Scott the Windowmaker
Dec 6, 2009 Lex scripta
I’ve been wondering when this part of the Khalid Sheik Mohammed story was going to get a little air ever since I heard them interviewing one of the members of his “dream team,” Scott Fenstermaker, on the radio.
Ed Morrissey is very smart, but he’s missing something here about Fenstermaker: He is very, very stupid. I know this because I he was my adversary in a small case once–a case, in fact, in which he represented his own law firm, and thereby proved the ancient adage about what sort of a lawyer the self-represented get for themselves.
Fenstermaker stunned me with this obtuseness. The experience was more akin to attempting to interact with masonry than any other I have had in my litigation career. He was dumb, and he was childish.
Fenstermaker was infuriating because he never, ever processed what you tell him and responded with an answer premised on the new information — not merely that he didn’t agree. He just didn’t absorb a thing you were saying. Some lawyers are manipulative, or misstate what you’ve said, or are playing dumb, but not this guy. He was just thick as a brick.
I know his resume makes it appear that he has been somewhere and done something, but I’ll bet you dollars to donuts that somewhere between then and now, there’s a serious head injury in the mix.
And I have nothing per se against dumb-dumbs, even in the legal profession. But the point is, Ed’s looking for a way to get through to Fenstermaker, and it isn’t going to happen. There’s no there there. He is not just trying to confuse you, Ed. He is thoroughly confused.
And the other point is this: The fact that this guy is both a lawyer for this mass murderer or a member of his family — or whatever — , and his chief spokesman, means something very weird is afoot, the precise nature of which leaves me feeling kind of dumb, too. But at the end of the day, it’s probably nothing more than just… Scott Fenstermaker.
Cross-posted on Right Wing News.
December 6th, 2009 at 6:19 pm
Oddly enough, I saw Fenstermaker on Geraldo last night. Based on his comments, I assumed that he was NOT an attorney for KSM’s defense but for another defendant simply because he seemed to be somewhat, er, detached from the conduct of the case.
He kept saying that the defendant’s strategy of admitting to the act but pleading not guilty made perfect legal sense.
To say that Geraldo was skeptical was an understatement.
Fenstermaker stated that the defendant would claim that he was justified in striking the towers because of certain acts by the US government.
I figured he couldn’t be speaking for himself unless he was referring to himself in the third-person — which is always weird no matter who does it.
Anyway…
All of this, of course, frustrated Geraldo who was very skeptical that any judge would allow this line of defense. Fenstermaker was certain that it was appropriate.
P.S. I’m amused by your assessment of Fenstermaker.
December 6th, 2009 at 6:21 pm
Yeah, well, actually Ara, your comments are pretty consistent with what I’m saying! In fact it’s exactly what happened in my case. No matter what you said to him, he was certain that he was right, but wouldn’t actually explain why you were wrong.
December 6th, 2009 at 8:02 pm
I definitely got a weird from him.
December 9th, 2009 at 2:02 am
[...] at Ron Coleman’s Likelihood of Success: Ron Coleman’s Pretty Good Blog, Mr. Coleman writes about facing one of the attorneys on KSM’s defense “dream team” earlier in his [...]