....but I wonder in trepidation how much of it will be comprehended by the average voter residing the the state of Massachusetts, whose intellects have been conditioned to only respond to 9 second sound bites.

As a MA resident, I can tell you this--Brown came off like a smarmy asshole, Warren wiped the floor with him--and she was working at a disadvantage because the moderator was in Brown's corner.

She shoots, she scores...and she hit enough three pointers to win the game.

and my having watched it is what led me to thank you, in my response #4 below, for making your original post. In fact, I was so interested in watching it that I made a big note to myself way in advance so as to be sure not to miss it.

I am currently thinking that Elizabeth Warren will be the standard bearer for the Democratic Party in 2016.

She looks much younger than her actual age (she is only a year or so younger than HRClinton), so she will need to plan ahead if she's interested in running for the top spot. She does have a national network sketched out, but she'd need to work it in the coming years and she would need a lot of help from the national machine.

I'm glad she did well in this debate--it was important!!!

I watched the Warren/Brown debate tonight and I wondered what was being referred to. I can see where it would be a difficult thing to respond to an accusation of that nature in the short period of 90 secs.

I live on the left coast and was not previously aware of anything to do with it.

I wonder if she was misled by Travelers or if she supports the part of the ruling that she influenced.

Obviously Scott Brown and other Repukes and Tea Partiers would have you believe something VERY different than the truth....

She got paid $212k over three years for her part in representing Johns Manville. That's really not very much money for a lawyer in the northeast for a three year period, so I would say she was probably not one of the key attorneys.

Second, lawyers are in the service business. They are hired to do a job, and even when a lawyer doesn't agree with a party's position, that doesn't necessarily prevent the lawyer from representing him. The lawyer's job is to advocate on behalf of the party, so that the law can be determined and interpreted by the courts and applied to the situation at hand.

A criminal lawyer hired to represent a defendant that everyone thinks is guilty, is hired to protect that defendant's rights under the law and make sure that the prosecutor proves its case. Without criminal defense lawyers, as reprehensible as some people think they are, none of us would have the protected rights we have.

A mechanic hired to repair a mob boss's car - he fixes the car, whether or not he likes the owner.

If you're in the civil defense business, which I guess she was, you will end up defending big business against all types of lawsuits.

It seems as if what happened in Johns Manville's case, that it got out paying the settlement - that happened after Warren was out of the case. No one predicted that's what would happen.

BUT, when you've campaigned on a platform of protecting the ordinary person, this does fly in the face of that. It's like a senator using prostitutes...who cares? Except when the senator has campaigned on faith and family values. It can be seen as hypocritical.

It would seem she took on a role in the case knowing there was a trust, that the original company was out of business. I think she accomplished what she wanted, the trust would be upheld and Travelers would hold immunity from future cases, the trust would be in effect to cover all victims. So yes she was helping them gain immunity but strengthening (or trying) bankruptcy law when a company goes bankrupt and leaves many victims behind. In the end the judge in the case with Chubb tossed the trust, as indicated that didn't seem a likely scenario at the time.