Thanks Mitch, for documenting so much of the initial reaction to the Jim Black guilty plea. It is clearly the jumping off point for trying to figure out both what happened and what will happen.

I’m struck by the odd circumlocutions deployed by Democrats. Frankly, I think Joe Sinsheimer is wrong — they are not, as Joe says, in denial. I think Democrat insiders know all too well what they are doing by downplaying Black’s incredible betrayal of the public trust.

They are still trying to win Jim Black’s favor. Not for campaign checks, blank and otherwise, but for favorable word, or non-word, as the case may be, with prosecutors.

Jim Black will have three months to tell the authorities everything he knows about the ongoing criminal conspiracy that passes for state government in North Carolina. For a solid decade Black has been royalty in that fetid fiefdom. He knows every deal that has been struck, every back that has been scratched, and every log that has been rolled. Prosecutors know this; everyone knows this. Accordingly, every secret Black gives up will directly lessen the amount of time he spends in jail.

Who knows, prosecutors may even be willing to suggest no active jail time should Black give up enough of his fellow crooks.

I’ll know that Black’s former cronies are not acting out of fear when I see one of two express some personal outrage at developments. Try to claim that, they too, are victims of Jim Black. The claims will be bogus, but at least form a better PR pitch going forward than excusing Black’s behavior has thus far.

Better still, it would be interesting to see a rush to run away from the campaign funds Black supplied. Hugh Holliman, for example, could give up at least $4000 that I’ve seen in Black-supplied campaign money. There is simply no way to claim that Black money is not, in fact, dirty money.

So I still think this is just the start of something much, much larger. The fact that Black was not hit with a maximum case — including witness tampering, for example — tells me that Black, like Michael Decker before him, is just a stepping stone.