By Rick Manning
Does anyone think it is any coincidence that two Republican Governors who are all considered presidential contenders for 2016 are being subjected to what can be at best described as spurious prosecutions led by Democratic prosecutors?
Governor Rick Perry of Texas is the latest to fall victim to political prosecution as he was indicted for threatening to veto legislation. The legislation in question would have benefitted the very District Attorney who pushed the indictment through a grand jury, and the very DA who was the center of why Perry threatened the veto. You see, the DA was not only arrested for drunk driving, but also engaged in on camera behavior that would have resulted in lesser persons being charged with assaulting a law enforcement officer.
Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal immediately came to Perry’s defense calling the legal attack, “…a witch hunt by liberal activists.”
Texas Senator Ted Cruz shared his support for Perry declaring him, “… a man of integrity” on his twitter account.
In politics, it is manna from heaven when your political opponents get into legal trouble of any kind, yet two of Perry’s likely opponents for the Republican 2016 presidential nomination each immediately stepped to his defense against the obviously politically motivated legal action.
In Wisconsin, Big Labor has made getting Governor Scott Walker their full-time job, after he had the audacity to fix the state’s budget woes by making public employees pay a share of their pension and health care benefits. This assault has included one of the most blatant set of political prosecutions by the Democrat DA in Milwaukee.
After the political prosecutor breathlessly let the word get out through the mainstream media that Walker was under investigation for engaging in a “criminal” conspiracy to violate campaign finance laws, he was finally forced to admit that, “At the time the investigation was halted, Governor Walker was not a target of the investigation.”
The investigation itself was not halted by the Democrat’s legal hit man in the DA’s office, but rather by multiple courts that found there were no grounds for him to continue which halted his pursuit of politically damaging headlines.
This situation in Wisconsin got so bad that the prosecutor is now facing charges of misconduct himself over his blatant abuse of power.
Politics has never been for the faint of heart, but this new win at all cost willingness of the left to use prosecutorial powers to silence and discredit their opponents is telling.
The left is so desperate to obtain and maintain power that they will do anything, say anything and destroy anyone who gets in their way. These abuses of the public trust tear at an already heavily frayed fabric of society, where the public assumes that the law itself will not be abused.
However, the left’s lawless pursuit of power threatens the very acquiescence to their authority that they seek.
When the people cease to believe that the law of the land is enforced equitably and without political prejudice, they are less likely to voluntarily follow the law.
When the people are afraid to get involved in local politics out of fear that they will be trapped in a malicious prosecution as has happened in Wisconsin, they turn away from representative government altogether.
And when the people see that an out of control, power drunk DA in Texas can drum up a clearly fraudulent indictment against the governor of the state, they realize that as a humble citizen they have little chance should they run afoul of the prosecutorial winds.
If the fabric of society finally and irrevocably tears, big government will lose the one thing it depends upon – the consent of the governed – and America will be fundamentally transformed. And the left will likely claim victory as they seek draconian laws to compel a compliance that was once freely given.
All because of the left’s politics of destruction, and their determination to cut any potential Republican presidential contender off at the knees using any and every means.
Governor Jindal and Senator Cruz are to be commended for standing firm with Governor Rick Perry against a clearly malicious prosecution. When they stand with Perry, they stand against the type of prosecutorial abuse that cannot be tolerated. It’s time for the rest of America to join them, the consequences of allowing small-minded political prosecutors in places like Austin or Milwaukee to run roughshod over the rule of law are too big to tolerate.
Rick Manning is the Vice President of communications and public policy for Americans for Limited Government.
