How now, Newdow

Zachary Block has written a wonderful profile of a controversial figure who signs his legal papers as "Rev. Dr. Michael Newdow."

You might know him as the guy who argued before the Supreme Court against "under God" appearing in the Pledge of Allegiance. On this case, William Safire has written, "The only thing this time-wasting pest Newdow has going for him is that he's right."

He's got some other things going for him, too: He's an emergency physician who claims to have worked in 'hundreds' of ERs:
“I probably worked in more emergency rooms, conceivably, than anybody else, ever,” he says. Newdow still holds medical licenses in California, Florida, New Jersey, Michigan, North Carolina, and Virginia.


He then got his law degree from Michigan (like this future MD/JD is doing). Later on, he became a mail-in Reverend of the Universal Life Church and, in fact, started his own atheist church.

He's been much more successful with the "Under God" legal saga than he has been in the custody battle for his daughter.

An odd duck, to be sure, but I'm not going to give in to magazine psychiatry I've practiced before. Rather, I'm going to take solace that in this nation of ridiculous cases against medicine, in a world where the malpractice bus can visit your neighborhood ER, there's one doctor who having some success litigating something.

The decision will probably come in about a month.

UPDATE: That mobile lawyer / malpractice van link above is now host to a vigorous, fact-filled debate on malpractice and insurance boogeymen. Check it out.