Rick Perry indicted on abuse of power

[Absentee Voting Ghost of Ruin]

I don't believe this one will be particularly harmful. The belief that the following prosecutor should resign after her arrest for drunk driving does not seem controversial.

I'll take you one further: this will end up helping Perry. What he did isn't just uncontroversial, it'll be applauded, especially by Republican primary voters. Perry can legitimately claim to be unfairly targeted by liberals for the kind of executive behavior they like. And it all would have gone completely unnoticed but for this indictment. This is the DA's oops.

And then he can grow a handlebar mustache, start wearing a Lone Star armband, and start talking about his struggle against the corrupt establishment. But which minority group will he blame for all America's problems?

[Absentee Voting Ghost of Ruin]

I don't live in Texas, so I have my own filter. Texas has some strange politics.

Elected officials have no right to interfere in the judicial process for partisan ends. A state governor may use pardons and commutations as permitted by the State constitution, but that is as far as it goes. The governor cannot fire a judge or diminish his pay (which is a constructive firing) for political purposes.

An indictment has been made, and that does not itself imply guilt -- just that a case for prosecution exists. That is all.

It's good to see that someone gets it. I keep seeing this really, really nasty meme that it's okay to blatantly break the law if you're doing to to "punish" a wrong-doer (alleged or otherwise). Does anyone think that what Perry did would have been just dandy if he'd done it because the person he was targeting was hispanic? Or gay? Or Muslim? The ends DO NOT justify the means - if a civilization start ignoring its own laws because it think that is true, then its doomed.