Ted Stevens Reports

This Associated Press report has got to be one of the strangest leads I've ever read in a straight news article in a straight news report: The statement that it "threatened" to end Stevens' political career and that it "increased" Stevens' "difficulty" in the race for senator seem to be understatement at its most sublime.

Although, I must admit that from what I've been reading about Alaska, I see a possibility that Stevens might pull off. Federal Rules on sentencing do, however require that he be jailed pending his appeal, unless the sitting judge believe that there is a good likelihood of success on the appeal. I guess there is nothing preventing Stevens from running from prison, after all Debs did it.

The reporting on the trial brings to mind my previous thoughts on trial reporting and quite frankly most reporting on issues that I am familiar with. That is you can't really believe much of it. From everything I read on Stevens' e trial I thought that the government was having a hard time proving its' case and I looked to find articles on the trial. I should have known better.

The few trials of mine that have made the news have been reported "through a glass darkly" to coin a phrase (actually I've always wanted to use that phrase somewhere and I think this might be my only chance). At any rate the one I remember most was an arson trial that I won. The jury came back with a not guilty after six hours.

The local paper covered it with extensive reporting for two days. After the not guilty verdict people who read the paper had to assume that the jury were either drunk or paid off to come up with that verdict. The prosecution's case had been reported completely, however the defense case was barely mentioned. Unhappily, I think that this is pretty much the way most things are covered.

I've seen worse coverage of a labor struggle that I was involved in. The local paper there juxtaposed the most mild and conciliatory quotes from management with our (the unions) most militant quotes.

When I was stationed in Thailand in 67-68 and worked in the medical supply operation that provided medical supplies for all Southeast Asia (except Vietnam); Newsweek wrote an article about how we were winning the hearts and minds of the locals up country with about $100,000.00 worth of medical supplies a month. Except it was well over 10 times that much.

Oh well, as my first sergeant said: "Don't believe anything that you hear, and only half of what you see." It's worked for me.