We first came upon John Dowd when he represented Major League Baseball in the Pete Rose scandal. Dowd was the consummate Washington D.C. bigtimer who could bloviate with the best (or the worst) of `em.
(If you have trouble viewing this clip, try Firefox).
At least a few readers may remember Dowd as the defense attorney for Arizona Governor Fife Symington, who was indicted in the mid-1990s by a federal grand jury on charges of extortion, bank fraud, and making fraudulent financial statements.
A jury convicted the sitting governor of bank fraud, and Symington was forced by law to resign from his office in September 1997. But Symington never saw a day in jail because an appellate court overturned the conviction in 1999.
We here at the paper have Mr. Dowd to thank in large measure for getting our friend and longtime colleague (now, alas, former colleague) John Dougherty on board as a staff writer. Dougherty came to us shortly after Dowd successfully baited him into losing his cool during a meeting at the Mesa Tribune.
The sole mission of Dowd and a slick PR guy from inside the Beltway when they went out to the Trib was to try to get Dougherty off the Symington beat. Dougherty had been kicking ass about the savings-and-loan scandal involving the governor for years, and he showed no signs of letting up.
Their strategy worked, and Dougherty (thankfully for us) wasn't long for the Trib.
In the it-takes-one-to-know-one department, check out the clip we attached to the top of this post, courtesy of CNBC.
Dowd was captured on tape leaving the courthouse after the high-profile conviction of his client Raj Rajaratnam -- guilty on all 14 counts of major-league insider trading.
Dougherty's outburst was rookie league in comparison.
And we sense that Dowd, unlike our pal, isn't going to have to look for another job anytime soon.
