Caribou Barbie’s troubled GOP state mate, Ted Stevens, was taped by the government when talking with oil company executive Bill Allen (who put an extra floor on Stevens’ house that Stevens forgot to declare).  It was played for the jury today in Stevens’ trial:

Stevens:  "If there’s a violation of the elections law then that’s a corporate violation."

Allen:  "Yeah."

Stevens:  "This thing shouldn’t get your bind, little buddy."

Allen:  "Well it has man, all day."

Stevens:  "Well, well you gotta just stand back and say, what’s gonna happen when it’s all over, you gotta get a mental attitude that these guys can’t really hurt us, you know, they’re not gonna shoot us, its not Iraq, so what the hell.  Worse that’s gonna happen to us is we round up a bunch of legal fees and might lose and might have to pay a fine, might have to serve a little time in jail."

Audio here.

Cliff Groh is live blogging the trial at Alaska Political Corruption, who notes:

All this fine legal work for Ted Stevens doesn’t come cheap. It’s entirely possible that this defense is costing $175,000 per week during the trial, and that estimate could be substantially low. As one observer had pointed out, that figure would have bought very nice renovations to a house in Girdwood. 

Stevens’ former friend Allen has offered up some strange testimony:

Allen spoke wistfully of their former “close, personal friendship” and how they used to go to “boot camp” in the desert Southwest – where they would walk around, eating little and drinking only wine, “trying to get some pounds off.”

While Allen testified, Stevens looked down at the table, writing. It didn’t appear the two former friends ever made eye contact.”

Just a couple of wild and crazy guys.