THE PERRY INDICTMENT – AT 10:48 A.M. ET:  As we noted last night, Governor Rick Perry of Texas was indicted by a grand jury in notoriously Democratic Travis County, accused of misuse of his office.

The charge, which sounds like something trumped up in some third-world country, is that Perry made misuse of his veto power by denying funds to a local office because the public had lost faith in the head of that office, a district attorney who'd been guilty of driving while intoxicated and resisting officers.  Sounds like a responsible gubernatorial action to me.

Indeed, as Business Insider reports, even major Democrats are skeptical of this strange indictment: 

Although some Democrats are calling for Texas. Gov Rick Perry's (R) resignation after he was indicted by a grand jury on Friday, a number of left-leaning observers immediately panned the allegations as unimpressive.

Perry, an expected presidential candidate in 2016, is accused of "abuse of official capacity" and "coercion of [a] public servant" by publicly threatening to zero out a state prosecutor's funding and then actually doing it. Several pundits, including former Obama campaign strategist David Axelrod, Clinton and Obama administration alum Jonathan Prince, Vox's Matt Yglesias, and New York magazine's Jonathan Chait, wrote on Twitter they couldn't see what the big deal was.

"Unless he was demonstrably trying to scrap the ethics unit for other than his stated reason," Axelrod argued, "Perry indictment seems pretty sketchy."

"Have to say Perry indictment seems nuts. Gov has constitutional power to veto. Gov uses power. Grand jury indicts bc they don't like reason?" Prince asked.

"Hard for me to imagine these Rick Perry charges sticking," Yglesias wrote, adding, "Does anyone think this Perry indictment makes sense?"

"My *very* preliminary reaction to the Rick Perry news: I don't understand what law he broke," Chait opined.

COMMENT:  I understand from some of the early discussion that Perry can request a trial within 90 days.  Surely his attorneys can ask for swiftness.  The appearances here are awful – the indictment of a potential presidential candidate by a grand jury seated in a stronghold of the opposition party.

I have a feeling Perry will be exonerated, but the damage to him in the interim can be politically fatal, which is the intent.

August 16, 2014