Strange stuff happens in the blawgosphere.  Not only are there comments on the blawg, but there are often emails that come along about posts or things people would like me to write about.  Sometimes they are quite thoughtful and helpful.  Other times, they are demanding, as though I have a duty to “check out” someone’s product or argue with anyone who wants to put up a fight.  But none have been as strange as this one.

Two days ago, I received an email from a fellow who called himself Jeff Norman and informed me he was a writer for the Huffington Post.  Was he?  I assume so, but wouldn’t know if it was true.  He asked a bunch of questions about my post on Eliot Spitzer, directed toward how I “know” what Spitzer had done.

Ordinarily, this would be the sort of thing I would ignore.  The easy answer is read my post and, if you disagree, then comment that you disagree. Plenty of people do, and they aren’t shy about telling me that I’m wrong, boring, unimpressive, whatever.  Around my house, this is a parlor game.

But because he was part of the blogosphere (not my neighborhood, mind you, but where big boys play), I decided to respond.  Kind of a blogosphere courtesy thing. What was I thinking?

I was thinking that he was looking for someone to help him to understand the nature of what was happening.  His email included a link to his bio, which said that he was a comedian turned political commentator.  Since he wasn’t a lawyer, perhaps he was looking for a lawyer to provide detail with which he was unfamiliar.

Here I am, trying to be a nice guy.  It was my intention to try to give this fellow Jeff some help.  It was a good intention, but as wel all know, the road to hell is paved with good intentions.  Little did I know that I was already well on my way.

Then the emails kept coming.  More questions.  Questions by the truckload.  Some clear, others vague, some aggressive, some challenging, some simplistic and other sophisticated, but there was email after email, question after question.  This kept up for two days,  A non-stop barage of emails, each with strings of questions.

In my response to his second email, I asked him if he was “taking a survey.”  It seemed reasonable to know why he was asking these questions, since answering them was a drain on my time, a commodity that is either given freely here or sold to my clients in my practice.  Jeff responded:

I’m particularly interested in the opinions of lawyers, but I’m not taking a survey.  I might write something about this for HuffPo, but mostly I’m just sharing my perspective and trying to understand yours.

So I assumed that my original thinking, that this comedian cum pundit lacked the legal background to understand the legal ramifications and implications of what Spitzer was going through.  Sheesh, another guy who wants to be taught the law by email.  But I’d be a nice guy and let it go awhile.

I tried.  I really did try, to help this fellow out.  But he kept coming back with more.  I thought to myself, this can’t go on forever.  I mean the guy’s got to eat, sleep, go to the bathroom, right?  Plus, as thrilling as I am, even I grow weary of me after a while.  But no, they just kept coming.

I tried to wean Jeff off this exchange slowly at first, telling him that answers to his questions could be found in the papers, the complaint, the warrant affidavit, other papers available through Pacer.  I told him that if he wanted to get into that level of factual depth, he had to go to the source material. 

Jeff had no interest in doing the legwork.  Aside from saying he had no Pacer account (though you would think somebody at HuffPo would), he wanted me to cite it all for him.  I should prove it to him.  He wrote me that he thought there was no evidence at all (based upon his failure to look) and since I thought otherwise, I had to prove it to him. 

This was where I decided to get off the bus.  By this point, hours had been spent on this person and it was going in circles.  He didn’t want to look, but wanted to argue with me on the premise that what he doesn’t know must be proven to him.  And I’m thinking, he’s getting a little too nutty for me, as if I owe him some duty to satisfy his curiosity.  No thank you for your time.  No thank you for your effort.  Just more questions and more demands.  So I respond to Jeff’s demands:

I really can’t.  If you want to satisfy your curiosity, you’re going to have to do some leg work.  This is what I do for a living, and I’ve really gone WAAAAY over the edge trying to help you, but it’s gotten out of control and still you want more.  I’m sorry, but this is about as far as I can go.

Then came the smack. (The first sentence refers to my question as to why anyone would quit comedy to talk about law/politics). 

And now the humor you crave has finally emerged.  Your “analysis” has been exposed as baseless, and instead of admitting it, you claim to be out of time.  Now THAT is funny, because as our email exchange plainly reveals, you’ve been ducking my fair and pertinent question about structuring from the outset, so you should take responsibility for your evasiveness, rather than accuse me of imposing on you excessively.

Holy smokes.  I’ve just spent hours trying to help this guy, and he’s playing a secret game of “gotcha”.  I’m thinking all along that this fellow is, well, fairly dense, not realizing that he wasn’t trying to learn about the applicable law or the significance of aspects like Spitzer’s non-denial.  Nope, he was trying to cross-examine me to prove that I was running on empty.  He could have just asked that in the first place and saved me hours of time that I’ll never get back.  Comedians may have all day to come up with jokes, Jeff, but lawyers sell time.

There was nothing unusual about Jeff’s self-image of brilliance, a pretty common thing amongst questioners who view their right to demand answers as perfectly reasonable and their demands of my time as being a duty I owe to anyone with access to email.  What I couldn’t understand was how little there must be going on in this guy’s life that he would spend this much time pestering me.  I could understand him wanting to learn, even though he couldn’t be bothered to make any effort beyond emailing me, but this guy was like a stalker.  No normal person gives up that much time from his life.

They say that no good deed goes unpunished.  I believe.  So who is the moron who played 5000 questions?  That would be me.  Please don’t expect me to play it again.

Post Script:  When Jeff persisted that I concede that he was right (to what end is unclear, but that’s not the point), I told him that he could read about it here.  He wrote back: “ I can’t wait!  I’m as giddy as a schoolgirl on prom night!”  Rarely do I make anyone that excited.  I bet I haven’t heard the end of Jeff, but too much time has already been spent on this, and so I move on.  No doubt this will “prove” something to Jeff, and I leave it to him (and you) to decide what that something might be.