Thursday, May 7th, 2009...2:07 pm
Come On Greg, Really?
Earlier this week, I was going to write a post about Greg Patterson’s laughable assertion that Bob Grossfeld, a man who worked on the gubernatorial campaigns of Paul Johnson and served as head of the Arizona DLC, was a “a hard left Democratic operative by anyone’s definition.” But, I put it off and now Patterson has an even better whopper:
There is a far left conspiracy against Brett Mecum.
No, these guys didn’t force Mecum to drive at 109 miles an hour down the 101. Instead, there is a conspiracy of DPS head Roger Vanderpool (a Janet Napolitano appointee, so he must be shady, right?) and Bart Graves to besmirch the record of the sweet, innocent Mecum.
I don’t get how it works either. I won’t pretend to know why the DPS decided that arresting Mecum at his workplace was what needed to be done, but his implication that somehow Graves was part of the decision making or, at least, was part of some effort to smear Mecum in the media is ridiculous. His evidence: that Graves gave comments to reporters on the incident. Yeah, reporters called him and he told them what was up. That’s his job. What was he supposed to say, “Wait, I did five months of work for the state democratic party, so let me put someone else on the phone in case some over cafeinated person wants to come up with a conspiracy”?
Patterson gets a bit lost on his argument that this is “criminalizing politics.” First off, he is talking about legal actions against people like John Kromko and Sandra Dowling, who were targeted for actions either done while campaigning or in their official duties. Putting aside the merits in those individual cases, I suppose such a case can be made. But, Mecum was caught for something outside of the duties of his office. It would be hard to see a “political” prosecution here, unless he has checked the voter registration of that photo radar van. I wonder if a natural extension of that logic would mean that no one in political life should be prosecuted for anything.
7 Comments
May 7th, 2009 at 5:04 pm
“I wonder if a natural extension of that logic would mean that no Republican in political life should be prosecuted for anything.”
There, fixed it for yah.
May 7th, 2009 at 6:38 pm
I want to see how long the “Come on ____, really?” streak will keep up in the post titles.
May 7th, 2009 at 7:26 pm
You know how Republicans in positions of power think, don’t you?
Rules and laws are for ‘the little people,’ not for them.
Maybe Greg Patterson is starting to think that way too.
May 7th, 2009 at 10:03 pm
What’s sad is the really cheap shots at the integrity of two guys, Vanderpool and Graves, who have done nothing to deserve it. Accusing Roger Vanderpool of running a political hit machine out of DPS is laughable. For what possible motivation? Neither he nor anyone in his command structure has any idea who Brett Mecum is, I am sure.
I know Bart Graves slightly from his days at the State Party and he is a good worker who I would guess is just happy to keep his head down and have a job. Again, no reason whatsoever for him to be going after Mecum or anyone else (not that a PIO flack at a state agency has that kind of juice anyhow). When Patterson goes after elected Democrats it’s part of the territory, but the unsubstantiated attacks on Vanderpool and Graves really go beyond the pale. Have the Arpaio antics so inured us to law-enforcement abuse that any rash accusation is presumed to be credible?
May 7th, 2009 at 11:13 pm
I guess it solves this mythbuster, you can’t outrun ugly
May 8th, 2009 at 9:44 am
IOKIYAR now, IOKIYAR tomorrow, and IOKIYAR forever!!
(IOKIYAR = It’s Okay If You Are Republican, for the unitiated)
May 9th, 2009 at 8:18 pm
C’mon now, Greg is the only friend Brett seems to have from reading the comments over at Snorin’ Alliance and Peeing Red.