The New York Times gives us an editorial that is a wonder in intellectual dysfunction. Consider this:
For eight years the Bush Justice Department cynically put politics and ideology above the law. So it is gratifying to see how Attorney General Eric Holder is handling the case against Ted Stevens, the former Alaska senator who was convicted last year on seven felony counts of ethics violations.
Okay, great. Eric Holder is stepping in to do right by a Republican Senator. Of course it doesn't cost the Obama Administration anything. The Senate election is over and Stevens isn't get his seat back. And the Times is quick to point out that the reversal doesn't mean Stevens was innocent.
The prosecutors’ bad acts do not necessarily mean that Mr. Stevens was innocent of misusing his office. But in light of the prosecutorial wrongdoing, and the fact that Mr. Stevens lost his Senate seat last November, Mr. Holder was right not to choose to retry the case.
Well, that's right. But was Stevens guilty of misusing his office in the case for which he was convicted, and because of which he lost his senate seat? Here is some interesting news from the same New York Times:
Mr. Stevens was charged in July with lying on Senate disclosure forms by concealing an estimated $250,000 worth of goods and services he received, mostly to renovate a chalet he owned in Alaska. Prosecutors said he had received the bulk of the goods and services from Bill Allen, a longtime friend who had made a fortune by providing services to Alaska’s booming oil industry.
But in their filing on Wednesday, government lawyers said they had recently learned that trial prosecutors had concealed from Mr. Stevens’s defense lawyers the notes from a 2008 interview with Mr. Allen that raised significant doubts about the charges. Among other things, Mr. Allen asserted in the interview that the work on the Stevens home was worth only about $80,000, they said.
Now this raises the very real possibility that the Senator was railroaded. But, as I have pointed out, it was more than miscarriage of justice affecting an individual. It came during the final stages of a senate campaign. So far, so good. The Times conclusion:
Given the flagrant partisanship of the Bush Justice Department, it is especially reassuring to see Mr. Holder ignore party lines to do the right thing by Mr. Stevens. It has been far too long since the attorney general seemed interested in enforcing ethics and nonpartisanship in a department that has been shockingly lacking in both.
Now, maybe I am confused, but Bush was a Republican, wasn't he? And Stevens was also a Republican, wasn't he? So if the Bush Justice Department was so "flagrantly partisan," why did it go to such pains to bring down a Republican Senator and move the Democrats one seat closer to a filibuster proof majority? The Times' argument makes no sense. It is of course the Gray Lady that is engaging in flagrant partisanship here, to the point of incoherence.
Why did the Justice Department run roughshod over the law to get Stevens? That is a very interesting question. A genuine newspaper would ask it.
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