A Spin Too Far: Bill Lerach Channels Gene Talmadge

Yep, the best defense is indeed a good offense. And that's particularly true in the world of spin.

But when taken to an extreme, the concept quickly falls apart, as Karen Donovan's fresh portrait of Bill Lerach's audacious career illuminates. Headed off soon to federal prison for paying plaintiffs, Lerach recently lashed out in the Washington Post against the Wall Street big boys whose sins brought on the sub-prime plague.

"I'm on my way to prison because, in my zeal to stand up against this kind of corporate greed over the years, I stepped over the line. It turns out that the legal system is a lot tougher on shareholder lawyers than it appears to be on Wall Street executives."

Lerach fails to point out that the legal system generally is a lot tougher on people who actually break the law, as opposed to those who simply show massively poor business judgment and still get paid.

Donovan says Lerach is trying to be Tom Paine. But for Jack Flack, Lerach's brazenness conjures the ghost of long-time Georgia governor Gene Talmadge. The "Wild Man from Sugar Creek" famously turned his botched attempt to use state funds to arbitrage Georgia hogs in the Chicago meat markets into a political advantage by happily and repeatedly bragging to his constituents:

"Sure, I stole the money. But I stole it for you."

Talmadge was an unabashed demagogic thoroughbred, and likely never confused his claimed motivations with his actual intentions. But in reading Donovan's profile and Lerach's essay, Jack Flack gets the feeling that the lawyer genuinely believes that pleading guilty to conspiracy is not nearly as bad as placing big, dumb -- but legal -- bets with your shareholders' money.