Connie Takes a Few Nips Before Entering Dog House

Faith, they say, can enable man to endure horrible ordeals.

Conrad Black, now inmate Black, is a man of faith – faith in God and even more faith in Himself.

Old 18330-424, as he’s now known, has faith that his fraud convictions will be overturned and even has faith that he’ll be out of jail in just a few months.

I don’t think 424’s faith is going to spring him nearly as fast as he might hope. The most serious conviction, the obstruction charge, is based on videotape of him removing boxes of documents from Hollinger’s Toronto offices. It’s going to take a heaping helping of Divine intervention to get that one set aside.

“A moron who actually seriously looks at this case sees that it is a crock and I expect it will ultimately be determined to be so,” he said. That counld be so, Conrad, but I wouldn’t count on the appellate judges being morons.

 

Will Connie the Con Continue to Pen from the Pen?

Much as I find Con-victed Felon Con-rad Black the egomaniacal equivalent of ten pounds of solid waste in a five pound, soggy paper bag, I do find his journalism at times amusing. I found myself dwelling on that as I read Lord Crossharbour’s pre-incarceration op-ed piece in the National Spot endorsing John McCain as the next president of the United States.

Having recently torn a strip off two former friends, Henry Kissinger and William F. Buckley, it appears Con Con is in the mood to lay waste to all and sundry who may have the misfortune to catch his eye.

Here are a couple of his observations from primary night in New Hampshire:

“Though quite enterprising, Wolf Blitzer, when he worked for us at the Jerusalem Post, was one of the most avaricious journalists I have known. After about 40 assertions from him in 20 minutes on New Hampshire night, that CNN has “the top news team on television,” I had either to change channels or find a sick bag. Prevention prevailed over convalescence, but the other channels weren’t much better.”

On, “… the greatest American political myth-maker of the last 35 years, Bob Woodward“:

“He it was who first gave us the story of the cloven-footed, horned, trident-tailed Richard Nixon, (undoubtedly, in fact, one of America’s 10 greatest presidents, despite his ethical and stylistic frailties). Woodward completely fabricated a visit to the hospital room of dying CIA chief William Casey, after the Iran-Contra side-show in 1987, in his supposedly non-fiction book, Veil. But Last Tuesday night, he not only admitted error, but volunteered what he had expected to say when Obama had won. He was the only honest commentator that I saw in hours of almost prayerful channel-surfing in search of one.”

On Michelle Obama:

“With trepidation, but not embarrassment, I offer the thought that Mrs. Obama, a formerly disadvantaged alumna of Princeton and Harvard, to judge from her well-strategized appearances on national television in exiguous dresses and trousers, is as callipygian as Jennifer Lopez. (That is my only concession to political correctness for 2008; you look it up if you must.) I saw her on YouTube saying that, “Reform must be from the bottom up.” In her well-favoured case, this could be a double-entendre.”

On the glory of a commander-in-chief of proven, military mettle:

“In 29 of the 43 U.S. presidential elections prior to 1960, someone best known as a senior army officer was a serious nominee for national office and winner of electoral votes; successfully in 19 of those elections. These included some of the greatest names of U.S. history: Washington, Jackson, Grant, Theodore Roosevelt, Eisenhower, (successful, as a group, in 10 of 12 national elections.) Being demonstrably patriotic, brave, successfully commanding in crises and untainted by political log-rolling has never lost its appeal to Americans.

Since the Second World War, the only popular and successful war the country has had, the first Gulf War, yielded a hero who did not choose to run, General Colin Powell, (though he probably would have won if he had run). So since 1960, the parties have usually nominated men proud of their military background, but not in high command positions: Kennedy, Nixon, Johnson, Goldwater, McGovern, Ford, Carter, Bush Senior, Dole, Gore and Kerry (not to mention George Wallace’s 1968 vice-presidential running mate, Air Force General Curtis “Lob one into the men’s room in the Kremlin … and turn North Vietnam into a parking lot” Lemay).”

“McCain, an authentic hero, though irascible and burdened with a bogus campaign-finance bill and unacceptable views on immigration, is in the best of the military-political tradition of integrity. He doesn’t speak in clichés or adjust his views for the fluctuating polls, and he does have a sense of humour. If he is the presidential nominee, the genius move would be to invite Bloomberg to be his running mate. At this early point, if the office, in a phrase from Washington’s time, is seeking anyone, (i.e. being successfully sought by anyone), it is John McCain.”

It’s easy to understand Con Con’s attachment to McCain. As Conrad’s own appointment behind bars approaches, the Arizona senator’s years of captivity and torture at the hands of the North Vietnamese must be enormously inspirational. For McCain made his imprisonment an ordeal endured in great nobility. Doubtless Mr. Black aspires to nothing less for himself.

What I wonder now is whether mister/inmate/Lord Black will continue to deliver himself of his views via the National Spot whilst a guest of the US penitentiary service. He’ll undoubtedly have access to newspapers and television, even the internet perhaps. What a grand opportunity to extract revenge on those who have slighted and wronged him and to show the rest of us lesser mortals the true light of his brilliance?

 

He’ll Be Back Before You Know It

It sounds as though Conrad Black has some hope of getting off lightly when he comes up before a Chicago judge for sentencing next month.

Right now the consensus is that Black can expect to get something in the range of 5 to 7-years if the judge accepts the findings of a court-ordered report. The pre-sentencing report disputes some of the claims the prosecution is making in seeing a 20-year term for Black.

The report concludes the amount actually lost was about $6-million, not the $32-million alleged by prosecutors, notes that the crime was not a “sophisticated” as in meticulously planned fraud, and that most of the misconduct happened outside the U.S.

The National Post reveals how overzealous Black’s prosecutors can be. They’re asking that “the relevant-conduct analysis should consider not only convicted conduct, but also acquitted and uncharged criminal conduct that is proved by a preponderance of evidence.” Say what? They want the judge to assess Black’s sentence by incorporating conduct for which he’s either not been charged or has been acquitted? I don’t much care for Connie but this is really piling on

Wonder what Babs is going to do. Will she dump Connie and go for a new suitor or will she hang around and wait for her Lordship to come back to her open arms?

 

Black – The Movie

Conrad Black is more famous now than at any time in his life. Even al Jazeera has run a story on the guy. His name has been splashed around every major newspaper in the English-speaking world. It’s the story of Icarus flying too close to the sun and plumetting into the sea. A man of privilege and wealth who fell victim to his own greed. The stuff that gets churned into movies.

Now I know CBC did a docu-drama on the man but it was far too CBC for mass consumption. No, once the trial is over this will be the fodder for mainstream movie treatment. Perhaps the measure of Black’s life will be whether that translates into a real flick or a made-for-TV yawner.

Here’s the question: who would you cast to play Lord Black and the other half of this story, Barbara Amiel? I’m having trouble coming up with an actress to play Babs but I have a guy in mind to play Connie – cold, aloof, at times sinister. The only drawback is that he’s dead. My pick is Charles Laughton: