to the teacher, “Bobbie hit me first and he does it all the time anyway you know he just doesn’t like me and besides, so does everyone else.” This imbroglio won’t bring down Rodriguez. But he’s so busy constructing a portfolio of damaging behaviors and decisions that, absent extraordinary good fortune during the games themselves this year, we are probably less than a year away to seeing his effectiveness dissolve.

At some point, the virulence of the man’s defense becomes his indictment. Why all the angst if it’s just puffery? Doesn’t add up.

Mr. Boh Knows ...

by Bellanca on Sep 2, 2009 2:28 PM CDT up reply actions 0 recs

///Grabs bag of chips

…cracks open second beer…

by YouCanPutYourEddsInIt on Sep 2, 2009 3:30 PM CDT up reply actions 0 recs

1) The point about “everyone does it” is not an excuse, it’s a way of explaining how these lurid accusations are disingenuously presented; every hour is presented as “mandatory” when the reality of it, to the NCAA, is that all or (in the worst case) the vast majority of those mandatory activities were not supervised by coaches and are therefore voluntary by the letter of the law. I am not attempting to excuse any of the behavior Rodriguez is accused of because it consists of making his team work hard.

2) Why is it off limits to question the motives of a guy who’s written a half-dozen slam jobs on Rodriguez since he was hired? If this was an anonymous beat writer, okay, but this is the most prominent columnist at the Free Press and one who has made it very clear (“Tell yourself what you want. I find it sad that the University of Michigan is paying a man millions of dollars a year to humiliate some of its students.”) that he has a low opinion of the coach.

3) If you want to accuse me of being naive, writing too much, and engaging in “Swiftian satire” but not descending into internet namecalling and bickering, well… good luck with that.

4) Ad hominems about stupid investments aren’t relevant.

5) Since the only players on the team quoted in the story were two freshmen who are now pissed off at the Free Press, Michigan does not have much to worry about if the NCAA bothers to investigate, which they likely won’t after Michigan’s compliance department releases its report. I have those “source” things in the department and they say they have meticulous documents.

6) FWIW Michigan won’t be doing it Sunday anymore, which was already the case when the report came out. I will provide an alternate hearty wager: NCAA sanctions are nonexistent or limited to a couple of secondary violations; there is no probation, scholarship loss, or major infractions.

7) The argument that a vigorous defense in the face of a national, news-cycle-dominating story is unwarranted is incredibly stupid.

let me know if you want to take me up on the hearty wager by email: mgoblog@gmail.com.

by Brian @ MGoBlog on Sep 2, 2009 3:55 PM CDT up reply actions 0 recs

Loser posts nude photos?

Tastefully done. But definitely, all nude.

I got more rhymes than Wade Lookingbill's got dunks

by Adam Jacobi on Sep 2, 2009 4:00 PM CDT up reply actions 0 recs

Well, this is impossible. I think you need more sleep.

Or, you need to type more slowly so that your brain controls your keystrokes, or, you just need a couple of years in a liberal arts curriculum so that you acquire some critical thinking ability.

Anyway, item 1) is internally inconsistent and illogical; item 2) forgets that if 20 people say the same thing, it’s probably not manufactured by two reporters — both of whom will be destroyed if they’re wrong, given that they work for a newspaper (where being accurate is primary? eh?) and not a blog; item 3) is puzzling since it’s clear that you haven’t read Swift (and, I hope, someone you know has and can tell you that I wrote the satire, not you); item 4) indicates you don’t know what ad hominem means; item 5) is sort of funny, because who cares if the people who told the same story as the other 20 wish they hadn’t?; item 6) thank you, you proved my point; item 7) is just sort of unfair to comment upon, because you’re saying that calling people names and comparing UM to Southeast Missouri State constitutes a ‘vigorous defense’.

Here’s a small maxim to ponder: action is character, character is fate. So never offer a contract to someone who just blatantly breached his prior contract, assume that if he is stealing money from a bank it might be a problem, take a moment to consider that anyone who wrote and published that expose was putting his career at risk, and … stop typing so fast!

RichRod is a West Virginia NAIA coach in a class, benchmark NCAA conference where … action is character and character is fate. Did anybody interview this man? Run a credit check? Speak with his references?

The problem UM now has is that he is so broke and so soiled by his own actions that he cannot afford to quit. And he can’t even afford to be fired, because I doubt UM is going to pay off his WVU creditors if he is fired for cause. They’ve got themselves a guy who has absolutely nothing to lose, now, and his only chance of surviving (professionally) this scenario is to run the table at any cost. That is the explanation for keeping kids in the complex for 12 hours on Sundays. We’re talking about a guy who went into business with a felon, and then ‘misappropriated’ $3.9 million.

We have a saying for that in Iowa City. It’s … “Wow.”

I am grateful for one thing. You’ve stopped asserting that “everybody does it.”

Of course, I’m sure I’m missing something. Who knows?

Mr. Boh Knows ...

by Bellanca on Sep 3, 2009 5:13 PM CDT up reply actions 0 recs

Gotta say, Bellanca...

…your first attempt at “faux-Swiftan satire” (?) didn’t really work for me — but this, this is pure stir-fried comedy gold. You did a slam-bang job of pretending to be an ill-informed partisan, screaming out a nonintelligible screed while the flecks of spittle accumulate at the corners of your mouth. Thanks for taking time from the nerdbaiting to provide this entertainment.

by Dave314 on Sep 6, 2009 9:08 AM CDT up reply actions 0 recs

Where are you getting this "20" number from

The number is, at most, 10, and now appears to actually be 6, two of which were freshman who didn’t actually say anything that would actually be a violation.

So we’re left with four (probable) former players saying this. Excuse me if that doesn’t really inspire confidence in the story, especially when they didn’t even address the voluntary/noncountable issue, and they admittedly cherry-picked the players they talked to for the story (no players contacted them, the reporters stated that they made all contacts).

That, and even Herbstreit and Speilman, no great supporters of anything Michigan, have said they think it’s a load of crap.

by Yinka Double Dare on Sep 9, 2009 11:39 AM CDT up reply actions 0 recs

Seeing Bellanca’s name at the top of the page is like hearing those first few notes of “I am a Real American”

by Buddy Light on Sep 1, 2009 11:54 AM CDT reply actions 1 recs

You are awesome. I love you.

DO YOU HAVE PRIDE, DANNY?

by ReadingRambler on Sep 1, 2009 11:55 AM CDT reply actions 0 recs

Simply amazing!

by MP hawkfan on Sep 1, 2009 12:12 PM CDT reply actions 0 recs

I have to read Bellanca’s posts at least twice to get it all. Or maybe I just do that because I laugh harder the 2nd or 3rd time through. Thanks for putting into much better words than I could what you think about l’affaire. (cries crocodile tears)

by txhawkeye on Sep 1, 2009 12:55 PM CDT reply actions 0 recs

Given all the other tags you got around here, BHGP should really have one called “I read Mgoblog so you don’t have to.”

by everloyal on Sep 1, 2009 12:56 PM CDT reply actions 1 recs

Bravo, sir.

by WhiteSpeedReceiver on Sep 1, 2009 1:02 PM CDT reply actions 0 recs

Outstanding.

Bellanca, I’ll be honest, sometimes I find you too clever for your own good. And sometimes you are just too clever.

This is an example of the latter. Excellent stuff.

by DonnyDonovan on Sep 1, 2009 1:20 PM CDT reply actions 0 recs

Brian’s probably going to be too busy to respond to you guys this time, what with actual season previews and stuff for the rest of the week.

However, on behalf of Michigan fans, I do hope you enjoy starting a former walkon at a key position — let us tell you from experience, it’s terrifically superawesome happy fun times. And by that I mean ARRGGH SHERIDAMMIT.

Commence the PakiBombing.

by Yinka Double Dare on Sep 1, 2009 1:22 PM CDT reply actions 0 recs