People For The Chicago Way

The widespread criticism of Sonia Sotomayor’s dismissal of the New Haven firefighters’ claims must have struck a chord: Slate‘s Dahlia Lithwick has published an attempted character assassination of Frank Ricci, the namesake plaintiff of the infamous Ricci case.

Lithwick’s move isn’t surprising — she’s a reliable left-wing partisan. What’s particularly amusing, though, is that the McClatchy newswire already has blown her cover, by reporting that People for the American Way has been urging writers to attack Frank Ricci on precisely the grounds cited by Lithwick. Lithwick obviously did little more than take a PFAW press release, reword it, and run it under her own name.

I suppose that this only confirms long- and widely-held suspicions that “Dahlia Lithwick” is actually the trademarked name of a wholly-owned subsidiary of People of the American Way.

But since when is attacking firefighters part of “the American way”?

Mid-October is the answer that comes readily to mind, as there are no civilians in Chicago-style politics as warfare.