Ted Stevens engages in what must be a late-in-the-game effort to break Begich voters’ jaws by causing them to hit the floor with previously unseen speeds that they remain hospitalized on election day:

“I’ve not been convicted yet,” Stevens said Thursday in a meeting with the editorial board of the Fairbanks Daily News-Miner. “There’s not a black mark by my name yet, until the appeal is over and I am finally convicted, if that happens. If that happens, of course I’ll do what’s right for Alaska and for the Senate. … I don’t anticipate it happening, and until it happens I do not have a black mark.”

Stevens reiterated that position during a televised debate late Thursday night, declaring early in the give-and-take with Anchorage Mayor Mark Begich, “I have not been convicted of anything.”

First, this is just factually and legally a lie. A big lie. Stevens is a convicted felon, seven times over. That’s what the whole trial in DC was about. As old as he is, I can’t imagine Stevens has forgotten the judge, the jury of his peers, the FBI tapes where he says to VECO CEO Bill Allen, “that the worst that could happen to the two was if anyone found what the company had done for him was that they’d have to spend a lot of money on lawyers – and perhaps serve a little jail time.”

Second, if we were to grant Ted Stevens his big lie, we would also be forced to concede that any number of murderers sitting on death row while appealing their convictions were, in fact, not convicted of anything. Except, you know, the sentence to death I suppose. I’m sure this is bully news for lots of those convicted felons on death row, though I’m not sure what it means from a practical standpoint.

Ted Stevens has been convicted of seven federal felony charges of corruption. The conviction by a jury of his peers was a statement of his breaking the trust with Alaskan citizens. That he has the audacity to flat out lie to Alaskan voters is simply appalling and offensive to the notions of both the rule of law and honest government. I never thought I’d have to go so far as to call out a convicted felon, but shame on Theodore Stevens. Stop lying. Do not pass Go. Do not collect $200. Go directly to Jail.

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