Setting the record straight on Ronnie Earle

September 28, 2005

This shouldn’t be necessary, but it’s quickly becoming apparent that the principal line of defense for Tom DeLay is smearing Travis County DA Ronnie Earle. Again.

This isn’t new, of course. Earle is a self-identified Dem, but he’s been a play-it-straight District Attorney. To accuse this guy of having some kind of personal/ideological vendetta against DeLay is absurd.

For months, the anti-Earle campaign has manifested itself in a variety of ways. DeLay’s allies have been in discredit mode for the better part a year, with DeLay saying Earle is “trying to criminalize politics,” Peter King (R-NY) calling him a “runaway prosecutor,” and Henry Bonilla going to so far as to describe him as a “partisan crackpot district attorney.” Fox News, predictably, has played by the Republicans’ playbook, while the Texas GOP has tried to strip Earle of his legal authority as a DA.

In other words, it’s been a typical right-wing smear. And it’s about to get worse.

As long as Republicans try to make this about Earle’s non-existent partisan agenda, it’s worth taking a moment to set the record straight. First, the indictment today came by way of a grand jury of Texans, not the prosecutor’s office. DeLay and his allies might try to smear the grand jury members too, but that’s another story.

Second, in Texas, DAs are elected, not appointed, and Earle has consistently earned the public’s trust.

Third, over the scope of Earle’s 28-year career, he’s prosecuted 16 elected officials — 12 of whom were Democrats. If this is a DA with a partisan agenda, he has a funny way of showing it.

Watch, the next argument is that the grand jury was “partisan.” Made up of freedom-hating, terrorist-loving communists.

When Repugs get desperate, they get ugly.

  • Watch, the next argument is that the grand jury was “partisan.” Made up of freedom-hating, terrorist-loving communists.

    Folks over at redstate.org have already started in, noting that the grand jury was from Austin, the most liberal part of Texas (I think).

    OTOH, I’m not sure you can count up D’s on one hand and R’s on the other and claim he’s not partisan. All his D prosecution’s were state officials. DeLay is #2 in the U.S. House and Hutchinson was a U.S. Senator, a difference in kind, I would say (not to mention a difference in national attention).

  • Why get sucked into this useless debate? The Dems should let the media frenzy handle itself. They should be out there shouting a reform agenda, that includes cleaning up K street, from the top of the nearest tall building.

    The polls already show the GOP congress sliding – instead why don’t we worry about getting those Dem numbers up prior to 2006? As Drum points out, any gain we’ve seen so far isn’t enough to translate into real election wins.

    http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/archives/individual/2005_09/007212.php

  • Dem’s won’t call for anything that might get Dem’s investigated. Too many have skeletons in their closet.

    Let’s work to get all of the dirty politicians out of office. I’d rather have an honest Repulican than a dishonest anything else.

  • Here are some excerpts from Delay’s remarks on being indicted.

    This morning, in an act of blatant political partisanship, a rogue district attorney in Travis County, Texas, named Ronnie Earle charged me with one count of criminal conspiracy: a reckless charge wholly unsupported by the facts.

    This is one of the weakest, most baseless indictments in American history. It’s a sham and Mr. Earle knows it.
    […]
    This act is the product of a coordinated, premeditated campaign of political retribution; the all-too-predictable result of a vengeful investigation led by a partisan fanatic.
    […]
    Mr. Earle, an unabashed partisan zealot with a well-documented history of launching baseless investigations and indictments against his political enemies, has been targeting a political action committee on whose advisory board I once served.
    […]
    Despite his longstanding animosity toward me and the abusive investigation that animosity has, unfortunately, rendered, as recently as two weeks ago,…

    At least these guys are predictable.
    The full text is here.
    http://tinyurl.com/devaa
    The link is a redirct to the NYTimes. It is created by a Firefox Extention. The purpose is to replace a long URL with a short one.

  • “I’d rather have an honest Repulican ”

    Isn’t that an oxymoron??? Granted, in my state, I would give you former governor Jim Edgar, but on the national stage?? Hmmmmm, I might have to dust off a history book.

    How about if we settle on having representatives in Congress that represent their citizens (the common man) instead of corporations/lobbying interests and/or their own self-interests.

  • The GOP can blither all it want to in the WaPo and on TV/cable news – but the only people whose opinion matter with regards to the DA are the people in Travis County. It is an area where all/most voted for Delay and Earle – they obviously like Earle (at least now) knowing he was a democrat (with a little D). He is like them and more than likely more like them even with the democratic affiliation, than Delay is.

    DC GOP partisan hackery is not likely to mean shit to a Texas DA who is likely a law and order type. Of course if it trickles to the state and then the local GOP that could be different but then, it has to matter to all the Travis County voters who vote as well.

    What would impact this is what is the state/county GOP machine thinking, planning, doing?
    How much do they think Delay’s problems translate into state/country GOP problems?
    How much does Delay’s problems impact on GOP agenda on all levels of government?

  • Sreaming Head Update:

    While driving an hour or so ago, I cruised across Sean Hannity’s radio show just in time to hear his objective, unbiased take on the DeLay indictment. Needless to say, it’s all a Democratic conspiracy ramrodded by Ronnie Earle.

    His proof? He said he’d deeply researched the matter today and wanted to “settle the FACTS.” The “facts” according to Hannity were that the actual indictment contains “no evidence” against Tom DeLay.

    That IS a fact. Of course, Hannity well knows that indictments NEVER include evidence. Indictments are CHARGES — based on evidence presented to a grand jury.

    This is classic right-wing talk radio. Sound authoritative and credible, make a statement that sounds logical and common-sensical, omit critical information, and depend upon the audience’s ignorance.

  • Goper Spin Machine? We ain’t seen nuthin yet.

    The freight train that’s barreling down on Ronnie Earle is gonna make the Swift Boat liars look like kittens. His life in public service is probably over.

    This is going to get really ugly.

    Tweety appears to be picking up extra cash from the RNC for Delay Innocence Project programming.

  • Oops! Make that “Screaming Head Update” in my previous post. Or “Sean Speaks, You Swallow,” if you prefer.

    Ali

  • Granted, my source is the National Review, which is conservative, but apparently Ronnie’s been shaking down corporations that he has indicted, but then dropped the charges when they coughed up some cash to Earle’s favorite non-profit orgs. Indictments for dollars. His Beatte Hutchinson fiasco- where he dropped charges against her and then immediately held a hotel room press conference to air his “evidence” don’t look so hot either. That and making very public discussions of ongoing cases- gounds for dismissal according to any code of ethics you want to consult. And what’s up with his dot-com website under his name?? My DA’s a showboat too, but he would never stoop to that.
    I see a implosion of the forged Texas Air National Gaurd documents varity on the horizon…..

  • Terry Keel, Texas State Attorney and a former employee of Earle, on the DeLay indictments:

    “…I disagree strongly with the way he’s handled these cases. I can’t see how any crime has been committed. Ronnie’s stance in all this has not been constructive. If we have problems with campaign finance, then he needs to come to the table and work with the Legislature. He’s not going to get anything but resentment from holding a gun to the leadership’s head. Republicans are really angry about this. They see an unscrupulous DA abusing his office to pick on Republicans.

    “I can tell you that Ronnie Earle would never prosecute someone he believed was innocent. He sees his role as reweaving the fabric of society. He sees his role as prosecutor like that of the proverbial Dutch uncle. He really believes all that. But sometimes he gets bad advice, such as in the Kay Bailey Hutchison case. His enthusiasms get him in serious trouble.” Keel nodded at the photograph of the senator on his wall. “This is going to end up just like the Hutchison debacle.”

    Link: http://www.ronnieearle.com/news_020105.html

  • You guys are great. The irony here, given the new information about Earle and his tactics that are coming out now daily, is that ole Ronnie will be the one put in jail, the Rupublicans will raise a boatload of money leveraging this partisan attack on Delay, and the Democrats as a party will continue the slide into irrelevance that their continued cries of WOLF! have led them to.

    Is it possible that the Republicans could control ALL of the seats in the House and Senate in 2006? Keep it up, more, more, more!!!!!

    • Comments are closed.