Good. Stevens has been a festering boil on the Republican party for far too long. The sooner he's out of the Senate, the better.

I feel really bad about the corruption charge.  What a horrible thing to go through.  My thoughts go out to him, his family, and his many constituents.

It's the end of the world as we know it, and I feel fine

I doubt that this prosecution is politically driven, but this case seems awfully thin to me. He's not charged with accepting work on his house for votes (bribery), he's charged Clinton-style with lying (by omission) about the work.

Steven's position is that he paid for all work done.

And I can see how that might be true. A few years ago (while I lived in Atlanta), a major storm came through and blew down a few trees on my property. A tree removal service came by and I hired them on the spot to remove the trees and associated stumps (incidentally stump removal is about as costly as tree removal). 6 years or so (and 3 addresses) later, I got an invoice from them for their services. If you had asked me prior to receiving that invoice, I would have said with fair certainty that I must have paid the bill; I certainly had no intention of getting 'free work' from these contractors but until they sent me a bill, I didn't recall that I had an outstanding obligation.

Now were I a public official, it would certainly look like I was taking 'gifts' from this service company. The difference between a gift and bad accounting sometimes being in the eyes of the beholder and is probably indictable. However to charge me with failing to disclose something I didn't recall -- well that seems like overreach to me.

Maybe its hollywood that leads people to believe that the villainous politician must not only be wrong on the issues, but corrupt too. I'm no fan of Sen. Stevens (heck pretty much all incumbent politicians), but just because I don't like him doesn't mean he's corrupt.

The Justice Department will have to make a solid case for me to believe that a sitting US senator would throw his career and reputation away for a couple hundred k.

Memory is a strange bell, jubilee and knell.

Here's some research into public support for Stevens, Begich and Palin taken last year. It looks like the governor does quite well going up against the other two. It also looks like Begich's negatives were a lot lower than Stevens back then. I have to believe this indictment has got to be the nail in his political coffin.

Illegitimi non carborundum.