Friends Don’t Let Friends Drink, Drive, and Remain in a Prosecutor’s Office

Today on NRO

THE EDITORS: Democrats indicting Perry indict themselves. Keep Austin Corrupt?

JOHN FUND: Kay Bailey Hutchison was once indicted in similar fashion to Governor Perry. The Perry Indictment's Predecessor.

TOM ROGAN: "We broke the ISIL siege," the president assured us, but our engagement is far from over. Obama's 'Mission Accomplished' Moment.

ANDREW G. DORAN: The U.S. is obliged to take action in Iraq, to finish what we started. Intervention as Duty.

SLIDESHOW: Clashes in Ferguson.

Morning Jolt
. . . with Jim Geraghty

August 18, 2014

Friends Don't Let Friends Drink, Drive, and Remain in a Prosecutor's Office

From Right Now Strategies:

You know you want to come! Get complete info at NRCruise.com.

Here's the gist:

A day after a grand jury indicted him on two felony charges, a defiant Rick Perry on Saturday called the prosecution of his conduct a "farce" and "abuse of power."

The governor promised to fight the charges and concluded brief remarks by bluntly saying, "I intend to win."

During a news conference at the Capitol broadcast live on national TV, Perry blamed partisan politics for the indictment and focused, in part, on the behavior of Travis County District Attorney Rosemary Lehmberg, whose drunken driving arrest last year prompted him to seek her resignation.

"We don't settle political differences with indictments in this country," Perry said.

Perry faces charges of abuse of official capacity and coercion of a public servant, which together carry maximum sentences of 109 years in prison and $20,000 in fines. He has not yet turned himself in at the Travis County Jail but is expected to do so in the next several days, when he will be fingerprinted and photographed.

Travis County grand jurors delivered the indictment 14 months after Perry said he would withhold a $7.5 million, two-year state allotment to Lehmberg's office unless she stepped down.

Lehmberg did not resign, and Perry carried out that threat, saying he would not grant the appropriation because Lehmberg had lost the public's confidence with her DWI arrest. Her blood alcohol level was 0.239, and while in jail, the district attorney was belligerent.

Perry's argument: "I very clearly, I very publicly said that as long as that individual was going to be running that agency -- I had lost confidence in her, the public had lost confidence in her," Perry said. "I did what every governor has done for decades, which is make a decision about whether it was a proper use of state money to go to that agency. And I vetoed it. That's what the rule of law is really about, Shannon. And I stood up for the rule of law in the state of Texas. And if I had to do it again I would make exactly the same decision."

Quite a few folks on the Left don't think there's a legitimate criminal case here, and that we're witnessing a reckless attempt to paint routine acts of politics -- i.e., vetoing a budget as leverage – as representing corruption.

New York magazine's Jonathan Chait:

The conventions of reporting -- which treat the fact of an indictment as the primary news, and its merit as a secondary analytic question -- make it difficult for people reading the news to grasp just how farfetched this indictment is . . .

The prosecutors claim that, while vetoing the bill may be an official action, threatening a veto is not. Of course the threat of the veto is an integral part of its function. The legislature can hardly negotiate with the governor if he won't tell them in advance what he plans to veto. This is why, when you say the word "veto," the next word that springs to mind is "threat." That's how vetoes work.

The theory behind the indictment is flexible enough that almost any kind of political conflict could be defined as a "misuse" of power or "coercion" of one's opponents. To describe the indictment as "frivolous" gives it far more credence than it deserves.

Obama's chief strategist David Axelrod: "Unless he was demonstrably trying to scrap the ethics unit for other than his stated reason, Perry indictment seems pretty sketchy."

Alan Dershowitz: "'This is another example of the criminalization of party differences, said Dershowitz, a prominent scholar on United States constitutional law and criminal law who writes the "Legally Speaking" column for Newsmax. 'This idea of an indictment is an extremely dangerous trend in America, whether directed at [former House majority leader] Tom DeLay or [former president] Bill Clinton.'"

Remember Tom DeLay? Another prominent Republican who was charged with iffy crimes by an outspoken prosecutor. DeLay was indicted in 2005. Then there were literally years of delays and legal efforts to get the charges dismissed. The jury reached its verdict in 2010. DeLay was convicted of one charge of money laundering and one charge of conspiracy to commit money laundering . . . and then in 2013, the convictions were overturned by the Texas Court of Appeals. So we may be watching the first shots of a legal battle that will go on for years, maybe a nearly a decade.

There's been a lot of buzz that this could actually rebound to Perry's benefit, if he intends to run for president in 2016. He'll be able to point to this as an example of the politicization of law enforcement and, in related controversies, the U.S. Department of Justice.

Or . . . in light of the lengthy but fruitless "John Doe investigation" of Wisconsin governor Scott Walker, this appears to be the progressives' newest form of lawfare: take routine activities of governors and insist, before a grand jury, that they are crimes. Sometimes, like in the case of Chris Christie, a GOP governor or his staff will give his opponents a scandalous opportunity. But even if the charges are baseless, the headlines of "GOVERNOR INDICTED" inflicts the political damage the progressives seek.

Will Hillary and Obama Make Up? Tune in Tomorrow to As D.C. Turns!

Notice this section at the tail-end of an AP story on the president's week ahead:

Obama's vacation has also been infused with a dose of politics. He headlined a fundraiser on the island for Democratic Senate candidates and attended a birthday party for Democratic adviser Vernon Jordan's wife, where he spent time with former President Bill Clinton and Hillary Rodham Clinton.

That get-together between the former rivals-turned-partners added another complicated dynamic to Obama's vacation. Just as Obama was arriving on Martha's Vineyard, an interview with the former secretary of state was published in which she levied some of her sharpest criticism of Obama's foreign policy.

Clinton later promised she and Obama would "hug it out" when they saw each other at Jordan's party. No reporters were allowed in, so it's not clear whether there was any hugging, but the White House said the president danced to nearly every song.

We discussed this on Howard Kurtz's Media Buzz Sunday morning, and I was left with the distinct impression that the Washington press corps has lost its collective mind.

The "hug it out" aspect of the recent Hillary Clinton–Barack Obama brouhaha is the absolute least important part of the whole matter. Think about it: The last secretary of state just said that Obama's foreign policy had "no coherent organizing principle" and that "we don't even tell our own story very well these days." That's a pretty damning indictment, well beyond the particulars of sending arms to the Syrian rebels. It goes well beyond Syria. But what makes the criticism so mind-boggling is that this was Hillary's whole area of responsibility for four years, and she's insisting that the disappointing results all around the globe are the president's fault. If she's telling the truth now, how would she characterize her praise for the president's foreign policy from 2009 to 2013? How often did she suppress her objections and help enact policies she felt were doomed to failure?

In light of all that, who gives a flying fuchsia pantsuit about whether or not Hillary and Obama have patched it up, or who's mad at who, or who's still carrying a grudge against the other? It matters once it affects policy; until then, it's part of a soap opera.

One of Ace of Spades' keen observations, from last year:

For Obama's fanbois [sic], this is not politics. This isn't even America, not really, not anymore.

This is a movie. And Barack Obama is the Hero. And the Republicans are the Villains. And policy questions -- and Obama's myriad failures as an executive -- are simply incidental. They are MacGuffins only, of no importance whatsoever, except to the extent they provide opportunities for Drama as the Hero fights in favor of them.

Watching Chris Matthews interview Obama, I was struck by just how uninterested in policy questions Matthews (and his panel) were, and how almost every question seemed to be, at heart, about Obama's emotional response to difficulties-- not about policy itself, but about Obama's Hero's Journey in navigating the plot of President Barack Obama: The Movie.

As with a MacGuffin in the movie, only the Hero's emotional response to the MacGuffin matters.

Once you hear about this phenomenon of seeing all events through the lens of the personal heroic narrative of the president, you start recognizing it everywhere.

The Thoughts That Triggered Friday Afternoon's Quasi-Panic Attack

Lately if feels like we live in a world where Boko Haram, the Russian separatists, the Islamic State, and al-Qaeda compete to see who can commit the most outrageous atrocity. Perhaps we can throw in Hamas, claiming to be fighting for Palestinian children, and then casually using those children as human shields.

Every couple of days, it seems like these demons and monsters say, "Oh, you thought that was bad? Take a look at this!" Kidnapping schoolgirls! Selling young girls into slavery! Crucifixions! Shooting down airliners! Mass executions! Burying people alive! Wiping out an entire religious minority!

We're hearing, with disturbing regularity, "It's just a matter of time before the Islamic State begins targeting the American homeland." Most terrorism is a bloody form of propaganda or performance art, aiming to strike fear into the hearts of the intended victim audience and to stir and encourage the supporters and sympathizers.

These groups face a parallel to the challenge of Hollywood: How do you make the sequel bigger? How do you make your ruthlessness and bloodthirstiness stand out when there's so much competition from the ruthless terror group a few nations over? The easiest option is a bigger terror attack, with bigger consequences and a bigger death toll.

Will the Islamic State try to launch a terror attack in the United States next? Or will they aim for some large group of Americans and/or Westerners overseas, closer to the territory they control -- an embassy, a military base, a workplace with a lot of Americans, a vacation spot, a cruise ship?

ADDENDA: George Will on Fox News Sunday, discussing Hillary' distancing herself from Obama: "She looks clever, and in politics it's never clever to look clever."

NRO's Ryan Lovelace is reporting from Ferguson, Missouri: See his updates here, here, here, here, and here.

A portion of my appearance on Media Buzz with Howard Kurtz, discussing the coverage of Hillary Clinton and President Obama "hugging it out" after her critical comments:

Don't delay! Sign up today for the NR 2014 Post-Election Caribbean Cruise, and for our spectacular pre-cruise kick-off gala November 8th featuring Ambassador John Bolton and Senators Ted Cruz and Marco Rubio! Learn more here.

To read more, visit www.nationalreview.com

Why not forward this to a friend? Encourage them to sign up for NR's great free newsletters here.

Save 75%... Subscribe to National Review magazine today and get 75% off the newsstand price. Click here for the print edition or here for the digital.

National Review also makes a great gift! Click here to send a full-year of NR Digital or here to send the print edition to family, friends, and fellow conservatives.