Washington lawyer Alykhan Velshi is almost certain to make the Christmas Card list of Lord and Lady Black with this defence of Conrad’s legal troubles:
“The trial by attrition of Conrad Black has exposed the dark underbelly of the legal system, where the government can ruin a man, take his property, his means of livelihood, and make him a social pariah – all without the hassle of securing a conviction. There is an insidious little worm that has crept into the legal system, an iconoclastic mentality that is distorting the rule of law. Focused less on securing justice than on bringing down the high and mighty, all the while pandering to the politics of envy, it affects the entire system of corporate governance.”
And, it seems, the media, in Mr. Velshi’s eyes, has been misbehaving too:
“The media in particular has relished Conrad Black’s downfall. Canadian journalist Peter C. Newman, who has never met a man he would not betray, disclosed the finger-sniffing details of Black’s sex life. Jan Wong, another Canadian journalist and former Chinese Red Guard, threw a wallet with some money and a picture of a crippled boy over the fence of Black’s home in Toronto’s nouveau riche Bridle Path area, and then wrote an article excoriating Black when it was not returned. These journalists, whose stock in trade is demolishing icons, are pandering to their readers’ sense of envy and entitlement. The Black prosecution shows that the legal system is doing the same thing.”