So Jeffrey Archer gets four years in jail for perjury, while Bill Clinton gets to pardon even more crooks. At least one country is interested in defending its legal system.
MEDIA HELL WATCH: Interesting sub-head for NR’s Condit coverage: “A daily news digest of Washington’s latest sex-and-lies scandal.” Nothing there about a missing person, a possible crime, an unsolved mystery – just sex and “lies.” I put “lies” in quotation marks, since we have no evidence that Gary Condit has told any lies at all. We know it took three police interviews to get him to admit that he had an affair with Levy. Before then he said they were good friends. That is also true – if not the whole truth. We also have no idea what the actual conversation with the Keystone – I mean D.C. – cops was. For all we know, they may not have asked him explicitly about his sexual relationship with Levy until the third interview. Meanwhile in Levy news, the Modesto minister who claimed his daughter had an affair with Condit has subsequently recanted. So now we have an actual lie. And it exonerates Condit. The media, however, gleefully outed the minister’s daughter for her alleged sexual affair. I hope she sues the bejeezus out of them. And why doesn’t Rebecca Cooper sue the New York Post? They made the same accusation against her. When the media has gone this nuts, the only recourse is sometimes the law.
BEST CONDIT PIECE YET: Jonathan Rauch carves up the anti-privacy crusade with his usual razor-sharp mind. Not to be missed.
EMAIL OF THE DAY: “I’m an Irish politics junkie who finds your web-site and arguments highly stimulating. I disagree with you on why the Tories voted against Portillo.
One factor which has been massively under-reported in my opinion is Portillo’s falseness. He’s always spinning and projecting an image and it’s very difficult to understand where he really stands on anything. Consider his demeanor immediately after his defeat. There he was with a broad smile and saying “I can live with this result” when, in reality, this highly ambitious man must have been crushed by the cruel dashing of his long-held ambition. Portillo was at all times a consummate insider jostling for personal and political advantage. Contrast that with Clarke (who did his own career in the last parliament no good with his stance on Europe) and with Duncan-Smith (who led the revolt against the ratification of the Maastricht Treaty when Maggie was still in charge … again not the action of a man to whom personal advancement was everything).
Portillo reminded me of Al Gore – probably a decent man but an actor whose sincerity I couldn’t trust after so many policy flip-flops and insincere attempts to appear sincere.
Despite all that, I think the Tories have made a massive mistake in dumping Portillo – he was the only candidate who could have skated over their cracks on Europe. With Clarke or Duncan-Smith the cracks could become chasms.”
The Dish 