April 3, 2009

• Criminal Gets Off on Technicality

  

  In most cases, if a prosecutorial error resulted in the release of a lawbreaker, a lot of people, many of them politicians eager to come down publicly on the side of law and order, would complain about the criminal’s being allowed to get away “on a technicality.”  In the case of Ted Stevens, many people, some of them moral or civic-minded Republicans, are complaining today about that very thing.

  Personally, even though I respect the procedural rules that protect the rights of the accused in our system of jurisprudence, I regret that some member or members of the prosecution’s team screwed up and let Ted slip through the “discovery” loophole.  I know  in my own mind that this man would rightfully be found guilty as charged.  All the revealed facts in the case tend to confirm my psychic intuition in that matter.

  The FBI recorded conversations in which he discussed with a co-conspirator the need to cover his ass, and reassured him that even if they were caught the penalties wouldn’t be too harsh.  For decades, his senatorial chicanery has revolted and appalled honest, thinking Americans.  In my little corner of the Susitna Valley, the word most often applied to him is, “crook.”

  

  Even so, it did not surprise me today to hear a few Alaskans crowing about the way this case turned out, and tossing around words like “exonerated” and “vindicated.”  Never mind that the news release from the court specifically states that the decision to drop charges does not in any way address the question of guilt or innocence.  Stevens’s supporters minds are made up so fuck the facts.

  Governor Palin wants Senator Mark Begich to resign so she can hold a special election to fill that seat he won from Stevens last November, but the buzz is that Uncle Ted isn’t interested in going back to the Senate.  It is being said here that he is interested in running for Governor.  Alaska’s other Senator, Lisa Murkowski, whose daddy, Frank the Bank, gave her his seat initially, is complaining about the federal government’s grossly unfair treatment of Ted Stevens.  She confessed to being one who would like to turn the clock back to November, and said, “There is nothing that will ever compensate for the loss of his reputation or leadership to the state of Alaska.”

  I’m growing increasingly politically cynical and suspicious (on a personal level, that just isn’t going to happen).  I suspect that most of those who are shouting about Ted’s exoneration and vindication are either co-conspirators in his political corruption or are simply naive and ignorant of legal details. 

  Practically everyone in Alaska has benefited one way or another from this miscreant’s congressional pork, just as we have all been soiled by association with his corruption.  It is important to emphasize that he was not exonerated, absolved, acquitted, cleared, exculpated, forgiven, or pardoned.  His case was dismissed on a technicality, for prosecutorial errors. 

  He earned that nickname, “Uncle Ted,” with the favors he conferred while he was in power.  It is spoken affectionately by those who care more about the money and influence than about the chicanery behind them.  It is spoken with derision by the rest of us.

  

  He is 85 years old, and he has a personality that, a generation or so ago, used to be called “sociopathic.”   Currently, his grandiosity, scheming, habitual lying, and volatile reactions to perceived disrespect or betrayal, would tend to get him diagnosed with two or more of the Cluster B personality disorders.  He’s a guy who always has an eye to the main chance.  One might take consolation from the fact of his age.  He can’t be on the political stage much longer.  However, his son Ben, an Alaska politician a lot like Uncle Ted, has the potential to be around a lot longer.  That’s a chilling thought, to me.

  

  • 4:43 pm
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