Everybody Hates Him

In the movie Reversal of Fortune, about the 1980s Claus Von Bulow attempted murder case, there's a brilliant scene where Von Bulow (played in an Oscar-winning performance by Jeremy Irons) hires the lawyer Alan Dershowitz (played by the late Ron Silver) to handle his appeal. 

Von Bulow and Dershowitz are lunching at Delmonico's, the famed restaurant. As they dig into their food, you begin to see how different these men are, how they literally approach life (and food) differently, and what an odd pairing this will be: Von Bulow meticulously lemons his shrimp cocktail while Dershowitz voraciously tears into his salmon. 

As they eat, Von Bulow asks how much Dershowitz's services will cost -- $300 an hour is the reply, much of which will be plowed back into Dershowitz pro-bono cases defending innocent black people on death row. Von Bulow asks if that means Dershowitz will take him on as a client but he says he probably won't because the case doesn't seem to have any Constitutional stakes attached to it. Von Bulow asks him to read the record of the case to try to find something Constitutional. Dershowitz demures but then tells Von Bulow there's one thing that might make him take the case: "Everybody hates you."

That seems to be the Dershowitz M.O. -- take on cases where everybody hates the defendant, whether that's Von Bolow or OJ Simpson or Donald Trump.

Today he was announced as one of his impeachment lawyers, along with the loathsome Ken Starr, where he will try to argue that abusing presidential power by inviting foreign interference into an American election isn't an impeachable offense. Dershowitz now has the chance to gaslight the entire country, engage in his best through-the-looking-glass, up-is-down, night-is-day, left-is-right, the un-Constitutional is Constitutional mental jujitsu Olympics. 

I sure hope he's getting more than $300 an hour for this debasement of his entire career. 

But there's two big differences between the socialite and the POTUS: Claus Von Bulow was a disciplined, cooperative client who never pretended to know more than his lawyer, who didn't rant and rave or feel sorry for himself or engage in stupid conspiracy theories as to the reasons for his dillemma. Trump is the opposite. Also, Dershowitz brilliantly uncovered facts and evidence that exculpated Von Bulow -- with Trump, as more evidence emerges, the more it proves his guilt. 

It's sad to see Alan Dershowitz descend to this sleazy level but the man can't help it, he loves the spotlight too much.

But Trump does have one thing in common with Von Bulow -- everybody hates him. 

Claus von Bulow RIP (?)

The infamous Claus von Bulow has died -- the lifelong socialite hustler who married an extremely rich woman and was convicted and then acquited of trying to murder her.

This case was the big society scandal of the 1980s. Von Bulow was accused of trying to poison his wife with insulin which knocked her into a coma (she never actually died but spent decades in this coma). The fact that he was convicted before getting aquitted in a second trial, and the various confusing Rashomon-like nature of the case, fascinated and divided the public -- years before Lorena or OJ or Monica did. 

This case is also famous for what and who it spawned -- namely the 1990 movie Reversal of Fortune that garnered Jeremy Irons a Best Actor Oscar; von Bulow's defense lawyer Alan Dershowitz who got the man off the hook and became a celebrity out of this trial; and two of Dershowitz's Harvard Law School students who helped on von Bulow's defense -- Jim Cramer (yes, that guy!) and former Governor Eliot Spitzer (who himself became infamous).

Compared to later scandals, the von Bulow case was almost boring but it was a perfect example of how wealth, glamous, marriage and murder forever fascinate.

So long, Claus.