Republican Stevens's trial starts

by Frank James

Sen. Ted ("the Internet is a series of tubes") Stevens, the Alaska Republican with few peers in Congress when it came to bringing home the bacon, went on trial today in a federal court here in the nation's capital for not disclosing personal gifts he received from an oil-services company on his federal financial disclosure forms.

Stevens's legal troubles have been overshadowed big time by the Wall Street meltdown and the fiercely contested presidential campaign have relegated it to a lesser story. When I heard the report about his trial starting today, I had one of those "Oh yeah, I nearly forgot about him" moments.

Unfortunately for Stevens, the federal prosecutors had no similar lapses.

Despite his troubles, Stevens is doing pretty well in Alaska in his re-election bid after winning the Republican primary in August.

This is from Bloomberg:

Polls show Stevens, 84, who fended off six challengers in the Republican primary last month, has erased a 13 percentage point gap and is in a dead heat with his Democratic challenger, Anchorage Mayor Mark Begich. Undecided voters may have a hard time following a trial four time zones away, analysts said.

Stevens lost a bid late last month to have the trial moved to his home state. U.S. District Judge Emmet Sullivan ruled that shifting the trial from his courtroom in the nation's capital "could lead to a significant potential for jury tainting and media exposure."

Anyway, it appears far from certain that Washington will lose one of its most colorful instructors on the Internet's inner workings.