Posted on 10/06/2006 6:06:43 AM PDT by falcon1966
Democratic U.S. Senate hopeful Harold Ford Jr. referred to himself as a lawyer earlier this week, but the congressman has not passed the bar exam.
Michael Powell, senior adviser to the Ford campaign, said U.S. Rep. Ford took the Tennessee bar exam in February 1997 and failed. He said that was the only time Rep. Ford has taken the test.
Rep. Ford, of Memphis, got his law degree from the University of Michigan Law School in 1996, according to his congressional Web site.
He said Tuesday during a meeting with Chattanooga Times Free Press editors and reporters that Republican opponent Bob Corker has said the next senator should be a businessman and not a lawyer.
"I told Senator (Lamar) Alexander, I said, ‘I won’t hold it against you if I’m elected, and there’s two lawyers in the delegation who try their hardest to work through the issues," Rep. Ford said.
Corker campaign spokesman Todd Womack said, "If Congressman Ford will stretch the truth about his own resume, what else will he stretch the truth about?" Mr. Powell said it is his understanding that Rep. Ford was joking when he made reference to being a lawyer during Tuesday’s meeting.
"He has never held himself out as a lawyer," Mr. Powell said.
He said President Bush has referred to Rep. Ford as a lawyer.
"I think it makes sense to send somebody up to Washington who’s not a lawyer," President Bush said at a Nashville fundraiser in late August, according to a transcript. "Nothing wrong with lawyers, we got a lot of them up there."
Mr. Powell said the GOP is finding "petty" things to talk about.
"We’re a month out from the election, and the Republicans and Mr. Corker still are not talking about the issues," he said.
Ford is a Democrat. He can say whatever he wants.
Frankly, I could care less. But, if he was a Republican, there would be 3,245 stories about it in a Google search.
His bar exam results were fake but accurate.
He failed the bar?
I've known lots of people who went to law school and worked as tax accountants, corporate lawyers, and investment bankers who didn't take the bar but still referred to themselves as lawyers. Were they wrong to do that?
But of course, dems can lie, it's their right.
Could this be a crime?
Ford graduated from UofM Law School and FAILED the Tennessee Bar Exam!!!! That is quite an embarrassment.
Snort.
The press says the people of Tennessee are going to vote for Ford.
We all know how accurate the press is.
LIAR!! LIAR!!
Of course he is a liberal Dem so it's OK. (sarcasm)
Yeah, but he trah-ed!!!!
ROFL
You have to pass a bar exam to practice law. If you haven't, you can say you have a law degree, but you cannot call yourself a lawyer nor hold yourself out as practicing law.
Yes. They may even be wrong to call themselves accountants!
Can you still call yourself a lawyer if you sit for the bar exam only once and fail it?
LOL. Yes, he did, while Alphonso Jackson, now Sec. of HUD, while he graduated from law school, did not even attempt to take the bar exam.
There is no such thing as a corporate lawyer who has not passed the bar exam. Such an individual may be called a legal consultant, but it would be unethical for them to represent themselves to clients as a lawyer.
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