Jon Fleischman, at his right-wing blog, sent out a screed yesterday morning against Chief Justice Ronald M. George.  Not all that surprising really, given that George has been known to not always toe the Republican line. Usually? Yes. Complete Fealty? No.

But, when Fleischman saw George’s name on Hillary Clinton’s financial records at over $2300 to her presidential campaign, it was a bridge too far. He breathlessly fired off a blog post citing the California Code of Judicial Ethics’s restrictions on total giving to a candidate and attempted to shame Governors Pete Wilson and George Deukmejian for appointing George. It was all very dramatic. Fleischman had George busted. It was all listed there on the FEC report: George, Ronald State of California/Chief Justice.

Now I am not an expert in this “Code” and whether there are consequences for violations of it — nor do I know if the Supreme Court exempts themselves from these standards they adopt for all judges, or if they are supposed to live by its rules as well.

It seems to me that Ron George owes a public explanation for such an egregious violation of the Canons of Judicial Ethics.  Especially given that the Chief Justice of the California Supreme Court should be setting an example for all of our state’s judges to follow.

In the meantime, if I am Pete Wilson or George Deukmejian, I might be particularly embarrassed that my appointee was so committed to trying to elect a liberal to be President of the United States. (FlashReport)

But, whoops, turns out that it was a different Ronald George.  Apparently, there is another Ronald George in San Francisco who is a big Hillary Clinton fan. And when Clinton’s people looked up who he was, Google turned up the Chief Justice.  Under federal law, full accuracy isn’t required, only “best efforts.”

It is an understandable mistake to make, after all it did come from the FEC reports. But had he done a little more investigation, the charge would have crumbled.  John Myers re-tweeted a tweet that the address that the Ronald George of the FEC report is actually “Ronald F. George.”  But before attacking the Chief Justice, perhaps Fleischman should have done a white pages lookup of the address, or you know, contacted his office about the charge.

Fleischman later posted about the Chief Justice’s response stating that he had never donated to Clinton, and then later an explanation post from a tipster about the “best efforts” rules.

To date, no post apologizing for the full-throated attacks has been posted on the FlashReport.