Thursday, January 26, 2012

Some recent reflections on former DC Madam civil attorney Montgomery Blair Sibley


I've been torn about this man for some time. I don't believe him to be dishonest. Perhaps referring to him as "eccentric" or even "off-the-hook" is accurate, but I never experienced any dishonest or dishonorable acts at his hand. His representation of Obama accuser and homosexual hustler and con artist Larry Sinclair wasn't to my liking, but then, I think I understand what that was about (more on that one day). His attempts to reopen the DC Madam case for a retrial was appropriate as well as brave, it was what gentlemen do under such deplorable circumstances and Sibley is a unique kind of an aristocrat to put it mildly.

Maybe he's Don Quixote, maybe his behavior has been peculiar. Maybe his fixation on his Scottish heritage is archaic. Yes, his behavior has sometimes been peculiar.

However: He was zealous in the defense of Deborah Jeane Palfrey. His constitutionally-based suits against the Supreme Court were principled. His love for his son is clearly genuine, sincere. His humanism is apparent. He has been a threat to established power that's corrupt as well as sadistic and has inflicted itself on the American public via the power of the state. He's not getting rich from charging windmills and I suspect that he's not even remotely how he's been portrayed in the mainstream press, notably by the Washington Post. Indeed, he's drawn to the spotlight like a moth and his being driven from the legal profession could have had merit to it, but that wasn't valid based on his actions in the DC Madam case, albeit that it was probably the main reason for it in the end.

His recent attempts at co-founding a medical marijuana growing space in the nation's capital has my moral support. Other actions by him do not, but what do I know about all of them? What does the press? They don't appear to know very much in any detail. Yes, he "wore a kilt" (traditional, no underwear and he also plays the bagpipes) at his appearance with Larry Sinclair to the National Press Club when his "client" was supposed to present his evidence that he'd snorted coke and had sex with the future presidential candidate in a limousine in Chicago over a decade ago. Sinclair had no evidence. Yet, I cannot come to any conclusions about the man. He's part of our history, for better or worse, and he's terrifically complicated to the extent that he defies one. What would his ancestors like Hiram Sibely be like now? Probably a lot like him, and I leave it at that. He's an anachronism. There are far worse things to be these days.

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