Should Democrat Mark Begich Step Down?

Ted Stevens is 85 years old. He was first elected to the Alaskan Senate in 1968. He is the longest serving republican in US history, a seven term senator. People in Alaska love him because he truly worked for the people of Alaska and helped Alaska progress a lot. Just when it was time for the November 2008 Alaskan senate election, he was accused of receiving huge sum of money (quarter million dollars) from Oil Company as gift, undisclosed. Just a week before the elections, he was convicted on this charge, which impacted the results of the November Alaskan senate election. Democrat Mark Begich won the election by approximately 1% of the total votes cast, a very narrow margin of couple of thousand votes.

A month after the conviction, which is coincidentally a month after the election, it was learned from an FBI agent who worked on the case that there was indeed fraud in the handling of the case. It was revealed that the prosecutors withheld evidence that could have helped Steven's attorney cross-examine the witness and helped his team get the false charges dismissed. Prosecutors acknowledged that information was indeed withheld, and requested that the court dismiss the case and set aside the guilty verdict. In addition, it was also revealed that there was indeed inappropriate sexual relationship between the head FBI agent and a prosecution's key witness, with the prosecution's witness getting special deals in his own prosecution, and also getting sexual rewards, in return for testimony against Ted Stevens . Attorney general Eric Holder came out on April 1^st and announced that Department of Justice will drop all charges against Republican Ted Stevens.

So here is the case of a longest serving senator, who was wrongfully and fraudulently convicted just a week before the elections, which ended up changing the outcome of the election. Many Alaskans are sympathizing with Ted Stevens and are calling for Senator Mark Begich to step down and requesting that special elections be ordered. One can easily understand the fact that Ted Stevens loved by Alaskans and if not for this wrongful conviction, a clear case of fraud, he would have won the senate election handily last November, given that he lost the election only by a couple of thousand votes despite the conviction.

It is only ethical that the Alaskan Senate elections of November be canceled, given that it was held under the circumstance of fraudulent and fabricated charges/conviction against one of the candidates. If Mark Begich is a man of ethics, he would himself step down and participate in a fresh challenge against Ted Stevens, a new challenge in which one candidate doesn't get the gift handed to him in the form of fraudulent and fabricated conviction of the other.

Let us wait and see whether Democrat Mark Begich is a man of ethics or not!

Reference: http://www.canadafreepress.com/index.php/article/9877
http://www.rightpundits.com/?p=3626