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I’m moving into week three of my bar exam studies, and today I learned about secured transactions…which was good because as of yesterday, I HAD NO CLUE WHAT A SECURED TRANSACTION WAS.  Swear to God.  I thought it was some sort of bank transfer that was carefully monitored. 

I’m excited to learn what a “commercial paper” is next week.  Do any non-lawyers have any guesses?  Is it a memorandum regarding a television advertisement?  Is it a sheet of paper for sale?  Who knows?!  (Well, all my classmates, for starters.  And most of the people who are reading this blog, I suspect. And these guys: MichiganLawyerBlog, CooleyLawBlog, NYLawBlog.)

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Figured I’d try a political blog entry out.  I did study Political Science in college after all—like half of my law school classmates.

Yesterday a McCain adviser told Fortune magazine that a terrorist attack would help McCain’s chances on winning the election…and EVERYBODY is freaking out about it.  Specifically he said, "a fresh terrorist attack 'certainly would be a big advantage to him.”

John McCain, in response said, “It’s just not true…If he said that, and I do not know the context, I strenuously disagree."

Okay, let’s start here, the advisor was obviously right.  Terrorism is a Republican issue, for better or worse—and what I mean by that is people who prioritize homeland security above all else vote Republican more often than they vote Democrat.  Common knowledge, right?  And if a terrorist attack were to happen in the US, it would bring the terrorism issue to the political foreground.  Commonsense, right?  ERGO, a terrorist attack would help McCain’s chances of getting elected.

John McCain obviously knows all this.  So why does he have to play dumb and pretend that he doesn’t?  (This is rhetorical; the answer is obvious: if he did, the media/Obama camp would have a “John McCain wants a terrorist attack” field day.)  I always thought he was one of the most honest politicians around, and this false naivety doesn’t suit him well. 

Of course, his advisor boarded the false naivety express earlier today: “I deeply regret the comments—they were inappropriate. I recognize that John McCain has devoted his entire adult life to protecting his country.”

And I’m sure if some reporter were to remind McCain that Presidential Elections are zero-sum games and that his quote implicitly suggested that an attack would help Obama, he’d keep the false naivety shtick going and say something like, “Terrorist attacks don’t help anybody—not me, not my opponent, and certainly not the people of America.” 

And don’t you think the John McCain of 2000 would have said, “Yes, an attack would help my campaign, but not, I don’t want one, and anybody who suggests otherwise, well, I’d like them to tell me that to my face”?

For more on this story, check out http://tpmelectioncentral.talkingpointsmemo.com, http://rawstory.com/, http://www.thedestinlog.com/, or http://www.newsgroper.com,

So...more....less political blog entries???

A few days ago I hosted a “win a free copy of Lawyer Boy” contest in which readers were encouraged to test out their lawyering skills/powers of persuasion and email me and make a compelling case as to why they should get a free copy of the book. I haven’t yet picked a winner, but it’s become clear to me that many RickLax.com readers are way funnier than me, which is humbling, flattering, and annoying.

Here’s one of the entries I received:

“Let me tell you why I should get a copy. Frankly, because I don't have anything to read. I went into the hospital right before reading period this past semester, because I was s#%!!ing around 8 times an hour. No joke. I ended up with some internal bleeding and a bad colon problem that, though it got fixed up, ends up with me taking a s#!* at least 4 times a day. Apparently the doctors say that's normal. With all that s#%*ing, I go through pleasure reading, well lets just say I go through it faster than the food goes through me. I need something to read.”

My last-ever law school exam goes down in 17 hours. Law school exams are typically three hours long…and I swear, they’re the fastest three hours of your life. Before every exam, I go through the same mental ritual: I think, Three hours is so long… like watching 6 back-to-back sitcoms; I’m going to be so bored. And then the exam starts, and then I answer a few questions, and then the proctor calls “Time” after what feels like eight minutes. How are exams for you? Does the time fly by…or do you feel every minute of it?