Chris Matthews: Poor Little Old Ted Stevens
By Heather Thursday Apr 02, 2009 10:30am
Matthews gets another one wrong. From Hardball April 1, 2009 and no, it's not an April Fools joke. TPM Muckraker has more:
Just now, the MSNBC anchor, opining on the news that DOJ is dropping the charges in the Ted Stevens case, declared that the decision means "the charges should never have been brought, there should never have been a prosecution."
Um, no. The Justice Department made clear that it was dropping the case because of prosecutorial missteps -- specifically the failure to hand over a key piece of evidence to defense lawyers. The decision has almost no bearing on the merits of the underlying case against Stevens, who was convicted last fall of failing to disclose hundreds of thousands of dollar in gifts from an oil-services contractor.
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He was convicted in spite of the prosecution doing their level best to get the case thrown out at trial.
This way, Stevens' record is expunged, too.
Nice reach-around, there, DoJ...
Mathews has made alot of mistakes lately--maybe time for him to retire? 'Special' correspondent might be a more suitable job for him.
i'm NOT sure the charges should have been dropped but the damage/humiliation was done. we can read all about it on the "tubes". good night ted
Tweety not only went right off the rails with this story...he buried himself down in the valley.
God forbid:
http://www.buongiornoweb.com/foto_celebrita/_...
If they want that $250m bridge so badly, why don't they have a bond sale? Isn't that a more conservative thing to do than to ask the rest of us to float the bill?
Charges should have never been brought!
But he got a raw deal. If the prosecution willfully withheld evidence that could have exonerated, then he deserved to have it and deserved to win his reelection bid, whatever his politics might be.
We're not supposed to be a banana republic.
this trial was about Steven's interest in finding a lovely bunch of coconuts.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KQ07YjRQROU
whether he deserved to win the election.
Voters who depend on an honest prosecution being brought to bear...
A prosecutor can easily destroy a case with a single techinical procedural error. Ask Marcia Clark or Chris Darden. Stevens got a lifetime Christmas gift.
all his autographed earmarks from memorabilia dealers in Vegas.
He'll spend the rest of his life in a cell with Nordquist.
dropping the charges does NOT equal innocence.
"the charges should never have been brought, there should never have been a prosecution." not true chrissy.
If it would not change the conviction then it doesn't mean the charges should have been dropped, but if it could have then the presumption of innocense would've been abrogated.
"dropping the charges does NOT equal innocence. "
The same excuse used by the Feminist womyn studies types as to why the accused in the Duke Lacrosse rape hoax are guilty.
The decision has almost no bearing on the merits of the underlying case
Does that standard also apply to Bill Ayers?
does your question imply a belief that charges being tossed out of court means that the accused is innocent, yes?
The Duke case was tossed out because the prosecutor was trying them through the media, making too many inflamatory comments, and the accusor's story unraveled.
The Ayers case had the federal government (prosecutors) themselves requesting dropping the Ayers case in 1973 due to government misconduct.
(Because of the era I suspect they were using illegal wire-taps, but nothing I've been able to find says what that misconduct was, or the "technicality" that dropped the case.)
actually. Funny stuff.
I knew it wouldn't take the liars long to jump to this bogus conclusion.
For someone with such an ENORMOUS cranium, he evidently has quite the small brain...
to want to work for MSNBC.
must have a really really small brain. Either that or a frontal lobotomy to work for Rupert the Murdoch.
The one who shall remain nameless has shown herself to be a fucking idiot...again.
http://mediamatters.org/items/200904020008
I just read that.... queen of the fools - err April Fools
what a complete buffoon she is.
some of their anchor women are HOT. The one on fox and friends slips up every now and again to say something sensible. Of course, she then starts reading the teleprompter.... Such a waste of brains and beauty....
Al Y's "do I creep you out" is starting to creep into my brain.... um, forget I said anything....
Just not with Matthews.
Definitely with Shuster, Olbermann, or Maddow.
Dog the Bounty Hunter myself. Isn't that the show with Steve McQueen?
That mutant and his entire mutant family are shining examples of shitkickin redneck scum.
And furthermore...in the future, please do not sully Steve McQueen's name by using it the same sentence as that idiot Dog the Bounty Hunter.
is that you show up for the interview pre-trepanned, so they can go ahead and suck what little brains there were to begin with, right on out.
I can't stand this attention whore even when I agree with him because I know he'll next tell a dishonest lie like this. The DOJ had this fucker Stevens stone busted but their hearts weren't in getting him, so they purposely tainted the case by violating "discovery" procedures to give this crook a get out of jail free card on appeal. One of Matthews biggest lies.
and I'd like to see charges brought against the prosecutors who knew all along what they were doing, don't you think?! Honestly!! So many crooks and liars, it's making me sick!
If intent can be shown I was thinking that they should be charged too. Malicious negligence or something.
There's such a thing as prosecutorial misconduct. But I don't think it's criminal, and even if it were, the burdon of proof against an officer of the court that he did so would be prohibitive. However, it's certainly grounds for a suit in tort, and possibly to pursue disbarment.
the prosecution screws up another slam dunk case. I would imagine they with held some kind of gotcha evidence. when is the DOJ/prosecution going to get their shit together and start nailing these assholes? I'm not just talking about this case. I'm talking about all types of cases that the accused walks away because some dumbass did'nt do his/her job correctly.
No doubt he will also support the Alaska Republicans' demand that Begich resign and have an election re-do.
Tommy Chong and Don Seigelman 'convictions'? What about.. aw hell, the list will be a lot shorter if you just look for cases the Bush DOJ didn't royally F up.
It's what he IS.
Teddy and Chris. Too bad neither will be in a Senate seat in 2011.
Matthews should take a lesson from our president when Pres. Obama said the other week, "I like to know what I'm talking about before I speak."
Matthews might want to consult with someone who knows about legalities before he pops off in ignorance.
in Our Sisters of Perpetual Silence. Sitting in silence for weeks on end does not work on television unless you are
Clarabell.
Especially if you're a Republican
this crap bothers the hell out of me. how can someone so obviously corrupt avoid jail.... Oh yeah, the Bush DOJ was incompetent and this DOJ has to let it go? What's next Blago walking away too? Ugh. Anyone get the feeling that our justice department is corrupt as hell? rhetorical question
He'll be executed.
he is a freaking criminal, and I am okay with him swinging by his neck. for that matter, I think Chris Dodd should spend some time staring at the gallows too. corruption is party blind, and so too should justice....
because you're right!
This DOJ is not doing anything but following the law. Something the last DOJ did everything it could to avoid.
still...kinda wish the conviction had stuck.
Hell, I imagine we all wish the conviction could have stuck, but I bet we all value the letter of the law over that wish.
To me, this decision by Holder showed he is more about the law than he is about party. Isn't that what we wanted the last AG to be?
Cheney being arrested? Bush? Rumsfield or hell any of the Wall Street thugs that robbed us blind? Come on Rove is a slam dunk... No way you find a jury that will acquit that little piggy.
I agree; we need to follow the law, unlike Dumbya. I have no doubt Bush's DOJ screwed up on purpose just so they would have to let Stevens go free.
ditto that feeling
I couldn't believe him yesterday. He howled at how poor ted was railroaded and how he deserved his standing ovation...he reapplied his asshat yesterday.
Ted's aftershave.
Perhaps it sends a tingle up his leg and beyond.
I bet it does!
Tonight I'm sure that Chris will display his great knowledge concerning world economics and explain how he would have handled the G-20. Either that or he will debate whether or not Michelle Obama should have put her hand on the Queen's back. He's all about big and trivial issues.
We'll know when the President is doing an outstanding job, Fox will put an "R" after his name.
Barack Rusty Obama (R-Texas)
That would change everything for them... oh, and he needs to be white too
Have you noticed the relatively quietness from the right on this. IF they speak of it they'll have to actually give Holder some props for not acting like the Bush justice department.
Let's not forget Ollie North of Iran-Contra who was convicted of lying to Congress among other felonies, and had his convictions overturned on a technicality!
...clown.
I agree this is utter nonsense. There is nothing in the decision to drop the charges that necessarily says anything about the actual guilt or innocence of Stevens. But this is the kind of idiotic crap that Matthews spews about everything.
I disagree with that. What prosecutorial misconduct does is undermine not only the entire case against a defendant, but our confidence in our system in its entirety. We know of specific instances of prosecutorial misconduct, which means we know the prosecution was lying and cheating. But what we don't know -- and never will -- is the extent of that misconduct. Intentionally withholding evidence should make anyone interested in justice suspicious of everything the prosecution does. That's why it is so serious. Even minor missteps cast doubt on the credibility of a prosecution.
Stevens may or may not have been guilty. I didn't hear the evidence so I'm not qualified to render a meaningful opinion on that -- I would certainly never base a question of guilt or innocence on what I read in the MSM. However, when the prosecution knowingly lies and cheats, I'm unwilling to accept any part of their case at face value. At that point, the prosecution goes on trial.
Ted sucks. I don't doubt he's corrupt, which is not the same as a guilty verdict in a court of law, but he didn't get a fair trial and I don't see how he could at this point. However, he could have gotten a fair trial last year and there is nothing I've read or heard to make me think the charges should never have been brought. Matthews is a buffoon.
If I were an American, my head would explode. As I'm not, this is a drive-by, which erodes my faith in your "once great" country, even further. Why even bother to have your broken media???????? They are a performing a disservice to the citizens of America.
Classic Reich-wing tool.
*
is just a void. whatever happens to be floating around in the air that day is about as far as he will ever get.
...is such a wanking douchebag.
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