Jose Baez: His book has the tone of a sore winner - Hal

Jose Baez: His book has the tone of a sore winner
posted by halboedeker on July, 5 2012 9:20 AM

Jose Baez blasts opponents on page after page of “Presumed Guilty,” his look back at the Casey Anthony case. The book becomes tiresome, but there’s a fascinating clash between Baez’s idealistic take on the law and his gossipy, withering assessment of people in the case.

Baez recalls that Anthony’s defense team dismissed prosecutor Jeff Ashton as “Rat Hands” and “Tourette’s Boy.” Meter reader Roy Kronk, who found Caylee’s remains, was a “fabulist.” Detective Yuri Melich “never caught any flak for sloppy police work.”

Judge Stan Strickland had “clear prejudice against Casey.” Dr. Jan Garavaglia, the chief medical examiner, was “over the top” and ”very indignant, very abrasive” on the stand. Baez, who is short, writes that Orlando attorney Mark NeJame ”hated me” and “stood about five foot two in heels.”

But Baez saves most of his scorn for George Anthony, Casey’s father. In the book, written with Peter Golenbock, Baez expands on his opening statement that George sexually abused daughter Casey and that Caylee drowned. Baez foreshadows that he’ll have a lot to say about George and delivers in Chapter 13 of the 34-chapter book.

Baez quotes George’s ex-wife who describes him as “nothing short of a pathological liar.” After Casey shared her allegations of sexual abuse, ”the entire defense team called George ‘Baldy,’ a constant reminder of the child molester and rapist we believed him to be.”

“Baldy” was the name that George gave his penis, Casey said.

How will George Anthony respond to the book? Will he talk for less than the $600,000 that the “Dr. Phil” show reportedly paid an Anthony charity?

In “Presumed Guilty,” Baez gives a detailed portrait of Casey Anthony as victim, and so it’s no wonder she signed off on this book. But Baez also describes her as having “serious mental health issues,” “not playing with a full deck” and “having built a fantasy world.”

On ABC’s “Good Morning America” Thursday, Josh Elliott got to the central problem with the defense and the book. Elliott noted that Baez’s entire defense “was based on a story from her that couldn’t be corroborated. If you are essentially saying that she had serious mental health issues, doesn’t that, in fact, undermine the entire account that she gave?”

Baez said no and added that the book charts how he corroborated what Casey said.

Authors who write memoirs tend to cherry-pick their information, and Baez is no different. He doesn’t talk about how his comments to the media changed over time. He carps about the $20,000 that CBS paid to Casey’s parents to license photos and that the Anthonys ”went on a lavish cruise” rather than help pay for Casey’s defense. When Baez defends the $200,000 Casey was paid for photos, he just talks about “a national news organization” that licensed the material. (It was ABC.)

In the book, Baez also presents himself as constantly underestimated and dismissed by prosecutors, police and the media. He won, and that can’t be taken away from him.

The book tries to celebrate that victory, yet there’s the tone of a sore winner. A year after Anthony’s acquittal, he comes off more a whiner than a victor.

But the book flap announces that Baez is “one of the most-sought-after attorneys in the country.”

Does he sound like a fabulist?

http://blogs.orlandosentinel.com/entertainment_tv_tvblog/2012/07/jose-baez-his-book-has-the-tone-of-a-sore-winner.html