Moral Values Come to the Bay Area

Attorney Jon Eisenberg wrote a friend-of-the-court brief on behalf of the wife of Robert Wendland, a car accident victim who was the subject of a 2001 legal dispute over whether to end his life support, but did not actually represent her.

Here is the text of the story as it originally appeared.

History is replete with flukes that changed a nation's destiny. Archduke Franz Ferdinand's motorcade takes a wrong turn through the streets of Sarajevo, and the modern era begins with a four-year massacre. An Iranian student committee votes 3-2 to occupy the American and not Soviet embassy, and we elect the Gipper to throw the welfare state on the ash heap of history. A record company executive decides that Bright Eyes is not a simpering little bed-wetter, and millions of 25-year-old boys open up their hearts whether we wanted them to or not.

We're living through one such moment right now, thanks to a badly worded question on an Ohio exit poll last November. The nation's pundits seized on post-election polling results suggesting a high voter affinity for...