The Blagojevich story crowded out the story on the Siegelman appellate arguments.

[JDPriestly]

The really big story is today's arguments in the Siegelman case.

The unexpected focus, in questioning at the Court of Appeals for the 11th Circuit here, raised questions about whether Mr. Siegelman’s principal claim — that he was wrongly convicted, and for something that is not a crime — would be accepted by the judges when they issue a ruling, perhaps next year.

If the appeals court judges rule against Mr. Siegelman, he faces a return to prison to serve the remainder of his sentence of seven years and four months. The court freed him this year after he had served nine months, saying he had raised “substantial questions” in his appeal.

Mr. Siegelman, a Democrat, was convicted in a lower federal court of bribery and lesser charges for having appointed a contributor to his state lottery campaign, Richard M. Scrushy, to an Alabama hospital board.

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/12/10/us/10siegelman.html

Does this remind you of anything?

On edit:

Lawyers for Don Siegelman -- the former Alabama governor who was convicted in 2006 on corruption chrages, despite evidence that the prosecution was politically motivated -- have made their first oral arguments in their appeal.

The Associated Press reports that the the defense lawyers are leading with a different argument, that the conviction should be overturned "partly because jurors communicated with each other during the trial."

It continues:

Siegelman attorney Sam Heldman also told the panel of the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Atlanta that prosecutors did not prove Siegelman had a "quid pro quo" agreement to appoint Scrushy to a hospital board in exchange for contributions to a state lottery campaign.

As we've told you before, the US Attorney in the case continued to advise prosecutors even after formally recusing herself becasue her husband is a GOP operative and Karl Rove ally.

http://tpmmuckraker.talkingpointsmemo.com/2008/12/siegelman_lawyers_want_convict.php

[Sebass1271]

1. of what?

[JDPriestly]

3. Blagojevich allegedly tried to offer a job for money.

Is it sheer coincidence that Fitzgerald just had to announce his complaint today? And his focus is on the half-baked scheme to trade the Senate position for money?

Is it only Democrats who do these kinds of things? You'd think so, wouldn't you? Republicans have to take something more than campaign contributions to get into trouble. It was unclear just what Fitzpatrick thought Blagojevich was going to do with the money Fitzgerald thinks he was going to ask for?

[pnwmom]

8. Fitzgerald also prosecuted the Republican governor who came immediately

before Blagojevich -- also, for corruption.

He's an equal opportunity prosecutor. Blagojevich is an idiot to have thought he could get away with this.

[JDPriestly]

10. That's why I have trouble believing that Blagojevich actually

did something. Fitzgerald talked about things that had not happened. A lot more evidence is needed here. The allegations were not very detailed. Maybe there is something. Maybe there is not. Fitzgerald does not have a great record in my view. The Plame matter was delayed (coincidentally or intentionally I do not know) until the political effect for Republicans was rather small. And then the only conviction that Fitzgerald got after that long, long investigation was Libby for perjury. That case did not inspire me to have confidence in Fitzgerald.

[babylonsister]

2. I hear you. ...Siegelman Lawyers Want Conviction Overturned

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=389&topic_id=4619099

[concerned canadian]

4. after watching countdown and hearing KO ask if Blagojevich is the dumbest

and craziest man on earth" to know that he under investigation, almost positively being wire-tapped. Why so stupid?

Then it hit me. He's not that stupid. It's a set up to steal or stall the legitimacy of PE Obama.

Blago sold his soul to the devil for a price. He's not beyond lying for a higher price.

[cali]

5. that's the looniest theory yet.

ack. are you actually suggesting that Blago implicated himself in serious crimes in order to damage Obama?

[Venceremos]

6. Or maybe

Blago is just f-ing crazy. After seeing him in action for the past 6 years, I vote for crazy.

[McCamy Taylor]

7. This is the start of Whitewater II. This will go on literally forever.

The Governor will name names and those names will name names and every name will be paraded through the news with photos of the "name and Obama" with a detailed explanation of how the Name knows Obama---until the public is convinced that Obama is just as guilty as all the Obama supporters were convinced that Hillary was guilty in Whitewater last spring when they kept posting about that and Vince Foster and cattle futures endlessly on the theory that if enough people are talking about something there must be a reason...

Obama will become the new "Clinton"---the name the press drops when it wants to refer to corruption. They will all demand that the Republicans get in there and clean up Washington.

Three years trying to make a case against the same Democratic governor? Wasn't there some mortgage fraud that Fitz could have been prosecuting? Some consumers he could have been protecting?

[pnwmom]

9. You really don't think Blago was worth prosecuting?

I have family in Illinois and they've been saying for years that he's a crook.

[JDPriestly]

11. What do they say he did? The allegations of Fitzgerald are

vague. Fitzgeral mostly talked about hypothetical things that could have happened. What has Blagojevich actually done that was wrong.