After the LA Times fired me as a favor to the LAPD, I spent weeks trying to trace the provenance of the dodgy tape supplied by the LAPD. Who at LAPD gave it to whom at the LA Times? Too bad the institution that ought to be investigating such things refused to do so.
Tale of the Tape
Ted Rall
Ted Rall is a syndicated political cartoonist for Andrews McMeel Syndication and WhoWhatWhy.org and Counterpoint. He is a contributor to Centerclip and co-host of "The Final Countdown" talk show on Radio Sputnik. He is a graphic novelist and author of many books of art and prose, and an occasional war correspondent. He is, recently, the author of the graphic novel "2024: Revisited."
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Nice.
This is one of the weirdest parts of the whole scandal. Who gave it to whom? None of the people involved whose names you have seem to be close to the actual tape hand-off.
Know what I think?:
1. The whole bizarre nature of how this is playing out is probably the most glaringly obvious proof of Ted’s innocence. The whole thing is shadows and whispers and fog. No one will actually come forward. Durr isn’t saying boo. Pringle, ditto. Goldberg, the same. Where’s the police officer who is supposed to have called Ted’s answering machine. Who TRANSCRIBED the tape? Think about ever other single case of plagiarism, fabrication, etc. The Rall Case is COMPLETELY unlike any of them.
2. I think the fact that the LAPD won’t CONFIRM that they’re the source of the tape is the smoking gun. I think this whole mess can be turned into something that is prima facie illegal; that is, the release of the tape was unlawful, and once the LAPD confirms they leaked it–or lets stand the LATimes statement that the LAPD provided it–it’s simply a procedural matter for Ted to cash in on the violation of his rights.
3. The trail. I mentioned depositions in an earlier post. Back in the good old days, you could lie a little on a deposition and hope to get away with it. If you had mentioned it to someone at a bar over whiskey, it was you and him, and you could just say he was a liar, or that you didn’t recall, or whatever.
Now? There’s e-mail. And twitter. And facebook. And IMs. Imagine you’ve gotten the letter from Ted’s lawyer about the deposition. And you visit your lawyer. “Say,” you ask, nervous as hell. “Can ‘they’ recover instant messages off my phone if I’ve deleted them?” And you lawyer looks at you with a sick, pitying look. Your lawyer uses your first name. “First Name, my advice to you is that you not lie. Not at all. This isn’t like the old days. If there’s a single –and I mean a single — e-mail, text, post, anything, and they find it, and they’re able to show you lied, you’re dead in the water. You might as well go home and blow out your brains.”
I’m still hoping for the miracle: that someone in the crowd that day had a camcorder and saved the video tape. Wouldn’t that be delightful? A 15-years-young Ted Rall on video, handcuffed and being shoved around by a cop in LA?
Ted,
These ideas come to me when I shave, so they could be garbage. I suspect the best way to get people talking — check this with a lawyer, of course — is to start the legal phase. Twitter might feel good, and it IS helping to get the word out — remember, TELL people to get the word out; Twitter, like much of the Internet, is a passive experience — but Pringle won’t do anything because of some Twitter feeds, and the Fossil Goldberg has exactly one burst of tweets (and somehow over 100 followers), so I suspect he doesn’t even remember his password.
Ask a lawyer about perfecting a commercial lien on the “names” in this case. Have you contacted the California Attorney General? You want to get these people in front of some cameras for some depositions.
@Alex, I understand that the CA Office of Independent Counsel is investigating.
That’s good. Getting the independent objective authorities involved cannot be detrimental. 🙂
This is a good fight. Don’t quit.
In fact, t’s convinced me that, in a weird way, I guess, that maybe everything Ted Rall wrote that I thought was wrong probably has a lot that is right about it after all and I should figure it out for myself. And I have, a little bit already, and it’s that Ted writes what he thinks is right. What a concept.
I’ve never heard Ted lie – but he is an editorialist. I’ve heard him present a one sided argument or a straw man before, and he’s not above exaggeration.
But outright falsification: no.
I have also seen him apologize when he was wrong – you don’t see that very often. (Not at the LAT for sure)
Remember now, this is not about the real “tape.” We’re talking about a flash-drive or chip memory or something. ANYTHING electronically nefarious can happen between the mediums when recording. The tape has yet to make any kind of “first-party” evidentiary debut ~
Get the tape.
DanD
I pulled the binary version apart with a sound editor. If it was mucked with, it was analog like using one tape recorder to record another one playing. Digital edits re easier to spot. There was one real suspicious looking area near the beginning of Ted’s adventure. (Full disclosure: I am a hobbyist, not a pro by any means)
Obviously the version where the pig introduces it was patched together, so we know we haven’t heard the original.
Now, correct me if I’m wrong but isn’t “free speech” one of those rights the cops are supposed to be defending?
… along with the right to a trial before being executed for selling untaxed cigarettes?
… oh, never mind.