So you're cool with people in the highest levels of government doing all sorts of heinous **** because, hey, they aren't the ones directly enforcing it personally? That's like some ****ed up funhouse mirror version of the Nuremberg defense

You're being absolutely ridiculous with false equivalence. Both Bush and Cheney had their DUIs long before they were elected. They weren't out driving around hammered while in office and it was public knowledge while they were campaigning for office.

Again, it was more than a DUI. She specifically used her position to threaten the police officers. She's heading a public integrity unit

ikes, what does the Public Integrity Unit do? I know you don't know, but I am eager to hear your semantic goal post shift after you've done a bit of quick googling.

It does a lot of government corruption, so it shouldn't be led by a corrupt drunk.

This simply is not that hard. **** even Dershowitz thinks this indictment is ludicrous.

Yeah, no, the problem is that you just don't understand that the elected DA isn't like other mid-level functionaries. Even the fact that you are calling the DA a "mid-level functionary" indicates that you have no idea what you're talking about. Of course the mayor of smallville USA is less important then the governor. But calling the elected DA, who answers to nobody above him/her, because there is nobody above him/her, because it's an independent agency, purposely independent from all other areas of government, responsible for making daily decisions that effect the liberty of individuals people a "mid-level" functionary indicates that you just don't get it. Government may generally be a hierarchy, but in states like Texas where DA's are independently elected, the DA's are at the top of the hierarchy in their county for criminal prosecution, they answer to no one, and they must be held to a high ethical standard, for they can do great damage with their positions. (See Mike Nifong for an example of the kind of damage that can be done by an amoral District Attorney).

And the governor didn't defund the entire district attorney's office, he defunded the public integrity unit of the da's office, which was state funded. The rest of the office was funded at the county level. And yeah, that was stupid, and political, and rick perry is an ******* and I'll never vote for him and he should be voted out of office for that or maybe even impeached. But charged with a crime? No way.

Nope, I never said that. I'm just especially not cool with an Elected DA committing crimes and trying to use their position to get out of trouble. Elected Officials should be held to a high standard, but elected DA's should be held to the highest standard possible.

I know this wasn't directed at me, but the public integrity unit does exactly what it sounds like, it investigates crimes committed by elected and appointed officials. So having the DA who is in charge of that unit herself out committing crimes and trying to use her position to get out of those crimes on the night of her arrest, is extraordinarily troubling.

Uh, impeachment is by definition being charged with a crime.

Except it's not. If it was a hierarchy the chief executive could just fire the DA

Also jman, are you aware that the Lehmberg case has been fully adjudicated through multiple channels? You're still free to disagree with the outcome, of course, but this **** didn't happen last week. Your line of argument has already been heard, and it was found lacking.

Not just DA's, judges too, but yeah strange to me that this is a point of contention

Right, the criminal case was fully adjudicated, and she was convicted of a crime. She shouldn't be continuing to sit as the District Attorney given what she's done and been convicted of, what part of this are you not understanding? Just because she continues to sit as District Attorney doesn't mean it's a good thing that she continues to sit as District Attorney, for all the reasons already discussed in this thread.

I agree absolutely about judges as well. That judge who beat up that public defender in I forget which state a few months ago who is still sitting on the bench is another travesty. But I would argue that a corrupt DA has even more ability to cause greater harm than a single corrupt judge.

AND she survived a civil suit that sought to have her removed from office for that conviction. Again, you can disagree with the outcome, but you don't get to pretend like she wasn't held accountable for what happened.

However, it's good of you to keep focusing on the person who isn't even the one responsible for the current indictment against Perry. You're really doing god's work in deflecting away from the actual matter at hand.

Haven't caught up on the thread, but while the blog does give good legal analysis from actually attorneys, if you don't think that the analysis comes from a strong right-leaning formalist school of thought, you may want to reconsider your thoughts of the blog...it's not scoutusblog...

Lol. My first post in this thread was criticizing everyone involved, including Perry and the special prosecutor who charged him. The positions that Perry acted very badly, but that he nonetheless should not have been charged with a crime, and that the underlying DA should be removed, are not mutually exclusive.

LOL IKE.... Phil owns ike on the reg so often it's almost funny

Except that Ikes is pretty much 100% right here that the charges are a huge stretch and have almost zero percent chance of resulting in a conviction (and that has nothing to do with Perry's whiteness or connections). I've yet to see a single legal analysis saying otherwise (even from people that hate Perry - for instance here is a new MSNBC.com article ****ting on the charges: http://www.msnbc.com/msnbc/the-weak-...nst-rick-perry).

Would you really now?

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2014/0...ower-this-time

And were any of those people in charge of public integrity? You guys keep ignoring that point for some reason.

I like this new found interest Perry has for public integrity

I'll acknowledge she oversees the Public Integrity unit if you will acknowledge that she already faced legal proceedings over her DUI conviction which did not find cause for removing her from office, and that she isn't the person responsible for bringing the current suit against Perry.

We've already covered that lehmberg's DUI and subsequent actions were not a run of the mill DUI. Perry doesn't have to treat all DUI the same because they're not all the same. Plus there is a big difference between legislators and a da. I am not too familiar with Texas legislature but I imagine there is some sort of speaker of the house or party leader Perry could talk to about discipline, and no line item he could veto for an individual legislator.

The other people mentioned apparently weren't convicted of anything and don't have the damning video out there on the internet

Speaking of public integrity, Perry didn't have to crush an investigation into executing an innocent man or make sure his cronies were receiving kick backs from public grants either.