Quote:
Originally Posted by Tyrone Slothrop
With crimes like Stone's (if not Weinstein's), is there ever a point at which you believe it's appropriate to reject a defendant's version of what they did, or do you believe that one must continue to accept their characterizations of what they did, however self-serving, even if a jury of their peers and others have considered the evidence and determined otherwise? Stone is a known liar, has just been convicted of lying, is clearly playing the victim to try to get a pardon, and yet you insist that everyone should pretend that we should ignore all that.
It reminds me of the time that Trump was lying, CNN said as much, and you claimed CNN was biased because it reported what was obviously true instead of carrying water for the President. Obviously, that was due to your general sympathy for defendants, or something.
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Stone is guilty. Period. There is no dispute. He lied to Congress and it doesn’t matter why or on what subject. I would not believe anything the man said as he is a congenital liar.
The questions at hand and the only ones I referenced are whether the process of finding him guilty was flawed such that it should be redone and whether the Judge (and that idiot juror) needlessly opened a door justifying, politically and optically, Trump’s commutation.
I do not think he deserves a retrial. I see no basis for that. They compared his words before Congress to other statements he made at the time and they did not meet. Game, set, match.
(I cited Turley not for the proposition that I agree Stone should be granted retrial on appeal but to support the argument that he has a technically valid basis to appeal. (He possibly shouldn’t if it risks a decision further damning to him could be given before the election.))
But the Judge needn’t have gone beyond the issue of whether he lied, and that juror was just an idiot to open her mouth and draw attention.
So no, I don’t believe Stone, and I never have. But that’s immaterial to whether he now has a basis to appeal and Trump has cover to commute which had the process been run more professionally neither would enjoy.
My personal inclination to defend accrues from having worked within and therefore necessarily having lost respect for the system. And I have absolutely no respect for politics. But also, as said Mencken, no decent man fails to desire, somewhere in his heart, to hoist the black flag. (I omit the slitting throats part as I’m not violent.) It is the pirates, the disruptors, those without respect for the system, who innovate it (often accidentally in ways contrary to what they’d sought).
It’s a deep rot of soul to root for the Pinkertons or Elliot Ness.*
ETA: Stone’s an idiot, but he did punch upward. Weinstein’s a predator. The world would be better off if he’d gotten bail and used the opportunity to jump from his penthouse. He’s worse than a downward puncher. He’s despicable.
I’ll defend Trump against the establishment aligned against him. Where he acts as the establishment and punches down, you’ll see no defense. His treatment of Vindman is petty, weak. Despot-like. His battle with Jeff Zucker or Bezos? Gimme the underdog.
*ETA2: And make no mistake... The enforcement arm of our system, which cares most about property rights of the powerful and maintenance of the status quo, is the Pinkertons.
