Ward, cornered

In comments over at PB, lawyer Paul Wolf clearly outlines the legal issues involved in the Churchill court case. Good stuff, but Wolf places due emphasis on the most important point (to me, anyway): Churchill will have to take the stand. And it won't be pretty:

Normally a lawyer examining a witness can only ask questions relevant to something at issue in the case. For example, it wouldn't be relevant to ask him about one of his wives who was found dead on the road in front of his house, in another unsolved mystery. The university did not fire him for that.

However, Churchill is guaranteed to be a bad witness. He will want to use the witness stand as a political platform to talk about racism, the war in Iraq, and whatever else. Every time he goes off track, he will have "opened the door" to those issues.

He's made so many public statements in his life, that if they go into those areas, Churchill will find himself explaining why he advocates "fragging" (soldiers murdering their superiors to protest war), why he claimed to be a Vietnam war commando when he was really a truck driver, what was his job at Soldier of Fortune Magazine, who is Lee Hill, and on and on and on.

And on.

If he doesn't remember then there is endless bizarre material to refresh his recollection. The skeletons in his closet may rival those of Jeff Dahmer. It will be like one of his interactions with the news media where he loses his temper and asks the reporter if he even knows how to spell "CIA". Yet unlike a news interview Churchill will not be able to run away nor will he be able to intimidate the person questioning him. He will be totally out of his element.

Why, poor Wart won't even be able to accuse opposing lawyers of pedophilia!* Or have a dimwit thug threaten their lives! He'll be lost!

*From the stand, anyway.