“If you have nothing else, you have your principles,” Lady Thatcher told me when things were pretty tough at The American Spectator in the late 1990s. Sharks were circling the ship, and there was blood in the water; I was getting anxious. She was serene, having just flown back from Beijing, but she was adamant. “You have your principles.” They endure, and they fortify you when things are dire.

Doubtless, Conrad Black has had his principles, too, and they are not much different from mine, though he is Canadian. For that matter, if you are reading this, they are not much different from yours: the sanctity of the individual, individual liberty, limited government, the rule of law. Now, because he has resisted being put away in a dark place for 6 1/2 years, the rule of law is more secure. On June 24, all nine Supreme Court justices sided with him. The “honest services” statute of a 1988 law that has been used ever since to prosecute white-collar crime is too vague and unconstitutional. The court has remanded Black’s conviction back to a lower court for reconsideration. I hope it is just a matter of time before his long ordeal is over.