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What if Truth is Punishment Enough?
In Roger Stone’s case, it will have to be.
Say it all together: It’s an outrage.
We need no exclamation point, no caps, no boldface type. Outrage is the simple truth of it. Roger Stone, charged with seven felonies, found guilty on all counts, will serve no time.
Stone lied to Congress and the FBI about conspiring with a hostile foreign government to help a deeply venal man become the President of the United States. That man’s proudly racist attitudes, bloviating insecurity, and self-absorbed incompetence have done more damage to our country than most of us imagined possible.
Roger Stone did not get him elected single-handedly, but his well-timed manipulations greased the skids for a kleptocracy of staggering corruption. And he knew what he was doing. And he smiled while he was doing it.
How guilty was he? So guilty, even William Barr agreed he ought to be locked up. Ponder. That.
And finally, when he was on the verge of making his long-overdue acquaintance with the truth of justice, his unabashed chicanery paid off. His sentence was commuted by the very criminal his crimes were done to benefit.
It is, indeed, an outrage. If only we were shocked enough to scream the way we ought at such distilled…
