Got Shame?

Recently Travis County brought a political payback indictment against Governor Rick Perry because he vetoed some funding for a DA Rosemary Lehmberg who was convicted of drunk driving. Governor Perry offered to continue the funding if she resigned, and even signaled his willingness to appoint another democrat to the office. But having no shame, Lehmberg declined to resign and the rest as they say is history.

Aristotle made the point that shame is a fundamental requirement for a society as it functions to self-police behavior. By bringing all of this back into the public eye through her political payback indictment, Rosemary Lehmberg has assured that thousands of Texas that had not previously seen her arrest video will now see it and rightfully cringe at her chutzpah. The one bright spot is that she didn’t kill anybody while driving with 3 times the legal limit in blood alcohol.

The second point is that the indictment is without merit as Perry executed his lawful authority to defund Lehmberg. There’s an old saying that a prosecutor could get a grand jury to indict a ham sandwich, and so the hyperbole becomes reality here. The reporting method treats the fact of an indictment as the primary news, and the merit as a secondary analytic question, making it difficult for people reading the news to grasp just how farfetched this indictment is. (The Wall Street Journal has gone as far as to recommend Governor Perry file litigation against the Travis County attorneys in their private capacities for their mischief.)

Third, while we can expect the usual liberal huzzahs, from a raw political perspective, tying your cause to such a fundamentally flawed person depicted in such graphic footage is simply not a smart use of political chips.

Apropos, one of the reasons Texas Democrats are now hurting in the governor’s race is that they rushed into bed with Wendy Davis whose one and only signature issue was late term (20 weeks) abortions, a gruesome cause from which she’s lately try to unsuccessfully back paddle from. Off hand I can think of at least 3 Texas State Senators who are both Hispanics and Catholics, who would have made much better gubernatorial candidates for the Texas Democrats. But instead they went with a candidate who has been called “Abortion Barbie.” Nice going guys.

Finally, the sophist argument being made by some of “a pox on both your houses,” –meaning a pox on both democrats and republicans- while providing a quick feeling of moral superiority, does nothing in terms of our stewardship responsibility. In politics you don’t get a custom fitted suit, you take what you can get off the rack. Sadly, partisan knee jerk reactions of the Roman Mob are now the norm.

I’m fully aware that Rick Perry is a big boy and that he can take care of himself, but ask yourself this- If a shoddy extortionate prosecutor can misuse the law and bring such frivolous charges against a rich powerful governor, then what can they do to you?

-John P.

“I would uphold the law if for no other reason but to protect myself.”
- Sir Thomas More

Below is the train-wreck-footage that Texas Democrats were so proud to share with the nation.


 


Update March 19, 2016: 

The Texas Court of Criminal Appeals dismissed all charges against Governor Perry in February. The Texas Court ruled that just as the U.S. Congress (or a court) cannot limit the veto power of a U.S. President, the Texas prosecutor violated the separation of powers by politically attempting to turn a veto into a crime- "When the only act that is being prosecuted is a veto, then the prosecution itself violates separation of powers," wrote Judge Sharon Keller