Real subtle.  I don't even need to read the e-mail to know where this is going.

The substance of the MIRS article focuses on a single sentence from an early-2011 going-away party being thrown for Richard Bandstra, then a fellow judge on the Michigan Court of Appeals bench, who was leaving the appellate bench to serve as Chief of Staff for Michigan Attorney General Bill Schuette.  According to the MIRS account of the event, Markey's extemporaneous roast included a story about Bandstra's penchant for raiding the candy jars of judicial assistants -- without ever refilling the jars.  The tale included the use of the phrase, "we need to give you a bill for your candy because we don't want to be jewed down," which Markey apologized for with her very next breath.

Let me provide a little bit of context that the MIRS article doesn't provide.  As I understand it, Judge Markey wasn't even told that she would be providing the roast until the day of the event, and she hadn't had time to prepare.  One of the court assistants handed her a script mere seconds before stepping up to the lectern, and reading it aloud before reviewing it probably wasn't her wisest move.

But let's make a couple of things clear, just so that we can connect the dots a bit:

• According to the MIRS article, about 100 people were in attendance (I'm told by those who were actually there that the real number was closer to 24), including SCOMI Justice Michael Cavanaugh, a Democrat nominee if I remember correctly.  Why did it take nearly a year and a half for this to become public knowledge?

• With the exception of a - literally - two word quote from Mark Brewer, the article exclusively cites republican sources, including multiple quotes from an anonymous "GOP activist," as to how bad this is supposed to be for Markey's campaign.  This seems to be a cardinal violation of Reagan's Eleventh Commandment.

• An opinion piece in this morning's Detroit News quotes Judge Elizabeth Gleicher, who is Jewish and a Granholm Democrat, as saying, "I like Jane very much and respect her.  This is not her.  She is not anti-Semitic, even remotely.  If we catalog everything everyone says we can't have civilized discourse ... She's a good person.  That's really far from who she is."  I can tell you from personal knowledge that "isolated incident" doesn't adequately describe this . . . "one of a kind occurrence" is more like it.

After all, there are few things as wounding as being labeled a bigot, anti-Semite or otherwise.  Such charges are deeply hurtful, especially for a woman who has, over a span of 18 years, been elected and reelected judge in a district comprised of 16 counties.  A district made up of hundreds of thousands of voters, voters sincerely professing a wide range of religious beliefs.  She is a woman with a Jewish brother-in-law and many supportive Jewish colleagues.  It's all so upsetting, all so personal.

Judge Jane Markey is a woman who has established a true record, by way of an open, verifiable history of 18 years on the appellate bench, a bench where all opinions are in writing and are immediately available online.  Judge Markey has consistently exhibited surpassing intellect and common sense in her jurisprudence.  Her record also puts on view her respect for the Constitutional concept of Equal Protection Under Law.  Equal Protection is her guiding principle, as it guides all true Rule of Law judges.  It matters not who stands before her.  Judge Markey applies the plain language of the statutes and the Constitution and applies it equally to whoever appears in her court.  That is what marks a true Rule of Law judge.

And it raises the question:  If this is what O'Brien's campaign team is resorting to three weeks before the convention, is there a single political argument left, or are they admitting that they cannot find any effective avenue of attack based on Markey's judicial record?

Ask yourself this question:  From the O'Brien campaign, when have you heard any talk of her qualifications to serve on the State's highest court?  And here I mean beyond the usual "trust me" nonsense.  (I am qualified.  After all, I have an Irish name and I am from Southeast Michigan.  True, I have no open, verifiable track record.  No one really knows what I'll do.  But trust me all the same.)

Lawyers, forever fond of Latin maxims, use a phrase to pour scorn on certain types of witnesses; the phrase is Ipse Dixit, Latin for "he himself said it," (otherwise known as the "bare assertion fallacy" and tantamount to an "argument from authority fallacy"), meaning the only proof we have of the fact in question is that this person said so.  Thus it is with O'Brien; the only proof we have that O'Brien is a Rule of Law judge is that she herself has said it.  And if that isn't enough, we have Chief Justice Young to lend the authority of his office to her assertion, yet still absent any actual proof other than their say-so . . . classic ipse dixit.

With Judge Jane Markey we have proof.  We have an open, verifiable, solid rule-of-law record readily available for public view.  And that should make all the difference.  I suspect her opponent knows that, otherwise the personal attacks wouldn't be necessary.