Suspense Relieved

This is the day that everyone, most particularly Conrad Black has been anticipating. For the public, an event of passing interest. For Mr. Black a cause of great trepidation, hardly negated by his bravado, his continuing to express confidence in himself as an individual of great moral and ethical stance.

He continued to project himself as an upright, intrepid and trustworthy member of society, lauding himself for his business acumen, his scholarly authorial achievements, his social contacts, his deserved wealth.

Pitiful, really. Were we to be moved to view him differently with testimonials to his upright, sensitive and kindly character by his wife, by celebrities like Elton John? Not that it mattered, really. For it was not public opinion that put him on trial, but his own unmitigated sense of entitlement to money that was not his, although he felt it was his to gather, to the detriment of the shareholders whose interests he represented.

It was his surreptitious, illegal, criminal in-gathering of special payments in the form of 'non-compete' business bribes that brought him down. It was his self-perceived entitlement to avail himself of his own collected and self-incriminating files classified by an impending legal wrangle by the Ontario Securities Commission as future evidence to be used in a court of law.

His brazenly off-hand attempts to spirit them away to the safety of his possession elsewhere than at his office at the headquarters of the very company whose assets he was sacking, were also what finally spelled out his guilt to the jury at his trial.

Yet, when all is said and done, it's truly sad. That an individual with so much potential as an intelligent and creative person could fall so low. And yet in falling be incapable of recognizing what he has done. That being said, the fact that he now faces a term in jail will be most dreadfully difficult for this imperious man.

I, for one, don't feel like crowing it is his just due.