Stevens (R-AK) case goes to the jury next week.

[speedoo]

Hopefully we will have a conviction well before election day.

[Blue_In_AK]

1. An Alaskan blogger's perspective

This is from The Rogue Wave http://theroguewave.blogspot.com/2008/10/senator-stevens-sin-fall-from-faith-in.html

Senator Stevens' Sin: A Fall From Faith in Democracy

As Uncle Ted takes the stand today in his own defense he will claim to be so obtuse that he was unaware of the existence or value of gifts laid at his feet. It is a red faced grass kicking lie, like that of a boy caught by his mother breaking rules he thinks are stupid. The barely concealed current running through the recorded phone conversations between Stevens and former pal Allen is that the rules are wrong, not them.

Because Stevens is a fallen angel.

His faith in the messy, loud and inaccurate system of government that is a democratic republic has been bleached out of him in his long years wrassling laws in the Senate. He is like the Catholic priest whose long years in a cynical system have made him forget the goodness that still sits in the pews.

His implicit motto is the famous quote from Men In Black:

"A person is smart. People are dumb panicky animals, and you know it."

I can understand this, to a degree. Here in Kodiak our quest to build a new police station has been a study in the inefficiencies of democracy. A City Dictator, conferring with a few of our prominent citizens, could have decreed a new station site despite the howls of the ignorant masses that it is in the wrong place. Could have saved us a couple of million dollars. Of course the station would have gone where the citizens didn't want it. But citizens are like children. They don't know what they really need.

Uncle Ted truly believes that it is better to confer with the Captains of Industry than to sift through the clamor of the masses. This is his true crime--his every action as a Senator is guided, not by the needs and wishes of his electorate, but by a close contingent of confederates and associates that he has come to trust.

Perhaps Mr. Begich will one day be worn down from dealing with the dunderheads of democracy. At that point he should quit, as Uncle Ted should have, long ago. Because swimming in the sea of the citizenry is what a public servant does. It is not a job you can do sipping champagne on the shore with your homeboys.