That was a very stirring argument, Ms. Kersten. But aren't you going to offer any evidence for the record?
We don't have any evidence, your Honor.
No evidence? You do know what a record is, don't you Ms. Kersten?
Well, in broad terms, your Honor.
Then you must know that it is customary to make a summation that is based on the record that has been adduced?
Really? That seems so, well, confining. I don't know how your Honor expects me to make my case based on the evidence.
Sigh. I suppose not. Tell you what: show me some evidence of misconduct by Secretary of State Ritchie before I make my decision.
I thought your Honor said my argument was stirring.
You have trouble with irony and hyperbole, don't you Ms. Kersten?
Yes, your Honor.
Did you confer with anybody before you came to court today?
Well, of course. I consulted with my colleagues Johnnie and Scotty.
Ah, I see. I'm going to dismiss your case, Ms. Kersten and commend to you to a thorough reading of Rule 11.
* * *
The imagined dialogue above is about what would have happened had Katie presented her case (in today's column linked above) against Mark Ritchie in court. In fact, Katie even admits - although burying it at end, after most readers have been anaesthetized into a bleak sense of ennui by Katie's turgid prose - that there is no evidence that Mark Ritchie or anybody else has done anything wrong in a recount that hasn't even started yet:
Thus far, Ritchie has shown no evidence of misconduct. But many Minnesotans are questioning the openness and transparency of the vote tally that just ended.
Well, you are questioning it, Katie. That's one. And Laura Brod; that's two. And let's not forget the legal lion Fritz Knaack; there's three!
To call Katie a simple hack would be to defame hacks everywhere. Katie is not merely a lazy, careless and inattentive observer of the political scene - although she is all of those things - she is also the possessor of a fetid and malign spirit, a spirit that poisons everything it touches.
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