In 1997 a California jury found O.J. Simpson liable in the stabbing deaths of his ex-wife and a man she was with, but Simpson got out of paying the $33.5 million civil judgment.
If that was a victory for him, it was a perverse one. And that's pretty much how Oregonians ought to look at the courtroom victory claimed by initiative peddler Bill Sizemore last week.
You know people have lost their rational balance when they rate a murderer who has stabbed two people to death and an “initiative peddler” not indicted or convicted of a criminal offense as somehow equivalent.
Here’s how the Oregonian describes Sizemore’s heinous acts in comparison to O.J.’s:
Let the man have his victory lap, but don't forget what he and his sham operation did. A Multnomah County civil jury concluded that they had forged petition signatures and falsified financial statements that are required from political action committees.
[emphasis mine]
Mind you this is a civil verdict. Sizemore hasn’t been convicted of criminal activity--which says something about the nature of the evidence since forging and falsifying are criminal acts. But, to the Oregonian, Sizemore is Oregon’s O. J., worthy of a vendetta, and to be hounded to his dying breath whether he wins a judicial verdict or dares to sponsor a measure.
The Oregonian had a tough time this last election because “initiative peddler” Sizemore introduced one of only two measures the Oregonian supported (Measure 42). And the Oregonian ground its teeth and searched high and low for anyone--anyone--it could praise for the measure rather than Sizemore. It finally found an organization that didn’t even go to the trouble of plunking down a measly $500 for a statement of support in the Oregon Voters’ Pamphlet, but did, in principle, support that sort of thing.
Just another reason to take Oregonian fulminating with a grain of salt--or a big dose of antacid.
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