Preemption doctrine
Posted by Ron Coleman on April 5, 2009
In light of the “where do I go to get my reputation back?” scenario now faced by Ted Stevens (and see here), I wondered where my friend (bloggily speaking) and idol (same) Glenn Reynolds was on this. He was beating the drum for Stevens’s head quite loudly during, after all.
So, here he is:
I DON’T SEE THIS WORKING: “The head of the Alaska Republican Party today called on Sen. Mark Begich to step down from the U.S. Senate, saying that the state’s voters would have re-elected former Sen. Ted Stevens had they known the U.S Department of Justice would abandon its prosecution of him.” They may be right, but if they’d listened to my advice and replaced Ted Stevens before the trial, the question would be moot.
Glenn’s advice was to lose Stevens. Why? Above all, because he was clearly corrupt. A crook. A felon.
How do we know? Why, these nice young men from the government said so.
It was the right advice, politically. And it does kind of answer the question.
But am I missing this, or is there something very wrong here?
UPDATE: The Queen Mary begins that long turn?…
Dean Esmay said
I feel about the same. It may well be that Stevens was the “pork king” of the Senate, bringing home all sorts of goodies for Alaskans. Some may wish to call this “corrupt,” but in fact he was just doing what his constituency asked him for. That’s not corrupt. It may be a bad thing on other levels (you as the reader can decide), but that does not make the man automatically guilty of multiple felonies, or any felony for that mater.
Despite my youthful idealism, I have basically come down to believing that the voters get the government they ask for–and therefore deserve whatever they get.
Most of the time. Your mileage may vary, and local taxes and other fluid circumstances on the ground may alter that trejectory.
Dean Esmay’s last blog post..Water Horse Mystery