The GOP's Mug Shot Primary

When investigations of former Virginia governor Bob McDonnell in "Giftgate" first began, the GOP pundits all claimed it was a partisan plot - some even in their delusions claimed that Obama was orchestrating the entire affair - but the multi-count conviction of Taliban Bob and his wife made it clear that there was fire where the GOP claimed there was smoke at most.  As the early phases of the 2016 jockeying begins among the would be GOP candidates, it is telling that so many of them are under criminal investigation at present.  Like McDonnell - and the Christofascists who make up so much of the hardcore GOP base - there seems to be a mindset that the rules apply to others.  A column in the Washington Post looks at the legal problems of some of the contenders.  Here are excerpts:

Why is the lineup of prospective GOP presidential candidates beginning to look like, well, a lineup?

Chris Christie went to campaign this week for Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker, putting the New Jersey governor in the company of a man who is in almost as much legal jeopardy as he is. Between them, the two would-be 2016 presidential nominees are the subjects of six investigations.

But Texas Gov. Rick Perry, another presidential aspirant, is far ahead of them in the mug-shot primary: He’s already under indictment on two felony counts related to abuse of power. And, speaking of felonies, former Virginia governor Bob McDonnell, long considered presidential timber, was convicted on 11 corruption counts after his salacious trial this summer that disgraced him and his wife.

Democrats are trying to tie another prospective presidential candidate, Ohio Gov. John Kasich, to a Republican contributor who was convicted this summer of witness tampering in a campaign-finance case; the governor had been subpoenaed to appear in the case but was never called.

Beyond that, the Republican governors of Iowa, Kansas, Georgia, Pennsylvania, Maine, South Carolina and New Mexico all face varying degrees of legal liability on matters ranging from influence peddling to the firing of whistleblowers. Completing the GOP version of a most-wanted list: John Rowland, the former governor of Connecticut, who was found guilty last month of conspiracy charges in a campaign-finance case. It was the second time he had been convicted on criminal charges.

This doesn’t necessarily mean governors, or other politicians, are more corrupt than they used to be; there has always been some sense of entitlement among elected leaders, a belief that the usual rules don’t apply to them. Melanie Sloan, executive director of Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, adds that “unfathomable amounts of money flowing through the system” have increased the opportunity for misconduct, while the proliferation of media and electronic paper trails makes it more likely to get caught.

[T]here’s some rough justice that Republicans, who popularized this criminalization of politics in the 1990s [against Bill Clinton], now find at least three of their top presidential prospects being hoist with the GOP’s own petard. New Jersey’s Christie, of course, has Bridgegate and related troubles. The campaign of Wisconsin’s Walker is being investigated over allegedly illegal campaign finance coordinated with various conservative groups; a federal appeals panel ruled last month that prosecutors could proceed with the long-stalled investigation. Then there’s Perry . . . a grand jury has indicted Perry on charges carrying up to 109 years in prison combined.