Once a week or so, I make a scan of the latest articles on the Siegelman-Scrushy situation. And then I go on to look at the most recent editorials and make a quick check to see if there is any movement in the involved Federal Courts. And in making this sweep, I’ll usually take a detour down the Internet’s back-alleys, from the seedy bars and pubs of the Net to the more up-scale sophisticated cigar rooms, and finally to the Internet version of graffiti-strewn restrooms, where I’ll read what is written in all of these places as text messages stuffed in bottles and cast adrift across disparate forums. There’ll be wide spectrum of scrawled notes, from almost-informed impassioned arguments, to factual news blurbs, to the exposed raw nerves of hatred and the blind invectives of anger. The latter encompasses everything from small lives that have been bowed by a failing economy, from the ever-fresh frustration of stolen Southern Honor, to the embarrassment of Bull Connor’s dogs splashed across Life Magazine, to a still-simmering racial divide that quietly and quite voluntarily segregated itself in the aftermath of the 60’s, to the moral high-ground afforded by the close almost gang-like association to a political party. And to fear. Simply fear. And crisscrossing this uneven landscape is the perception of shady politicians from Bush to Clinton to Obama, and from Blagojevich to Jefferson to Cunningham to Sessions.
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Words matter. I heard Art Leach say that one time in open court, in defense of his client. And they do. As much as the public would rather have a smoking gun and bloody fingerprints, the trials of Richard Scrushy and Donald Siegelman were never so easy. Observers from various quarters of the public have always had, for a broad range of reasons, a desire for a certain directed outcome. And that’s what we do. We listen to the words and we form an opinion based on our informed belief. Where this stream of beliefs intersects the media, storylines are forged and etched and maintained. And the words that fit into the storyline are highlighted while the ones that don’t fit are thrown away. The jury will disregard. By now, I am semi-retired from this thing and certainly not within anyone’s loop anymore. But if a reader should happen across these pages, a couple of thoughts remain. The Scott McClellan book has Siegelman implications. For the people who subscribe to wide-ranging conspiracies that encompass the highest level of our government, and for those who feel that there is overwhelming circumstantial evidence of governmental deception, McClellan offers verification and confirmation. This is important because with all of the real and imagined conspiracies, whether criminal or political, there is usually a grand web of connect-the-dots that “proves,” in the believer’s minds, that a nefarious deception is occurring. But until the physical habeas corpus emerges, until an eyewitness comes forward, until the damaging document is unearthed or the email cache is found on a forgotten unprotected server, there will always be a level of deniability, there will always be room for unassailable self-righteous proclamations. But the voice of one reliable witness, or the evidence from one authenticated document, can expose the empty denials, unravelling the deception. One substantiated lie calls into question all of the other ardent statements of fact or denial. So for instance, when Karl Rove says that he didn’t learn about Siegelman’s indictment until he read about it in the newspaper, or when Rove says he never heard of Jill Simpson, or when he makes a host of assertions about a case he claims to know nothing about, we have to factor in that Scott McClellan said that he was deceived by Rove, and that Rove not only misled the public but lied to an administration ally. With these assertions, we no longer have to trace the dots, linking up all of the questionable actions of Rove, from the “office bugging” incident in Texas to his dirty tricks on behalf of Alabama Judicial candidates, all the way back to his days with the College Republicans. In a culture of deception, how are we to believe in Karl Rove’s denials, let alone the bleatings of the DOJ? How would we able to ascribe truth to any statement from the administration, and why should Congress? |
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