It’s interesting to see how Ann Althouse and her commenters responded to the news that Dinesh d’Souza has been indicted in federal court for making illegal campaign donations. Ms. Althouse acknowledges that a crime has been committed and that “meaning well” is not exactly a defense, but she suggests that d’Souza’s crime was insignificant and that he probably was only indicted because he made a movie critical of the president. Also, campaign finance laws are too complicated so no one wants to run for office. The comments follow in the same vein, with minimization of the crime, charges of hypocrisy, and plenty of conspiratorial speculating.
I wonder how long we would have to wait for these people to offer the same defenses to someone who sold a small amount of crack.
