Sen. Stevens guilty of corruption

Sen. Ted Stevens of Alaska, the longest-serving Republican senator in history, was convicted this week of seven felony corruption charges. The federal jury in Washington, D.C., found that Stevens, 84, failed to report $250,000 worth of gifts, including home renovations paid for by a top business executive. Stevens claimed he never wanted the gifts and couldn’t keep track of them. “We have lots of things in our house that don’t belong to us,” he testified. After the verdict, Stevens denounced the “unconscionable” conduct of prosecutors and said he would appeal.

Top Republicans, including John McCain and Stevens’ fellow Alaskan Sarah Palin, called for his resignation. But Stevens, locked in a tight race with Anchorage Mayor Mark Begich, vowed to stand for re-election Nov. 4. “In another state, he would be toast,” said political analyst Charlie Cook. “In Alaska, you gotta make him a significant underdog.”

Stevens’ power was vast and, we now see, corrupting, said Michael Carey in the Los Angeles Times. “The best word to describe it is ‘imperial.’” The list of Alaska projects he sponsored with federal funds is so lengthy “no one can recite it anymore. The money has a generic name: ‘Stevens money.’” Yet he proved unable “to separate his personal life from his professional life.” When this enormously powerful figure suggested he was unable to turn away a tide of gifts, the jury, rightfully, “did not believe him.”

Republicans could soon pay a high price for Stevens’ “dishonor,” said The Philadelphia Inquirer in an editorial. Stevens’ political vulnerability is threatening “his party’s position in the Senate,” where Democrats could be on the verge of “winning a filibuster-proof 60 seats.” Alaska has long been the “reddest of red states.” Not anymore.

One way or the other, Stevens must go, said The New York Times. If he won’t resign “or if Alaska’s voters won’t do the right thing” and vote him out, then “the Senate must act as quickly as it can” to expel him. As John McCain said, Stevens has “broken his trust with the people.”