Email to Senator Reid
Wow, it’s been a long time since I’ve posted here! Mainly that’s due to the launching of the nearly two month old Chess.FM blog.
New info to come on my latest travels soon, but for now, I thought I’d post an email I just sent to Senator Harry Reid of Nevada via his Senate.gov website.
Dear Senator Reid,
I am writing not as a direct constituent, but as a Democrat.
I recently heard your comments on a cable news program in defense of former Alaska Senator Ted Stevens. You said that Mr. Stevens ought not to receive a jail sentence because he is elderly and “a war hero.”
I was, frankly, appalled that you seem willing to overlook the fact that Mr. Stevens was convicted of seven counts of felony corruption, each carrying a potential five year term in prison.
It is clear from the publicly available FBI wiretaps of Mr. Stevens’ phone, from October, 2006, that he was aware his actions were criminal. He is reported to have said, ‘You know, they’re not going to shoot us. It’s not Iraq. What the hell? The worst that can be done, the worst that can happen to us is we round up a bunch of legal fees and might lose and we might have to pay a fine, might have to serve a little time in jail. I hope to Christ it never gets to that, and I don’t think it will.’
You and your colleagues are in Washington to serve the people. Mr. Stevens willfully violated the public trust, committing criminal acts for his personal gain. He is corrupt, and now a convicted felon. His military service over six decades ago is totally irrelevant.
Your statements this week have seriously undermined my confidence in your leadership of the Democrats in the Senate, and I intended to advise my friends and colleagues in Nevada accordingly.
Sincerely
Macauley Peterson
UPDATE (April 2, 2009): Stevens is free after the Justice Department dropped the charges due to prosecutorial misconduct and will not seek a new trial (NYT story). Still a slimeball, but now he can live out his days a free slimeball.
