Jesse Jackson Jr., Not-So-Subtly Blaming His Crimes on Mental Illness

Morning Jolt
. . . with Jim Geraghty

August 15, 2013

Jesse Jackson Jr., Not-So-Subtly Blaming His Crimes on Mental Illness

Jesse Jackson Jr. will go to prison for 30 months, with the possibility of time off for good behavior.*

At the sentencing, his lawyer made some odious comments.

Earlier, Jackson Jr.'s lawyer Reid Weingarten said his client felt "horror, shame and distress" over his crimes.

But Weingarten also attempted to downplay the impact of Jackson Jr.'s actions, since he took money from his own campaign fund. It's not as if there are widows and orphans outside the courthouse who are victims and asking for his head, Weingarten said.

"This is not a Ponzi scheme," he said.

Weingarten asked for an 18-month sentence for Jackson Jr. and noted, "He suffers from a very, very serious mental health disease."

He identified the ex-congressman's illness as bipolar disorder, and conceded that it was relevant even though "we didn't plead guilty by reason of insanity."

What is bipolar disorder, again?

People with bipolar disorder experience unusually intense emotional states that occur in distinct periods called "mood episodes." Each mood episode represents a drastic change from a person's usual mood and behavior. An overly joyful or overexcited state is called a manic episode, and an extremely sad or hopeless state is called a depressive episode. Sometimes, a mood episode includes symptoms of both mania and depression. This is called a mixed state. People with bipolar disorder also may be explosive and irritable during a mood episode.

Does bipolar disorder make you divert $750,000 in campaign donations to personal use? Does it make you use that money to buy items from a "$43,000 gold Rolex to cashmere capes—capes, plural—to nearly $20,000 of Michael Jackson memorabilia?" Does bipolar disorder somehow interfere with people's ability to know right from wrong, or illegal from legal? When Jackson Jr. took that money and spent it on himself, was that the bipolar disorder, or just being a selfish, greedy jerk?

Jackson Jr. and his lawyer would undoubtedly insist they genuinely care about those with mental illness, and combatting the stigma it still carries in many corners of our society today. But how does it help those with bipolar disorder to emphasize the mental illness in the explanation of the crime?

Doesn't that implicitly tell the rest of society that people with bipolar disorder are prone to commit fraud and use others' funds for their personal use?

* "Time off for good behavior" is a heck of a bonus, isn't it? Commit a crime, go to jail, and clear that high bar of not breaking the rules of the correctional facility or breaking any more laws, and you get up to 15 percent of your sentence removed. (It's higher in some state prisons; in Ohio it can go up to 30 percent.)

Where else in life does behaving nicely guarantee that you'll get less of something you want to avoid? There's no "time off for good behavior" from the DMV line, or waiving of ATM fees if you have good manners.

So When Does 'Attack Watch' Turn Its Guns on Reggie Love?

So, White House . . . is Reggie Love telling the truth about Obama's activities on the night of the Osama bin Laden raid, or not?

Reggie Love, the president's "body man" or personal assistant, said Mr Obama played around 15 games of Spades as he waited for the US Navy Seals to descend on the terror leader's compound.

While many of his top security officials were hunkered in the White House's Situation Room monitoring events in Pakistan, Mr Obama waited in a private dining room, according to Mr Love.

"Most people were like down in the Situation Room and [Mr Obama] was like, 'I'm not going to be down there, I can't watch this entire thing,'" Mr Love told an audience at UCLA. "We must have played 15 games of spades."

A little detail:

The "entire thing" lasted around 220 minutes — about 180 minutes of which consisted of helicopter rides to and from the compound, during which nothing was really happening. Sources (a.k.a. people who have played spades) tell Daily Intelligencer that a hand of spades lasts around ten minutes, so fifteen hands would take approximately 150 minutes. So while the timeline is unclear, Obama wasn't necessarily playing cards upstairs during any of the exciting parts.

Looks like their preferred strategy is to ignore this story and hope it goes away:

The White House did not immediately confirm Mr Love's account and a video of his talk at UCLA was removed from Youtube as news outlets began to report on the comments.

However, Mr Obama is known to be a keen card player and often whittles away hours on Air Force One playing poker and other games with a close circle of male staffers.

Mr Love, a 6'4 former college basketball player, joined Mr Obama's senate office in 2007 and was a constant presence at his side through the first presidential campaign.

He remained the President's body man until November 2011, when he returned to business school.

I can't wait until they start insisting that the president's closest personal aide for many years is a pathological liar, attempting to smear Obama's good name. The vast right-wing conspiracy knows no bounds!

Blue-on-Blue: Keith Olbermann Calls Al Gore a 'Clod'

Pull up a seat and pop the popcorn. My guess is that the coming days will feature two liberals with overlapping fan bases tearing into each other:

Although Olbermann's position at Current became rocky less than two months after Countdown bowed in June 2011, he was blindsided when Gore and Hyatt pulled the trigger and fired him March 29 for what they characterized as "serial, material breach of his contract."

"When you're working for somebody whom you admired politically, who turns out to be a clod," says Olbermann, referring to Gore, "the scales fall from your eyes. Sorry. Al underdelivered. I mean that's just simply the case. I don't want to dwell on it, but it's true." Olbermann countersued, asking for $50 million in damages, and the case slowly proceeded to a confidential settlement in March; three months earlier, Qatari-based news organization Al Jazeera bought Current for $500 million, in all likelihood hastening the settlement. (Asked whether he is happy the Current chapter of his career is over, Olbermann quips, "Let's just say I bought gifts for my lawyers.") Olbermann saw Gore at the arbitration meeting in San Francisco on March 12. Asked whether that was awkward, he smiles ruefully: "Two days before, I'm standing at Phoenix Municipal Stadium with my friend Bob Melvin, the manager of the Oakland A's, talking about pitching depth. Two days after that, I'm in a mediator's office, hearing myself described as, you know, akin to Stalin. We are in the middle of a legal proceeding involving large sums of money and contracts. Of course it was awkward."

Egypt: Bad News All the Way Down

Remember how I said yesterday that the news out of Egypt was a violent crackdown of pro-Morsi demonstrators, blood in the streets, images of shocked protesters holding their friends' brain matter filling up my Twitter feed, and so on?

Well, like with the turtles, it's bad news all the way down. The latest:

Egypt's military-backed leader declared a state of emergency Wednesday after at least 525 people were killed in bloody clashes between security forces and supporters of ousted Islamist President Mohammed Morsi. The worst of the chaos was in Cairo, where fierce street battles raged and Muslim Brotherhood members, determined to restore Morsi to power, at one point occupied the Finance Ministry and took hostages.

Here's the first photo that goes with that story:

That's a police vehicle with policemen inside.

It's so bad Secretary of State John Kerry didn't even get to visit his yacht today.

Of course, Kerry remains dedicated to relentlessly pursuing peace between the Israelis and the Palestinians, basically the only two remaining Middle Eastern lands not currently in violent upheaval.

With President Obama on vacation, Principal Deputy Press Secretary Josh Earnest issued a written statement. This administration is on it, people.

ADDENDUM: Rick Wilson: "You know what no one is going to write, ever? A magisterial, three-volume Caroesque study of Biden."

That sounds like a challenge for some parodist.

NRO Digest — August 15, 2013

Today on National Review Online . . .

THE EDITORS: Why laws such as North Carolina's are fair, sensible, and necessary. The Good Sense of Voter ID.

ANDREW C. McCARTHY: After being attacked by the military, Islamists in Egypt have turned against . . . the Christians. Muslim Brotherhood 'Reprisals.'

INTERVIEW: Samuel Tadros talks to Kathryn Jean Lopez about the perilous state of Christianity in Egypt today. A Dangerous Life.

RAYMOND IBRAHIM: In 717-8, Western civilization was hanging by a thread. None other than Egypt's Christians came to the rescue. The Siege of Byzantium.

ROBERT COSTA: Texas's freshman senator steals a march on 2016 opponents. The Cruz Threat.

VICTOR DAVIS HANSON: Today's leaders are ignorant of what used to be the building blocks of an education. Don't Know Much about Geography.

FREDERICK M. HESS: What looks like Jeb Bush's strong suit, education, could be an albatross come 2016. Common Core Could Be Jeb's Romneycare.

To read more, visit www.nationalreview.com

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