As the justice department worked diligently to build a case against and convict an innocent man here in Alabama it actively ignored Bop Riley's, the current governor, stolen election, his squeaking tight ties with Jack Abramof and, according to some accounts, millions of dollars of Mississippi Indian casino gambling money pumped into the campaign for the purpose of preventing development of an Indian Casino in Alabama. Does this sound like quid quo pro?

And of course the justice Department could not investigate those connections without examining and exposing John McCain's aid to Karl Rove's republican machine by, reportedly sitting on an email of Abramof's that discussed those millions. Justice cannot be served without a serious investigation of all the machinations that led to the highly questionable conviction. I suspect that at least one federal judge and several federal prosecutors are looking over their shoulders as they shred documents while listening for footsteps right now.

There are two salient questions related to the Siegelman story. 1. Was the prosecution politically motivated? 2. Was Siegelman quilty? The answer to 1. is somewhere between possibly and probably. The answer to 2. is Yes. Politically motivated or not, Siegelman took over $500,000 in bribe money from lobbyists. I don't care what party he's in. He's just another crook who fooled the voters and no retrial will change that. We have to let go of partisanship so unshakeable that we try excuse the crimes of people on our own party. Nobody planted $90,000 in William Jefferson's freezer either. We had a chance to elect an attractive, articulate Ivy League educated black woman over Jefferson when he was up for reelection and the voters went for cold hard cash Bill Jefferson. What's that say about us Democrats?