Aw shucks, and so forth.
At some point it became a net positive, on the right,
to be seen as crooked.
Former Texas Gov. Rick Perry (R) said the felony charges he's facing in court aren't derailing his potential 2016 plans.
"We're moving right along," Perry said at a press conference on Wednesday.
Perry said he would make an announcement about his 2016 plans in the "May-June timetable."
It makes perfect sense, of course; conservatism has devolved into a prolonged monologue into just how oppressed and persecuted conservatives are, and nothing builds those credentials like being able to hold up your own mugshot as demonstration of how
the liberal man is out to get you because you are just too powerful a figure for stupid law-having elites to put up with. New conservatism also considers breaking the law itself to be a noble thing, when done in service to conservatism, which is why the various Fox News talking heads spoke of armed standoffs at the Bundy Ranch in approving tones and with references to the Founding Fathers, and why Dinesh D'Souza is of the opinion that he is a True American Patriot for breaking campaign finance laws for the single dubious reason of wanting to, and why conservative-led statehouses throughout the United States have busily passed resolutions saying they do not have to follow any federal laws they do not feel like following because Reasons, and I realize that pointing all these things out is very cruel and mean and will not get me invited to any of the cocktail parties but hey, prove me wrong, fellas. Maybe Ollie North and G. Gordon Liddy can host a Fox News panel on the subject.
Note that Rep. Michael Grimm won his re-election handily despite being under indictment, so Rick Perry is on firm ground here. The 2016 lineup is on track to have strong representation by the crooked and the suspected-crooked; we've got Rick Perry, under indictment for using his office as political bludgeon. We've got Chris Christie, whose approval rating took a steep hit after being seen as working too closely with Obama after a hurricane but who has subsequently redeemed himself considerably by the revelation that he led a staff of apparently crooked bastards who used the power of his office as, yes, a political bludgeon. And it looks like we're going to be granted the campaign-trail appearances of one Gov. Scott Walker, a man whose rise to the governorship has left a trail of indictments and embezzlement and cheap, petty crookedness so wide and long that you could play a championship football game on all the paperwork.
The obvious outcome of this, of course, is that sooner or later we're going to have a Republican nominee who has to give his acceptance speech from between two federal marshals. But in the meantime, Gov. Rick Perry will have to settle for mere bragging rights: Hey guys, I know the rest of you seem crooked enough to hold the Republican slot, but only I've got the mugshot to prove it.