for tats! Martin Knight on Eric Holder’s vacation of the verdict against Ted Stevens:
Now, maybe I’m going dangerously close to conspiracy theory territory here, but looking at everything, the timing of the indictment and trial (finishing about a week to election day), the leaks, the trial venue (almost guaranteed to return a conviction), the deliberate withholding/doctoring of evidence by the prosecution, the fact that the lead prosecutor is a registered Democrat with ambitions of being appointed the US Attorney for Boston … and I’m starting to think this was more of a political operation than anything to do with justice.
That’s one.
The second thing is that I have to note that Achance, again, was right. Republicans, in a bid to appear as white as the driven snow, have been tricked, again and again, into committing fratricide. For all that Obama can give the world lessons in throwing people under the bus once they become inconvenient, Republicans are hardly slouches. All it takes is an accusation, a news headline and the entire concept of “innocent until proven guilty†is thrown out the window in a rush to condemn and disassociate (as if the MSM would ever forget to attach the big scarlet ‘R’).Nothing p*ssed me off more than seeing Democrats and their pet talking heads condemning Republicans for attempting to change their Caucus rules to enable Tom DeLay (another victim of prosecutorial misconduct – whatever happened to his trial anyway?) stay on as Leader while he fought his indictment by a clearly dishonest and partisan Ronnie Earle. And there were Republicans who got on TV and print to echo them -e.g. Chris Shays. This while Democrats have no such rule in place for their leadership.
Simply put; we need to start defending our own. I’m not saying we should emulate the Democrats who had no problem with criminals like William Jefferson and Chris Dodd serving in their midst, but the fact that someone is on our side means we should give him/her the benefit of the doubt, extend them the courtesy of believing them innocent until proven guilty.
We condemned Stevens from the moment he was indicted, we believed the leaks, we joined the Democrats in labelling him corrupt – a quid pro quo player.
And we were wrong. He was one of our own. He deserved better.
I wrote about this, earlier today, here, and, in the comments, got this:
#
Comment by glasnost on 4/1 @ 5:25 pm # |Edit This
We told the world, conservative blogosphere included, that the Justice Department was running amok in the Bush Admin, and howls of ridicule ensued. Ted Stevens was prosecuted by the same group of trigger-happy DOJ scalp-takers that went after politically motivated prosecutions across the land – and probably for the explicit political, Republican-serving purpose of forcing him to step down and clear the Republican primary field, but then again maybe just out of a desire to be “evenhanded†and cover their butts.
Now his conviction has been retracted by a Democratic Attorney General who had everything politically to gain from refusing to dismiss the charges, and blaming any freedom on appeal on ideologue republican judges. But he didn’t.
Hey, I thought he was guilty. Maybe he was. I really don’t know anymore. It’s amazing that the Bush DOJ can get me to be uncertain about a Republican’s guilt in corruption cases, but I am. It’s pretty easy to make up charges that sound realistic in a sound bite, if you know enough about someone’s life. Then you just close off the trial, bribe the witnesses, and convict on hearsay, sort of like what we did to random Pakistanis in Gitmo.
#Comment by Dan Collins on 4/1 @ 5:46 pm # |Edit This
On the contrary, glasnost, here’s the DA in whose office Ms. Morris cut her teeth as a prosecutor. You’re absolutely wrong, as well, that Holder had anything to gain politically by backing the conviction, because it would have meant a retrial in Federal court in which the misconduct of the prosecution would have been a highly publicized issue.
But I’ll tell you what I’m going to do. I’m going to mention Lead Prosecutor Brenda Morris’s name every chance I get, so that Lead Prosecutor Brenda Morris learns what it’s like when someone has her name plastered all over the intarwebs for the kind of misconduct that Lead Prosecutor Brenda Morris and her team engaged in. We think that Lead Prosecutor Brenda Morris ought to be cashiered from her position in the DOJ and subject to civil suit, and we will look forward to finding what happens in future to Lead Prosecutor Brenda Morris and her team, whose behavior has so appalled Attorney General Eric Holder.
UPDATE: Lots more commentary on this at American Thinker
That would be the Bush DOJ whose campaign contributions went 2-1 for Obama? Bureaucrats of every stripe are for Democrats, even in DoD.
Slightly OT. We’ll support whatever makes the Republican party look worst. It’s what we do. So the prosecution was all good with us and any effort to hinder an investigation into the DOJ’s handling of this matter will be even better. Just wanted to be up front about all that.
Because if we can’t piss on Republicans we can’t stay popular with our journalist friends. And it really is all about us.
enuff ’bout me
cuz i’m me
the meme be me…
but/ seriousme
what do u think of me?
tweet me
PD,
Hang on, we’ll have the guy that tweets for us do it.
Justice Department to Drop All Charges Against Former Alaskan Senator Stevens
—Ace
…owing to prosecutorial misconduct, long alleged by Stevens, and apparently accurately.
I assume Stevens is corrupt. I assume he probably should have been evicted from Congress.
But what the hell were these prosecutors doing bringing a case like this before an election?
Posted by Ace at 02:58 PM New Comments Thingy
That is a copy of Ace’s post above obviously, but I think he manages to say it well in not so many words.
Yeah, except for the part about assuming guilt. Oh I’m sorry Stevens is a Republican, of course we assume he’s guilty. That makes us popular.
It was just a few months ago that the socialist whores at the National Public Radio were gloating and gloating about this…
i can see my porch
from my steppes
Come to think of it we really enjoyed pissing all over Roberto Gonzales as well… Hmmm could we be disloyal and weak and stupid. Nahhh, we’re just really in to us.
And Scooter Libby, he didn’t need his reputation nearly as much as we needed our contacts in the MSM.
i like logs
and-i kinda like republicants
‘cept for the cuddlin
oh. You reminded me. Where did Mr. Cabin go? It seems it’s been … a long time.
burnt
the cabin?
burnt
[hi larry david]
burnt
you ever see an immigrant w a pony?
burnt…
wipe ur wheels
What difference does it make? Stevens was compromised, and he deserved what he got. That doesn’t excuse the behavior of prosecutorial overreach, the likes of which may be just beginning.
Why not use the blog to debate the power of ideas rather than inconsequential bullshit? The country is standing at a crossroads and the two competing visions – and they are competing visions – need to be examined. One vision is on balance right, and one, on balance, is wrong and thus inherently harmful to the long term interests of the people of the United States of America.
what difference does it make
best smiths song
evah
Wait. The point is he didn’t deserve what he got. It’s not helpful if people get repudiated for the wrong reasons. It’s unhelpful, really.
I was very mean to the Senator. Ted, I am very sorry for what I said.
a tale of two[no three] pony’s
clop clop dust
dust dust clop
cloppy dusty springfield lesbian bdust
clop
You know what, Rick in NY, it’s pretty consequential when DOJ Prosecutors redact exculpatory testimony from their depositions. If you don’t think that the perpetrators of this scumbaggery ought to pay for their offenses, quite frankly you are part of the problem.
Sorry, we don’t debate government over reach. We defend it. Without government over reach we’d be nothing. Though, we agree that prosecuting a man based on fraud is certainly inconsequential. Especially when he holds a safe Republican seat that will flip and thus make us popular with the folk at CNN.
Besides, if it’s too complicated to put in a twitter we can’t understand it.
guh reen alligat-ors
and long thin necked geese
mumblle stumble…
but hey
the lovliest was the unicorn
uni- corn?
can we all wiliam shatner
look in our porcelan bowls
pick out the corn
and french kiss each other
[eeew- i totally denounce pd buttons]
As a former Alaskan and NRA Life Member who has voted almost exclusively for Republicans all my life, I hate Ted Stevens with the heat of Chris Matthews’ thrilled-up leg. The very same reputation that kept getting him elected is what made the charges against him credible. The only reason he lost in 2008 is because the case made enough people see that reputation the way I had for years already since the first time I watched him in action as a constituent.
On pork and earmarks, he makes Robert Byrd look like Jimmy Stewart’s “Mr. Smith.”
Karma be damned, I’m glad he’s out of office and I don’t care why. He is very much a part of the GOP’s problem even now. The party will be years living him down.
With Rick in NY, every fucking post had better be about the power of ideas. Dammit.
Now, I think taking a breather every now and then is cool. But I’m not trying to dictate the content of someone else’s site.
i gots to[wheeze] pedal
[wheeze]
bike…
i need some super corn [wheeze]
frito bandito
But enough about you, let’s talk about me.
I like pie.
I agree with McGehee. The last thing any of us want lousing up our political ambitions is the rule of law.
That stuff about the rule of law lousing up a man’s political ambitions was well said, Pragmatic Republicans.
Stevens was one of “yours.”
So long as there is one set of a rules for folks powerful people don’t like and one set of rules for the rest of you every one is mine.
Throw the Bums OUT!
Term Limits NOW!
Make November 2010 the Slaughter of the Incumbents
lick finger
i agree
with above said comments
i’m kinda down w
pillow fight struggles
tweet me
i’m a hockey octo-mom
too many men on the ice…
does biz mean tits in italian?
serious question
someone told me it did
are they yankin me chain
[a 3 hour tour/ a 3 hour tour]
appreciate the knowledge
i could look it up but
yawn
i’m lazy
bob/ as his friends caled him
throw me a lifeline
did these lil pricks know they be taunting the best
hockey playuer who ever lived?
no… they did not
Sounds like Lead Prosecutor Brenda Morris needs to get the Nifong treatment.
Powerful people loooooved him — until he got into trouble. Since I’m not a federal prosecutor and I wasn’t on the jury I have the luxury of judging him guilty regardless of the prosecution’s fuck-ups.
Pretend to defend him if you want, in the interest of your parody, but do not re-purpose my opinion to serve your argument. By assuming the voice of the “pragmatic Republican” you should be defending him because to “your” way of thinking nothing he did was wrong except to us fiscal-cons and godbotherers.
Don’t do the shtick if you can’t get it right.
Pretend to defend him agree with me if you wantFixed that for me.
Given that there didn’t seem to be much doubt about Stevens’ guilt, I have to wonder if there isn’t something else going on here. That’s not to say that I believe Stevens should have been convicted given the available evidence. I just wonder if this is a precurser to letting Rangel and Dodd and the rest of them off the hook.
I wrote about this, earlier today, here, and, in the comments, got this:
You also got this, which I will say again ’cause I’m drunk:
#
Comment by B Moe on 4/1 @ 1:38 pm #
What is the status of Tom Delay’s case?
#
Comment by B Moe on 4/1 @ 1:41 pm #
Professor Jacobson thinks that the prosecutors ought to be ashamed of themselves. They aren’t.
Why would they be? They did exactly what they set out to do. The fucking Republican’s who set around playing with their dicks trying not to offend these treacherous bastards are the one who should be embarrassed. Expecting fucking thieves to be embarrassed they got away with it is not sound policy.
I am a loud drunk. Sometimes.
Who is re-purposing your argument? You wanted him thrown under the bus. We threw him under the bus. All of us. Check out out the archives of our publications and blogs. You know who we are. We railed against him once the MSM turned on him. We were properly and quite loudly horrified that his last his race was as close as it was. I’m just amazed at how easily things like guilt beyond a reasonable doubt and the idea that a man should only be convicted of crimes he’s actually committed and that are proven by non-fraudulent evidence can be tossed aside by the principled Republicans when it suits their political interests. That’s why we’re always so popular, and always will be. Don’t be angry with me. I’m not scolding you. I’m welcoming you aboard. Glad to have you.
Dude, I don’t like Ted Stevens or Tom Delay. Don’t like them at all, don’t fucking trust them at all either. That is completely beside the point. The point is, you have to gather evidence and prove they are guilty, and you have to do it to both sides. Right now the Republicans are folding like cheap lawn furniture every time an allegation is made against them and aren’t doing shit to prosecute the opposition. We cannot survive as a country if we only have two parties and one of them is suicidal.
That way lies tyranny, plain and simple.
Yeah, mcgehee, we’re alot better off with an additional Democratic Senator. Plus, you get to feel all righteous and shit.
He may be corrupt, then again no one goes after former Klan recruiter Cornelius Sales jr, (aka Robert Byrd) do they, he’s paved over the entire state and put a sign with his name on it everywhere. I admit the last 7 months, have given me
a much more nuanced understanding of Alaska politics, than I had before.
Prosecutorial misconduct needs to be a felony with a minimum sentence of say twenty years, no parole.
Stevens is a prime example of what went wrong with the Republicans in 2006. Gingrich is already postulating a split from the Republicans in 2012. I’ll be the first one out the door for a limited government, fiscally sane party. Living in New York, there isn’t one. The Republicans don’t care. They don’t even pretend to stand for anything, so the looters win.
With one in seven jobs in the government, and private employment shrinking, how long do you suppose it’ll be until there’s nothing left to loot? I long for the day when they are all government jobs and the teachers are picketing the public works guys and the healtcare workers are demonstrating against child protective services as they all want higher taxes on each other to get more pay.
[…] know, that’s fine. I just want to go on mentioning Lead Prosecutor Brenda Morris. Brenda Morris, Lead Prosecutor. Did I mention Brenda Morris? Because I really am interested […]