A comment I wrote today on the Patrick Pretty blog:

Quote Originally Posted by Troy Dooly
I really don’t know how many ways a person can say, I take full responsibility or I apologize. But I have done it over and over!
Perhaps I can be of assistance.

You haven’t really “done it over and over”. You have claimed over and over to have been unaware of SEC rules regarding securities. Fair enough. But take a step back.

I’m a lawyer. You retain me to advise you on whether a certain transaction would be a good idea for you. You don’t know that I’ve also been retained by the folks with whom you’re dealing, and I don’t tell you because I have a non-disclosure with them. Do you have a problem with that? Don’t you think that – law and regulation aside – basic ethical considerations of fair-dealing require disclosure of conflicts of interest?

You’ve never even acknowledged that conflict, let alone apologized for it. Instead, you’ve offered the politician’s apology, pretending that you merely unintentionally violated some technical rule instead of breaching the trust of your members. Pretending to be impartial while you secretly accept money from someone you write about is not a technicality. Perhaps, if you apologize for the real offense, people with a brain might trust you again.

Or perhaps not. So maybe it’s best to keep stonewalling, so at least you may hold onto the people without a brain.