COMM 317: Friday ...

Three things I want us to do today:

• Take a look at Charles Dickens, the 19th-century English novelist (see "Tangent ..." on blog below at Aug. 26). He understood journalism; he understood the courts (including chancery); he understood politics and human nature (two ways of saying the same thing?); and he wrote well. Dickens isn't summer-afternoon-on-the-beach type reading, but you can learn a lot from looking at the way Dickens describes things and the way he puts sentences together. Let's follow a link, too, to the description in a state politics blog of a political tiff in a chancery hearing right here in Springfield.
  
• Review the landmark case Miles v. City Council of Augusta, Ga. and apply the principles of analytical reasoning behind the judge's decision. By the way, there are analytical reasoning questions on the LSAT (Law School Admissions Test), and the ability to apply the law, or conditions, to a set of facts, or premise, is one of the most important skills lawyers develop. Journalists, too.
  
• If we get to it (and I hope we do), sort out some of the facts and the law involved as bigwigs of the South Carolina Republican Party decide whether to impeach Governor Sanford as, to quote the headline in a news service for lawyers, the "Sanford Saga Enters 'Bizarre' Phase."

There's no lack of facts in the Sanford saga. His Latin American lover. His weepy press conferences. The general embarrassment of having a governor go off the rails (although I do have to admit he has better hair than other governors I've known). His alleged abuse of the regulations for the use of state aircraft. All facts. But how much of this stuff can be be impeached for? What are the rules? How do we apply the law to the facts? Where would we find out? What does the South Carolina Constitution say about it all?