No matter how bad the crimes of Bush, Cheney, Rove and others in this abysmal administration may be, we do ourselves a disservice to defend crooks like Siegelman with the argument that their criminals are worse than ours. Surely we are above that.

I see that some in the national media who haven't given a rat's ass about the case against Siegelman and Scrushy the past several years are all of a sudden waxing poetic about the horrible injustice done to poor Don at the hands of the evil Republican regime. Well, fuck that. The Republican regime is the same one we've endured the past six years. Siegelman has been up to his eyeballs in legal trouble for years without a peep from a single enterprising reporter on the national scene. Until now.

What about Siegelman's indictment in 2004 for conspiring to rig bids on state medicaid contracts that was thrown out by a federal judge? A federal judge serving under the same Bush administration in office at the time. Where was the media then? Covering the once popular war, that's where. Opportunistic bastards. They smell blood in the water in Washington, DC, and the news from Alabama is nothing more than convenient fodder for people who never have and never will respect our state and those who care about it. I suggest we do not play right into their hands on this one.

Siegelman is guilty of far more than his conviction illustrates. And this Alabama liberal is happy with the verdict. Our state government has for far too long been dominated by self-serving politicos that differ little - if at all - regardless of political party. Siegelman was no shining star for Alabama during his time in office. I'm not telling you anything you don't already know.

Of all the issues at hand, the lottery business runs far deeper than the mainstream media is prepared to report, and there are many more conservative darlings caught up in it than have made the headlines. Think Abramoff and DeLay. And let go of Siegelman. Just because he has a "D" beside his name doesn't mean he is an ally of true progressives in our state. He's not.

Two pennies, if that.