Sometimes Only the Paranoid Resist
.A judge today dismissed indictments against (among others) Gonzales and Cheney, brought by a Texas grand jury last month. That’s not too surprising, sadly. The Associated Press article paints the prosecutor, Juan Angel Guerra, in a rather poor light.
The article supports the idea that Guerra is paranoid and on his own personal crusade, fighting a conspiracy that he’s convinced is behind corruption in Texas involving the prison system. The reader is practically invited to see Guerra as a sad, down-on-his-luck individual who’s coming apart at the seams and lashing out at authority figures. All that might be true, but that doesn’t mean his original indictment was invalid. It doesn’t seem all that implausible that Cheney and/or Gonzales had some financial or other stake in keeping prison abuses or corruption under wraps. Furthermore, Cheney has a way of making people paranoid, probably exhibits a certain amount of paranoid behavior himself, and could well be capable of anything.
The point I’m making is this: I don’t know anything about Guerra beyond what’s in that article, but a) the powers that be would naturally try to discredit him whether he gave them ammo for doing so or not, and b) in a system where people have an awful lot to lose by challenging the power structure, sometimes only the crazy are going to do so.