White House Press Briefing with Ari Fleischer May 15, 2001

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Published on Tuesday, May 15, 2001

	7/14/03: Ari, in the 2002 election campaign, the Republican Party took in $7.2 million from convicted criminals. Is the President okay with his party taking millions of dollars from convicted criminals?...
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	4/15/03: Ari, a 21-year-old British peace activist, Thomas Hurndall, was shot by an Israeli sharp shooter and killed on Friday. That brings to four the foreign peace makers who -- peace activists who have been shot or killed or wounded in the last couple weeks. I'm wondering if the President is concerned that the Israelis are targeting peace activists?...
	4/14/03: Ari, Lawrence Eagleburger, the Secretary of State under George Bush Sr, told the BBC yesterday: "If George Bush Jr. decided he was going to turn the troops loose on Syria and Iran - after that he would last in office for about 15 minutes"...
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Ari & I
White House Press Briefing with Ari Fleischer

May 15, 2001 1:30 P.M.

by Russell Mokhiber

Mokhiber: Ari, in 1998, a jury in San Antonio ordered Diamond Shamrock refinery corporation to pay a widow, Donna Hall, $42 million for the death of her husband at the refinery. The jury thought that this was a way to punish the company for knowingly using unsafe equipment.

Governor Bush at the time pushed a tort reform law that limited that award to $200,000.

Last year, President Bush took $5,000 from Diamond Shamrock's political action committee.

Two questions.

One, is the President now concerned that there is a growing public perception of him siding with the oil industry on everything ranging from energy prices to workers' rights?

And two, does he have second thoughts about tort reform in light of the Diamond Shamrock case?

Ari Fleischer: First of all, the President again is going to do what he think is right regardless of whether or not one group in society supports him or opposes him on it. And he will continue to do that.

In the case of tort reform, what has happened all too often is that consumers pay far higher bills than what is necessary. Instead of people being able to get justice from the courts, the courts have turned into a system where lawyers are able to come in, especially trial lawyers, and drive up health care costs, consumer product costs, for everybody in society.

Under the Patient Bill of Rights for example, under the President's approach, patients will be entitled on an unlimited basis for economic damages suffered. When it comes to non-economic damages suffered, the President does believe, and so does a bi-partisan group of Senators, that there ought to be a reasonable cap.

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-Thanks to Russell Mokhiber

White House reporter Russell Mokhiber is the editor of the Washington, D.C.-based Corporate Crime Reporter - www.corporatecrimereporter.com. He co-authors the weekly Focus on the Corporation column with Robert Weissman which Common Dreams publishes. He can be reached at: russell@nationalpress.com