September 29, 2004

Dickie Scruggs and other lawyers coordinating the courtroom assault on nonprofit hospitals over alleged failure to meet charitable obligations would love to get state AGs involved on their side. Inconveniently for them, the attorney general of Alabama, Troy King, plans to file a friend of the court brief on the hospitals' side. Check out the priceless last paragraph in the Birmingham News's Aug. 21 account:

Consejo de Latinos Unidos, a national consumer group, lauded King on Thursday as the first attorney general to join the legal fight against nonprofit hospitals. That was before the group understood his position. By Friday, the group issued a press release calling King a "stooge for price-gouging thugs."