I think what Jackson did at the end of the trial is, for want of a better word, tragic. He ran the trial perfectly well, and then for some inexplicable reason fell apart at the very end, supplying the Evil Empire with more appeals ammo in two weeks than in the previous two years.
During the trial itself, he kept it moving, did everything he could to get the parties to settle, and didn't make any slip-ups that were particularly obvious to the layman. What he did do was provide a forum where Bill G & his henchmen, with the assistance of skilled lawyer David Boies, showed the world conclusively and forever what kind of people they really are, dancing, fumbling, contradicting themselves, evading questions and just generally lying their asses off day after day, sometimes so blatantly that the whole courtroom howled with laughter.
Then, at the end, after conducting a great trial and writing two rigorous findings by which the defendant was justly convicted, Jackson cracks. He rubber-stamps the DOJ's remedy in 48 hours, then gives a goddam INTERVIEW to the Washington post in which he petulantly says, "I don't know what the to do, they're just going to reverse me anyway, what do I care, let them do whatever they want"! He also makes some vague comparisons between Microsoft and the Japanese at Pearl Harbor. I mean, what a complete, unbelievable screwup after a top-notch job of running this unprecedented proceeding.
It may be that the appeals court was leaning toward M$ anyway. If so, Jackson may have tipped them over. It's somewhat of a pisser.
--QS |
