The Sharkansky Birthday Suit: The State Responds

and it's not pretty. You can read Sharkansky's meek acceptance of AG McKenna's brief in support of SoS Reed here, but it's mostly a plea to let the public do Dean Logan's bidding, as he had asked to have the public's help in reporting challenging registrants.  Somehow I think what Logan had in mind was challenging the registration of those whom you may know or strongly suspect to be illegally registered--not scouring the statewide database without probable cause in order to cherry pick and start filling up the court docket with your hunches.

What's particularly stark about McKenna's response is the repeated dismissal of points based on what he interprets as Sharkansky's gross misunderstanding of state law, and excessively hopeful construance of pubic policy. Particularly scorned is the idea that when the state makes a mistake, any laws broken in making it are to be summarily eradicated. Thus, when the Seattle Times got birthdates in their file, according to Sharkansky they became public domain and everyone should have them. I wonder if the Times accidentally got copies of Sharkansky's last 10 tax returns and 10 doctor visits, he'd support my claim to see them on the basis that they were now free info for all?

As I made obvious last Tuesday, I can't begrudge people's errors. They happen, and as long as they look like honest mistakes, we all deserve forgiveness. What would be prudent, however, would be to actually admit a mistake was made.  Sharkansky shows his respect for the attorney who eviscerated his legal claims, but instead of recognizing that the respected expertise has essentially told him "fuggetaboutit,"  Sharkansky simply skips over the brief-- and asks the media to join him in supporting an unsupportable exercise.

Sharkansky has a slightly better case against Dr. Daniel Sosin, but if he loses the challenge, expect to see more skirting of his own fallacies, and continued laying of blame on external sources. For someone whose site shows open disgust for the remnants of the 60's now living on Seattle's Capitol Hill, it's surprising how much time Sharkansky spends bitching about The Man.

--TJ

Comments

[Stefan Sharkansky]

Mark,

AS always, I'm flattered by the way you chronicle my life and amused by the spin you put on events: "Sharkansky simply skips over the brief-- and asks the media to join him in supporting an unsupportable exercise."

Don't forget to tell your readers that my (attorney's) arguments follow very closely the arguments made earlier in this matter by lawyers for both of Seattle's daily newspapers...

[Torridjoe]

Welcome again, Stefan.

I'll happily acede to the accusation of spin--but it's pretty much factual spin, isn't it? Your posting on the AG's response doesn't actually appear to address the particulars of the response at all. Because it's such a rare bird lately, I can understand how the facts become just another way to spin things in your eyes.

Thank you also for clarifying the source and support of your arguments in the matter. To amend my original thesis: the Attorney General pretty strongly ridiculed the arguments of the Times and P-I, in addition to your own. You all get to share a beer to cry into, on that one.

While you're here, if you haven't already it would be awesome if you could offer comment on the questions I asked you in part 2 of the Sosin challenge post. I addressed yours.