11th Circuit rules on Siegelman appeal

By Jennifer J. Foster

There’s news from the federal appeals court today on the corruption case of former Alabama Gov. Don Siegelman:

From the Associated Press:

A three-judge panel of the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Atlanta struck down two of the seven charges that Siegelman was convicted of and ordered a new hearing in which his sentence of more than seven years may be reduced.

But the court upheld key bribery, conspiracy and obstruction counts against Siegelman in what prosecutors described as a scheme in which he put (former HealthSouth CEO Richard) Scrushy on a state hospital regulatory board when he was at the helm of HealthSouth.

Siegelman is “disappointed, but he is also upbeat and looks forward to complete exoneration,“ his lawyer said this afternoon. “But it’s going to take more appellate work.“

And, apparently, some different evidence.

More on the Obamas and the UK

By Jennifer J. Foster

Author James Delingpole of The (U.K.) Daily Telegraph has a piece this morning on the state of the relationship between President and Mrs. Obama and the United Kingdom.

The gift gaffe was evidence of how the “special relationship” had been “so peremptorily, cruelly and bafflingly ruptured,“ he says. He takes a few more shots at Obama; his judgment is “pretty dreadful,“ and his return of the Winston Churchill bust and his snub of British Prime Minister Gordon Brown was the action of “a hormonal teenager dismissing her bestest of best BFs for no other reason than that she felt like it and she can, so there.“

Ouch.

But Delingpole’s toughest words are reserved for Michelle Obama.

The American president’s snub of the British PM was “a move calculated to please his Lady Macbeth:“

At the moment in Britain, we’re still in the “Doesn’t she look fabulous in a designer frock” stage of understanding of Michelle Obama. Gradually, though, we’ll begin to realise that she is every bit the terrifying executive’s wife that Hillary Clinton was. Or, shudder, Cherie Blair.

Delingpole then theorizes why Michelle Obama would appreciate the snub of the UK:

Her broad-brush view of history associates Brits with the wicked white global hegemony responsible for the slave trade. Never mind that a white, Tory Englishman - William Wilberforce - brought the slave trade to an end. Judging by her record, Michelle does not make room for such subtle nuance.

A discussion of her time at Princeton follows, and Delingpole says her senior thesis demonstrates that “she has mastered the authentic voice of grievance culture,“ pointing out that she “pre-empts the Macpherson report’s ludicrous, catch-all definition of racism: ‘A racist incident is any incident which is perceived to be racist by the victim or any other person.‘ No matter how hard young Michelle’s white undergraduate contemporaries try to be nice, it’s not their behaviour that counts, but how Michelle feels.“

It is important to point out that Delingpole’s bio on the Telegraph site says he is a “writer, journalist and broadcaster who is right about everything. He is also brilliant, exceptionally funny and wise.“ 

Humble, too.

But it appears from the titles of some of his books—“Welcome To Obamaland: I’ve Seen Your Future And It Doesn’t Work” and “How To Be Right”—that his claim of being “right about everything” refers more to his politics than his correctness about life.

And no, they aren’t the same thing.

But this piece shows how race is still playing a big part in how modern, cosmopolitan people—black and white—interact with each other.

Dr. King would not be pleased.