December 2007 Archive
Things I saw that left my jaw swinging
Posted on December 30, 2007 by Douglas Bell
As much as I dread it, like every other dog and his dog, I’m going to lift my leg and offer up a year-ender. In lieu of the usual categories (winners/losers, laurels/darts, thumbs-up/-down/-sideways) I’ve decided on an entirely subjective metric that allows for my eccentricity, narrative flow and abject laziness. Herewith then are the first three entries in a series of Things I Saw and/or Heard at the Trial of the 10th of This Century So Far™ That Left My Jaw Swinging in the Air Like an Poorly Hinged Window:
Continue...In bed with Justice
Posted on December 28, 2007 by Douglas Bell
With the holidays on and media mentions down to year-end wrap-ups (“it was a tough year for convicted felon and soon to be inmate Conrad Black blah blah blah”), one of the more intriguing threads left dangling in the Conrad Black affair is the recent revelation by Rick Westhead in the Star concerning Wall Street Journal reporter Elena Cherney’s cozy reportorial relationship with lead prosecutor Eric Sussman:
Continue...Mark Steyn vs. the Sun-Times (reprise)
Posted on December 21, 2007 by Douglas Bell
One of the more entertaining sideshows earlier in The Trial of the 10th of This Century So Far™ was the Mark Steyn vs. the Chicago Sun-Times showdown–soap opera, wherein Steyn quit as a columnist at that paper when then-publisher John Cruikshank spiked his column in defence of Black. I sniffed around the edges of this contretemps on into the fall, trying to sort out who did what to whom, when. At one stage I received the following missive from current Sun-Times editor Michael Cooke, whose authority was usurped by his then-publisher:
Continue...When victory is small and rare
Posted on December 20, 2007 by Douglas Bell
This morning brought news of a rare victory for his Lordship. In a lawsuit pitting Black against Sotheby’s over the commission from the sale of his New York apartment, the judge has agreed with Black that Sotheby’s didn’t do enough to inform him that it was acting for both parties in the deal. As it turned out, the buyers ratted Black out to the Feds, who seized the proceeds of the sale as ill-gotten gains. Judge Amy St. Eve’s subsequent finding on forfeiture will likely require the government to return $6 million of the $8.9 million to Black. The Globe’s Paul Waldie reports one delicious irony buried in the judge’s finding:
Continue...Lord Black: Something of a saviour
Posted on December 19, 2007 by Douglas Bell
Brigades of stories yesterday recounting the sentencing of David Radler. Most say more or less the same thing. In cutting his deal, Radler ends up somewhere between lucky and smart—lucky in that had the judge had her druthers, Radler would be serving rather a lot more time. And, irony of ironies, by setting the bar so low in his deal with the government, “fundamental fairness” dictates that the rest of the Hollinger four do proportionally less time than they might have otherwise. Radler ends up, perhaps inadvertently, as something of a saviour for his former partner. Maybe that’s why in yesterday morning’s Star, Black, for the first time since Radler pleaded out, looked back on their 30-year partnership more with disappointed nostalgia than vitriol: “He was a good partner for a long time. I don’t know what went wrong with him. I was happy to work with him for almost 30 years but should have parted company with him then.”
Continue...William F. Buckley vs. Conrad M. Black
Posted on December 18, 2007 by Douglas Bell
On a day when a repentant David Radler probably got what he deserved (which, as it turns out, is less than half the sentence doled out to his decidedly unrepentant former partner), my thoughts turn to another relationship spoiled in the heat of this imbroglio. I’m talking about Lord Black’s recent dust-up with his ideological soulmate William F. Buckley. Last Wednesday, writing on his blog for the National Review (the neo-con publication he founded), Buckley, while careful to ensure that in the broad strokes he states his admiration for Black, was equally careful to distance himself.
Continue...Black Watch: Today’s Top Stories
Posted on December 13, 2007 by Douglas Bell
Watching Brian Mulroney ooze through his testimony before a federal ethics committee this morning had a certain surreal quality, given that only three days before, his name was raised in a Chicago courtroom as an avatar of probity, his letter providing proof positive of Conrad Black’s impeccable character and unsuitability for incarceration. Weird.
Continue...Black Watch: Why reporters are pricks
Posted on December 12, 2007 by Douglas Bell
By and large, reporters are—how to put it?—pricks (myself included, I can assure you). Why else would they so devote themselves to poking their noses into everyone else’s business, then proceed to comment with snot-nosed certainty on subjects they know so little about? Of course, the other side of this foul equation is that, in doing so with such fervour and in such volume, reporters are central to the protection of the diminishing civil rights we currently enjoy. But, rather than reflecting on that bit of sanctimony, how about a couple of examples of the former?
Continue...Black Watch: Reaction from around the world
Posted on December 11, 2007 by Douglas Bell
As was the case after verdict day, the ink flowed freely in Britain, the U.S. and Canada, bringing news of the continuing traffic accident that is Conrad Black’s current lot. And of course, given “the felon’s” polarizing nature, descriptions and reflections ran the gamut. The term of imprisonment being less than what had been imagined brought a round of muted huzzahs from Conrad’s supporters. The noted American conservative Emmett Tyrrell, writing in The New York Sun, described Black altogether too sunnily, accepting the sentence “silently, politely, but unbowed.” And in his recession before the fourth estate, “Black stood around with his lawyers for 20 minutes, counting off some matters that engrossed him on his fingers. Then he strolled through the mob of reporters hectoring him. He seemed unperturbed.” At the other end of the spectrum was the Chicago Sun-Times, which ran a frankly shameful editorial that made the astonishing assertion “we don’t make a habit of kicking people when they’re down” before proceeding, in almost pornographic and certainly idiotic detail, to do just that.
Continue...Black Watch: Post-Sentencing Report
Posted on December 10, 2007 by Douglas Bell
Conrad Black’s three-ring circus and pandemonium medicine show came thundering back into town today. And while not so long ago the idea that his nibs would walk out of a courthouse in Chicago well-satisfied at the prospect of five or so years in prison seemed utterly mad, that is exactly what happened.
Continue...Black Watch: Sentenced
Posted on December 10, 2007 by Douglas Bell
His Lordship has been sentenced to six-and-a-half years in prison, and ordered to pay $6.1 million in restitution as well as a $120,000 fine. Judge St. Eve will apparently recommend he serve his time at Eglin Air Force Base in Florida, home to a minimum security prison. He must report to the facility on March 3, 2008.
Continue...Black Watch: Today's Top Stories
Posted on December 10, 2007 by Douglas Bell
It’s as though we’ve never been away. On Sunday night, with the Christmas lights of Chicago exploding along every throughway, reporters were piling into the restaurants and bars of the Loop chewing over the possibility that Lord Black might finally open his mouth inside Amy St. Eve’s courtroom. There were the usual prognostications (the consensus seems to be seven to 10 years).
Continue...Black Watch: Today's Top Stories
Posted on December 10, 2007 by Douglas Bell
Like a pack of overexcited bonobo chimps, the British press can barely contain their onanistic glee at the prospect of prison time for a peer of their realm. The Telegraph informed its readers Sunday morning that, “A lengthy sentence could mean that the 63-year-old Canadian-born British peer will die in prison.” And if my aunt had wheels, she’d be a trolley.
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Black Watch: Today’s Top Stories
Posted on December 7, 2007 by Douglas Bell
Lots of harrumphing and throat clearing as the fourth estate prepares to descend on Chicago for this Monday’s reckoning on Dearborn. The editorializing lacks a certain, how to say, rigour. Mark Bonokoski in the Toronto Sun argues a loopy syllogism amounting to:
Continue...Black Watch: Today’s Top Stories
Posted on December 6, 2007 by Douglas Bell
Lord Black’s pronouncement published today clearly indicates his resignation to the prospect of jail. “I can cope with it if it comes, and it will…only compound the injustice of this entire vendetta,” he wrote to the CBC. “Prison would be a bore, but quite endurable… I can get on with anyone and adjust to almost anything, and I don’t consider [prison] shaming.”
Continue...Black Watch: Today’s Top Stories
Posted on December 5, 2007 by Douglas Bell
Like a gaggle of prattling private school brats straight out of Tom Brown’s Schooldays, the British press launched this morning into fevered speculation as to how many extra lashes, er, years Black will receive after mouthing off on the BBC. “Prosecutors in the former Telegraph chairman’s fraud case have filed a recording of the interview on the BBC Radio 4 Today programme with the court before his sentencing in Chicago on Monday,” writes Times man James Bone, throwing his share of chum in the water. “Prosecutors seized on the interview as evidence that he continues to refuse to accept responsibility for his crimes after his conviction in July for financial fraud and obstruction of justice.” The rest of the “quality” press threw in along similar lines.
Continue...Black Watch: Today’s Top Stories
Posted on December 4, 2007 by Douglas Bell
It really was inevitable, wasn’t it? Having more or less held their fire throughout Lord Black’s season of “counterterrorism,” the prosecution lashed out last night with 26 pages of blowback. Reasoning from Black’s literally thousands of words aimed at denigrating the proceedings and institutions that brought him to his current state of criminal conviction, prosecutor Eric Sussman asked Amy St. Eve to turn up the volume on Black’s sentence to 11. Black insists he did “absolutely nothing wrong” and that he has been “unjustly convicted,” writes Sussman. “Indeed, Black’s conduct makes clear that he would engage in the very same conduct again if given the opportunity… To this day, Black maintains his offences of conviction were ‘rubbish’ and ‘nonsense.’” All this, the prosecutor concludes, is simply further evidence of Black’s “stunning lack of remorse.” Well, yes, that’s the point, isn’t it? And while I’m sure that St. Eve, in setting the sentence, will bend over backwards to ensure that her reasoning rises above the fray, none of this can possibly help to mitigate the damage.
Continue...Black Watch: Today’s Top Stories
Posted on December 3, 2007 by Douglas Bell
The weekend saw more fallout from Black’s rant on the BBC, a taunting swipe from an old enemy, and the usual run-up to sentencing claptrap. Writing in The Independent, Stephen Foley waxed lyrical concerning Black’s eclectic choice of referees in his defence: “Sir Elton must have really enjoyed the party. Years after enjoying vintage champagne and exquisite canapés provided by Lord Black of Crossharbour, the singer has written a thank-you note that could be worth far more than bubbly to the disgraced tycoon. It might—if an American judge is a fan of Goodbye Yellow Brick Road—knock years off his hefty jail sentence. If she prefers Napalm Death, it could be a disaster.” The idea that Amy St. Eve, acolyte to Ken Starr, has heard of—let alone listened to—Napalm Death (the thrash metal equivalent of the Sex Pistols) boggles the mind.
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