Captured by the Status Quo

you do realize a substantial proportion of them don't have tv or newspapers, right?

That many of them didn't even know about this?

Hell, the newscrew went to that island where you can see russia from, and when they asked folks what they thoguht about Gov Palin, people started asking, "Did something happen to Gov. Murkowski?" -- took the mayor eventually rustling some official correspondence out of his office before he figured out who they were talking about!

Alaska -- they do things differently up there.

I'm sorry, but fair is fair and elections are won and lost based on who "might have" strangled his wife during an argument.

This was at least about corruption. But everyone knows every dang politician in Alaska is corrupt, same as WV. That's the way the extraction states are run.

I wonder if Republicans have the minimal common sense not to ask a court to annul the election. 

Palin seemed terrific when I didn't know much about her, but the more I see the less I like.

It does not matter who appointed the prosecutors (and I'm not sure it's accurate that they were all Bush appointees anyway) - the only thing that matters is their conduct of the prosecution, which was beyond reprehensible and downright Nifong-esque.  The manner in which these prosecutors abused their power is far more scandalous than any wasteful pork project or unreported gift to which Ted Stevens may have been a party.  Abusive prosecutors are far more of a threat to liberty than Ted Stevens pork.

I don't know how innocent or guilty Stevens truly is, but under the law he has the assumption of innocence until he is proven guilty, in a court of law, in a fair trial, with all of the relevant evidence presented.  Remember that concept - rule of law?  Is it something conservatives favor only when it is convenient, but to be discarded or downplayed when we're worried that the target of prosecution is someone who might make us look bad? 

The test of whether or not you are principled is not your ability to support said principles when it is easy - the real test is your ability to support those principles when it is hard to do so.  Are you willing to dispense with those principles now because Ted Stevens was an unpopular Republican?  Is he not entitled to a fair trial, because "you just know" he's guilty of something?  And are Alaskan voters not entitled to cast their votes wtih all the facts on the table, not just those facts that prosecutors decided were convenient in order to get a tainted conviction (and therefore, a tainted election)?

Nobody disputes that Ted Stevens was an out of control spender.  Few would dispute that he was a lousy senator.  And it would be reasonable, ableit subjective, to opine that Stevens had done things that were unethical if not illegal.  But whether or not he should have remained a senator from Alaska was something that should have been decided by Alaskans, with all the facts on the table, including those facts that favored his case.  The apparent willingness of  so many conservatives to dismiss those ideas because of Stevens unpopularity among the right does not speak well for them. 

It would have been fine if Stevens lost his primary election.  It would have also been fine had Stevens been convicted in a fair trial.  And it would have been fine if Stevens had lost the general election without the taint of a conviction obtained in an unfair trial and at the hands of prosecutors who showed far more zeal for breaking the law than upholding it.  The ends could have been justified by those means.  But nobody can deny that Stevens loss in November was a direct outcome of a tainted conviction obtained by crooked prosecutors.  God help the conservative movement if we think the end of Stevens career is justified by those means.

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As far as Blago goes, he also is innocent under the eyes of the law until proven guilty.  It's reasonable to think he was corrupt and engaged in illegal activities.  But if Patrick Fitzgerald conducts his prosecution in the same manner he did with Scooter Libby, then we should all take a skeptical look at that upcoming trial no matter what the final verdict is.  And if a guilty verdict against Blago is ever thrown out over prosecutorial misconduct, the anger should be directed at the prosecution, not at the defendant, just as it should be now in the Stevens case.

but as a member of the CT bar for umpteeen years I can assure you a prosecutor forced to admit he withheld exculpatory evidence from a criminal defendant is BAD.

Like disbarment bad.

I've read an awful lot about the "rule of law" in places like this.  Much as Ted Stevens might be one of the last people I want in the Senate or the Republican Party the man was entitled to present a proper defense to his charges.  A little outrage--even if misdirected--isn't the terrible mortal sin you think it is.

Since you are a libertarian, isn't Stevens like the AIG-FP guys whom we are suppose to defend from bills of attainder not because we agree with rapacious capitalism, but  because once the government takes them out, there's only a slippery slope between the government and the rest of us.

What gets in the way is,hmmmm, the rule of law.

RE; Blago. I'm actually sympathtic to not penalizing the "blundering constable", but we are not talking about a criminal who's likely to have a chance to revert to recidivism.  Bribetakers aren't murderers, rapists or child molesters.. And if the voters of IL were that clueless, well, caveat emptor.  

this is a right wing blog. and politico leans to the right. so... maybe not.

as for why people (left and right) pay attention to her...politicians are usually pretty boring. palin, obama, newt...they can be interesting and say things that catch people's interest. plus, it's not like palin is laying low just trying to focus on alaska. if she wants the attention then she is going to get it.

I have no use for Ted Stevens, and as best I can determine, neither does Sarah Palin.  But by focusing too much on Ted Stevens in particular, you are missing the bigger picture, which is one of fundamental fairness.  Suppose this had not happened to Stevens, but to someone you actually like, e.g., George Allen.  Suppose that in 2006, Allen had not made his idiotic comments about "macaca' or the "real" Virginia, had never displayed a Confederate flag or allegedly used the n-word in the past, had been on the right side of the VMI case as governor, and didn't have any other legitimate political baggage I may have overlooked.  Suppose Allen was poised to win re-election handily in 2006, until Virginia's answer to Mike Nifong charged him with political corruption, willfully concealed evidence of his actual innocence from the jury, and managed to secure a "conviction" under false pretenses barely a week before the election.

Now suppose further that Allen knew he'd gotten a raw deal, said so out loud, openly accused VA-Nifong of misconduct, and promised to "fight this unjust verdict with every ounce of energy I have."  Alas, no one believed him at the time, from his own governor on down, he becomes the butt of late night TV shows, and he ends up losing by a margin only slightly less narrow than Allen actually did lose by.   A few months later, we found out Allen was right, after all, and that this phony conviction had almost certainly cost him an election he otherwise would have won.  Same result?  And more importantly, same reasoning?  [I could see objecting to Palin's call for a special election on the grounds that  it has no chance of happening, as a do-over for Allen wouldn't have, either, but tilting at windmills doesn't seem to be the basis of your objection here.]

and, guess what, her failure to do this does not merit a top deck blog post essentially telling her to retire from politics.

What was Ruffini's point about not tearing down folks like Palin and Jindal so we are left with Bob Dole II in '12?

You keep using that word, "technicality."  I do not think it means what you think it means.  If the DOJ thought the evidence against Stevens was solid, they'd retry him.  They don't, so they won't.