The business with Ted Stevens has me thinking of an old TV show from the '80s called Hardcastle and McCormick. Maybe you saw it. Brian Keith played this crusty old retired judge who blackmails an ex-con into helping him take down criminals whom he had been forced to release because of "technicalities".
This was a widespread theme in pop culture back in the '80s. I don't watch as much TV as I used to, so I don't know if it's as popular today, but I'm sure it's around: the notion that the criminal courts are a revolving door and our streets are full of criminals who "got off on a technicality". I suspect that the roots of this trope go back to the Miranda Ruling and a sense amongst Conservatives in the '70s and '80s that criminals were being afforded more rights than their victims. Whatever the reason for it, the notion of guilty criminals walking away scott-free because the cop forgot to tie his shoelace or some such legalistic absurdity appeared in a lot of movies and TV shows.
Our legal system is based on a presumption of innocence and the principle of "Better a hundred guilty men go free than a single innocent man be hanged" -- at least that's what I was always taught. But it's a natural impulse to resent it when an obviously guilty man seems to be "getting away with it." And when that happens, Conservatives like to blame Liberals for their criminal-coddling Miranda laws and such.
Which brings me back to Ted Stevens. I guess Conservatives are claiming that the dismissal of charges against him is some kind of vindication. To me, it looks like he got off on a technicality.
Maybe we should call Hardcastle and McCormick in on the case.