The Yellow Rogue of Texas

This never even happened to George Walker Bush in the nineties.  It hasn't happened to any governor of Texas since 1917.  A grand jury in Travis County. Texas, which includes the capital city of Austin, indicted Governor James R. "Rick" Perry for carrying out a threat to veto $7.5 million in funding to the state's ethics office, unless the local Democratic district attorney who leads it, Rosemary Lehmberg, resigned after her arrest and conviction for drunken driving.  Lehmberg had a blood alcohol level three times the legally allowed limit and was videotaped going ballistic during her arrest.

Perry may be right (God, did I just type those words?)  that someone who violates the law like Lehmberg did shouldn't be the head of the state ethics office - the same office that prosecuted former House bigwig Tom DeLay, by the way - but his veto of funding for the office amounts to extortion.  He's taking a political vendetta out on one office because of the woman who leads it.  Although he's entitled to a fair trial, this should at least call his judgement into question and have a detrimental effect on his presidential ambitions.

It - won't.  Because he's playing hardball to oust a political opponent from her job, Perry will undoubtedly fire up the Republican base by burnishing his images as someone who stands firm in the face of adversity.  Even other potential candidates for the 2016 Republican presidential nomination, such as Louisiana governor Bobby Jindal and Texas senator Ted Cruz are coming to his defense.

Against my own better judgement, I watched "Meet The Press" this past Sunday to see how Andrea Mitchell fared as an interim host (don't ask).  The question of Perry's indictment came up momentarily, after Mitchell and a panel of foreign policy "experts" discussed Iraq.  Mitchell asked for feedback (from a foreign policy panel?) on the Perry story; U.S. Representative Michael Turner (R-OH) called the indictment a grave politicization of the judicial process (though he didn't see Perry's infraction as a grave politicization of the executive process).  Mitchell, apparently satisfied, moved on to something else.

Yeah, the indictment will play itself out in the courts.  But if the Big Media shrug it off, I fear that will lead the Texas judicial system to do the same.