What a surprise. Jim Black is again a free man and again as arrogant as ever.

The secret sacks of cash the former Speaker of the North Carolina House received in restrooms across the state did not go directly into his pocket, you see. Moreover, the topsy-turvy world of kleptocrat politics is full of moral and legal gray areas and Jim merely strayed into one — where he was entrapped by powerful political enemies:

“There are people who need you out of the way, want you out of the way, and there’s no way to be careful enough to not cross the line somewhere,” he said. “If the right people want to take you out of the picture, stepping on the sideline is absolutely prohibited. So, that’s just how it happened.

“If I could go back, I would avoid some of those times when I stepped on the sideline.”

Such contrition. Given the power of time travel Jim Black would try not to break the law quite as much. Or perhaps get someone else to do it for him. Judging from the fact that Black is again free to walk the streets, still has millions of dollars in property, and has his optometry license back, there would appear to be no shortage of Black sycophants in positions of power across this great banana republic to do his bidding.

Face it — Jim Black won, honest governance lost. And the gray areas are larger than ever.

Update: If you want to tilt at windmills, WRAL needs to run a correx — Black did not pay his $1 million fine. No way, no how. The Wake County school board still owns nine acres of scrub land off of Rice Rd. in Matthews that North Carolina’s corrupt legal system accepted as partial payment for Black’s debt to society. Black used to pay property taxes to Mecklenburg County on that land — now it is tax exempt. Another win for the kleptocracy.