Posted on 10/05/2005 11:38:27 AM PDT by Jean S
Democrats grilling John Roberts in recent weeks seemed to think everything in his past record mattered, even actions and statements decades old. They’ll doubtless probe Harriett Miers’s distant past with the same intensity.
It will be interesting to see whether they take the same stance when it comes to evaluating the past record and integrity of Ronnie Earle, the Democratic Texas prosecutor trying to railroad former Majority Leader Tom DeLay (R-Texas).
Earle may be a reformed man these days. I don’t know. But what I do know about him from the 1980s doesn’t engender confidence.
Democrats and Republicans alike seem most inclined to debate whether Earle is a partisan when enforcing Texas’s public-integrity laws. Democrats like to point out Earle has prosecuted more Democrats than Republicans. Republicans like to point to several trumped-up and failed cases against Republicans.
But, from what I know about Earle, partisanship is a lesser sin. Simple honesty and integrity seem to have been the greater challenge in his life.
Some Democrats have deduced that Earle’s true past may soon come to light and have started moving from claims about his nonpartisanship to attestations of his character. A Dec. 3, 2004, article in The Christian Science Monitor described Earle as a “Boy Scout” who “has always exhibited a strong moral streak.” That characterization may be true lately, but the past record doesn’t vouch for those conclusions.
I learned about Earle while consulting for a Republican candidate, Shane Phelps, who dared run against him in 1996. Because Austin and surrounding Travis County was then, and still is, a liberal Democratic kingdom, Phelps’s campaign was unsuccessful. But we built an opposition-research file on Earle that was disturbing. In fact, Earle’s file suggested to me that he was the most corrupt and immoral individual I had ever scrutinized in the course of politics.
The most damning evidence was in a file documenting the 1984 dismissal of a criminal investigator in Earle’s office. The key document is a transcript of a July 16, 1984, interview that Texas Ranger Ron Stewart conducted with Earle employee Joe Dale Morris.
According to a Feb. 1, 1985, article in the Dallas Morning News, Morris was forced to resign after that interview for purportedly aiding state and federal agents who were probing Earle’s operation. I can see how Earle would not have cared for the interview.
Morris’s testimony is shocking. Describing the probe of a deaf-school administrator, he quotes one source, former County Attorney Margaret Moore, as telling him, “I can’t get any cooperation out [of] Ronnie Earle or Steve McCleery. McCleery is an idiot, and Earle’s up on dope all the time.”
Morris also confesses to exploding in anger and rage in Earle’s office when he learned that public-corruption cases involving two law-enforcement officers had been dismissed. He also describes how Earle failed to prosecute other cases, even when Morris had extracted confessions. Says Morris, “I have to control my temper, but those jackasses down there are so damn crooked.”
At one point, the ranger asks Morris: “Is there anything that you know whereby that some things were actually covered up and were not given to either an investigative grand jury, the facts were not related or someone said we’re just not, we’re gonna hold this back, we’re not going to permit this information to be aired? And I’m talking about obstruction of justice is what I’m talking about.”
Morris responds simply: “The answer to your question is yes. And I have in my possession the information that was caused to be destroyed.” Morris then goes on with the details.
Later in the interview, Morris titillates with tales of Earle’s alleged use of drugs, illicit sex and misuse of official automobiles and expense accounts.
Even if one-tenth of his charges are true, we shouldn’t trust Earle to prosecute anyone.
Hill is director of Hill Research Consultants, a Texas-based firm that has polled for GOP candidates and causes since 1988.
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I do hope the Justice department steps in, but I doubt it if they have the balls to do so.
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Travis County Justice Bump
"Earle’s up on dope all the time"
Does this mean 'high on drugs' or is it some sort of Southern slang for something else?
Or some conservative reporters. Someone ought to send Byron York down to Austin.
Well DUH democrats commit far more crime than Republicans do.
Yeah it's going to get ugly
BUMP
"I do hope the Justice department steps in,..."
I'm fully on board with Tom DeLay, and I think these indictments are pure bull****. On the other hand, I don't think the Justice department should step in, because it would just look like President Bush covering for one of his "cronies". What I think should happen is that DeLay should go to court, the judge should find the charges baseless and throw them out, and then there should be some sort of disciplinary action against Earle for his pattern of abusing the justice system by using it as a weapon against political foes. I just don't know who initiates that kind of action, since I am not a lawyer.
Nope, it means the same thing in Austin it means in Seattle it means in San FranSicko.
I don't care what it freakin' LOOKS LIKE. I care what evidence there is. If there's evidence the little pu@##y needs to be out of a job, and in jail if possible. This fear of what things will LOOK LIKE is why the a-rats started feeling their oats enough to knock down the Majority Leader on a trumped up charge in the first place. Let them accuse us of being politically motivated. Then we say "you have a right to your own opinion about that, but our evidence is THIS." Cards on the table.
I agree fully. When I said they should step in, that is exactly what I had in mind.
But, as far as being concerned with what others think, we need to do what is right. I am a more then a little tired of Bush being too concerned with appearances and with being nice to others. Some examples where I feel the administration took no action in part due to the fear of Democratic response:
Hillary - Illegal use of Air Force One for campaign purposes
Clinton - Sweeping the damage under the rug, immediately after inauguration.
Post 911 - Not firing Norm Mineta
Post 911 - and George Tenent
Post 911 - Not immediately securing the borders
Post 911 - Not immediately halting all immigration from designated countries
NAACP - Revoking their status as a non profit, due to Democrat campaigning
IRS - Appoint as head of the IRS somebody who understands the rules that the Clinton Admin. acted under.
I have to agree with you on those points.
Ummmm...I don't think you were responding to my post.
Sorry about that, Chief.
De nada, dude.
Hello?
Whoa, stop the presses, oh I forgot, 99.9% are liberal MSM presses. Nothing behind the curtain, move along.
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