Bill's Notes

I've been following this story for a while ... it was a horrible murder in my hometown of Toms River, N.J. In 1996, a 17-year-old named Michael LaSane brutally murdered popular teacher Kathleen Weinstein for her car. The case garnered national fame because Weinstein taped a conversation with LaSane prior to her murder. The tape proved critical to the investigation.

LaSane was arrested two days later, Weinstein's car parked in front of his house. He ended up pleading guilty to murder, and received a 30-to-life sentence. A gift. That means he'd get out of jail, in all likelihood, at age 47. He could spend the second half of his life a free man. If he took advantage of his time in prison, that would mean he could potentially get at least part of his life back.

But LaSane instead got his plea overturned and was awarded a new trial. The evidence against him was ironclad. He had no chance for acquittal. But he was too blinded by something to understand that. His case was nationally famous, the tape leaves no doubt that it's him. The prosecutor proceeded to indict LaSane on charges of murder, carjacking and kidnapping. Now he's looking at 60 years without parole — getting out of jail at age 77.

Today he was convicted. Sentencing for the future ...

We'll keep you posted.

Bottom line: He got 30 years for murder, and faces another 30 years for not realizing what a gift he got the first time around. I guess if you're dumb enough to throw someone else's life away for a car, and dumb enough to throw your own life away by killing someone, you're dumb enough not to learn from your mistakes after 11 years in jail.

I sometimes enjoy Mark Shea's Web site. But sometimes he makes me wonder. Here's Mark on Dick Cheney:

I was unaware that Cheney is a stroke victim. I'm simply saying that I get the same impression when I look in those cold reptilian eyes as when I once beheld Barry Goldwater sitting on the Senate floor back in the mid-80s, surrounded by buzzing sycophants and courtiers. He sat slouched in his chair, oblivious to them, the very picture of jaded, corrupt, Inside the Beltway political power. I watch him from the gallery for a while and was overwhelmed by the contrast between the media picture and the man I could see with my own eyes. With Cheney, even the media can't erase those eyes. Here is a man I would not trust if he were the last man on earth. He is practically an archetype of the corrupt, wealthy, cynical and brutal Inside the Beltway operator. Every bit as repellent as Hillary.

And, of course, there is the fact that one must increasingly summon more and more reserves of will power to believe anything he says. The man who assured us there was absolutely no doubt that Iraq was bristling with WMDs, who uses Libby as a fall guy, and who seriously tries to palm of waterboarding as "dunking" is not somebody I would buy a used car from. I get a worse vibe from him than I got from Nixon. Nixon was at least pitiable. Cheney strikes me as Nixon without the charm.

Um, yeah.

Why yes, Joe Wilson is a self-aggrandizing blowhard. I met the guy when he was our ambassador to Gabon while I was in PC.

The Washington Post shocks me with this balanced, fair-minded, even-handed analysis of the Joe Wilson scandal. This kind of stuff used to be more common.

Mr. Wilson was embraced by many because he was early in publicly charging that the Bush administration had "twisted," if not invented, facts in making the case for war against Iraq. In conversations with journalists or in a July 6, 2003, op-ed, he claimed to have debunked evidence that Iraq was seeking uranium from Niger; suggested that he had been dispatched by Mr. Cheney to look into the matter; and alleged that his report had circulated at the highest levels of the administration.

A bipartisan investigation by the Senate intelligence committee subsequently established that all of these claims were false — and that Mr. Wilson was recommended for the Niger trip by Ms. Plame, his wife. When this fact, along with Ms. Plame's name, was disclosed in a column by Robert D. Novak, Mr. Wilson advanced yet another sensational charge: that his wife was a covert CIA operative and that senior White House officials had orchestrated the leak of her name to destroy her career and thus punish Mr. Wilson.

The partisan furor over this allegation led to the appointment of special prosecutor Patrick J. Fitzgerald. Yet after two years of investigation, Mr. Fitzgerald charged no one with a crime for leaking Ms. Plame's name. In fact, he learned early on that Mr. Novak's primary source was former deputy secretary of state Richard L. Armitage, an unlikely tool of the White House. The trial has provided convincing evidence that there was no conspiracy to punish Mr. Wilson by leaking Ms. Plame's identity — and no evidence that she was, in fact, covert.

[...]

Mr. Wilson's case has besmirched nearly everyone it touched. The former ambassador will be remembered as a blowhard. Mr. Cheney and Mr. Libby were overbearing in their zeal to rebut Mr. Wilson and careless in their handling of classified information. Mr. Libby's subsequent false statements were reprehensible. And Mr. Fitzgerald has shown again why handing a Washington political case to a federal special prosecutor is a prescription for excess.

Read the whole thing. I hope President Bush pardons Libby as soon as possible.

UPDATE: By the way, I should note, not that anyone accused me, that I am being consistent with my position on Bill Clinton's perjury back in the day. I thought Clinton should have been given a pass, and not removed from office, though censured. I also didn't like the Democrats' defense of lying, and ultimately left the party simply because I could no longer stand to be around people who justify lying under oath. My position was subtly different -- I said he should have been given a pass, and maybe a pardon. Not that he should be justified. Simply put: "What Clinton did was wrong, and inexcusable, but we're going to cut him a break this time." Why give him a break he didn't deserve? That's easy -- the answer's grace. Anyway, the impeachment mess was a horrible stain on our country, not so much because of Clinton's conduct, but for revealing our political class' utter lack of perspective and statemanship. That goes for the both sides ... the GOP, though, IMHO, deserve the lion's share of the blame for their insane pursuit of a term-limited persident. The loathing of Bush is payback, IMHO, for the loathing of Clinton.

I only met him once, but this individual made an immediate impression as one of God's good guys. We exchanged several emails, the last only two weeks before he died.

Al was a friend of Ron McRae's, and attended a "wake" that some of Ron's co-workers attended back in October, shortly after Ron passesd away. Al died the first week in February.

R.I.P., Al.