The sparks are sure to fly when Lord Black of Crossharbour, or Conrad to you and me, goes on trial in a few weeks on 17-counts of fraud.
Black has already announced that he'll be taking the stand in his own defence, a decision that is probably giving his lawyers ulcers. It's not that Conrad doesn't have a terrific vocabulary or that he's not well-spoken or highly-intelligent. The problem is that Conrad Black doesn't see the world the say was as the rest of us do.
Lord Black sees the world in a way that's shaped very much the way he wants to see it, the way he thinks it ought to be. That's why he's so convinced of his innocence. In his world, everything he's done is entirely proper. His acts only become objectionable when they're viewed in our world, the world of small people with nasty, plebian habits.
What would a jury make of this man with his arrogance, vast wealth, privilege and self-indulgent, opulent ways? And what of the absolute gift this would give his prosecutors in cross-examining the man in the ermine cape?
I suspect Black's lead lawyer, Eddie Greenspan, will be busy in the time remaining trying to shake his client's insistence on testifying.
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