My Republican friend Tory (everybody should have at least a couple, right?) emailed me about my take on his former Dartmouth instructor Jeff Smith. Here is my response:

Hey Tory! How's AZ?

The whole thing is really sad. I mean, he deserves to go to prison, because he basically had a million chances to come clean but instead he lied to federal investigators and (worst of all) very explicitly counseled and encouraged other people to lie. That's a classic obstruction conspiracy. If he had come clean about it from the get-go, there would have been a hefty fine that his campaign committee would have payed, and that fine (and a little embarrassment) likely would have been the end of it. For goodness sake ... every campaign gets hit with these fines and they're considered to be basically the cost of doing business. (I think I read that both Obama's and McCain's campaigns had fines numbering in the hundreds.)

There are two sad things about it.

First, just about everybody in Jeff City - of all political stripes and persuasions - thought of Jeff Smith as one of the most talented, hard-working and intelligent legislators around. I don't want to be harsh, but the large majority of the folks up there - of both parties - are complete doofuses. It's a real loss for our state.

Second, Jeff Smith's state senate district geographically is about half-white and half-black. Unlike a lot of politicians representing St. Louis City districts with this kind of segregation, he really worked hard at representing and serving the entirety of his district. People on both sides of town liked and trusted him. His behavior undermines a lot of good work he did to begin uniting our city.

The silver lining, if there is one, is that I think a lot of people still do like and trust him. He seems genuinely contrite about what he did. Maybe he could make a comeback. I likely would vote for him if he did.

-matt