Obviously tonight was a disappointment to me and a lot of people.
One of the mantras that you learn when you first become an Assistant District Attorney is that sometimes, the bad guy wins.
Tonight, the bad guy clearly won.
I offer this advice to the ADAs who supported Kelly Siegler because they knew she was the best candidate in this race.
Keep quiet. Don't be politically active. This too shall pass, and if you ride out the storm, you just may be okay.
To Pat Lykos, congratulations on defining everything ugly about politics. You weren't qualified, yet you won. Your behavior disgusts me no less than it did this morning. For a person interested in law and order, you have done more to set it back by your actions than anything I could possibly imagine.
I'm a life-long Republican, but you can guarantee that I will be voting for Clarence Bradford in November. He's kept quiet during this election and watched you damage your own party. And yet, through it all, he has yet to call the Assistant District Attorneys racist, drunks, or corrupt. Something that you have done gladly. I will take his behavior over your classless evil any day of the week.
To Jim Leitner, I hope you will take time to apologize to the ADAs tomorrow for the wound in their backs caused by your stab wound. Never in my life has someone plummeted more in my personal opinion of them.
To Kelly, for the job you've done, I will make a post on it in about five minutes.
But to paraphrase what I'm about to write, you remain, always, my hero.
15 comments:
Thanks Chuck! Oh, and Jim. This is such a loss to the citizens of Harris County. I am embarrassed to be a part of this community right now. Lykos is nothing but a joke. Kelly Seigler was the ONLY qualified candidate in the race. When you become a victim of a crime, and you don't have anyone to justly represent you in court to put the offender away, perhaps you will wish you had voted for Kelly Siegler. Justice has ALWAYS been her job!
JAGJO writes:
I posted under "Hero" category.. as it is more befitting.
I am deeply lamenting Kelly's loss.. because it is more the CJC's loss than Kelly's.
Does anyone know where I can get a "Republicans for Bradford" bumper sticker?
Two unqualified candidates as finalists for the office where a giant once walked?
Great.
I'll be one of undervotes in this race in the fall. I can't bring myself to vote for either of these candidates.
AHCL:
I know how sad/mad you are about the runoff. Please don't vote for Field Marshal Bradford. The KMart raid was an international embarrassment for Houston. I hear people are looking for "Republicans for Bradford" bumper stickers. If I was a registered voter in Harris County I'd print some "Democrats for Lykos" stickers.
Sometimes you reap what you sow.
Where all those ADA's that were quietly going behind Kelly's back and promising Jim that they wanted him? Where was their money, time, support--not there? Get real- the only person each of you were thinking about was your own job.
You bet on the wrong one and lost!
That being said, there are many fine ADA's that are going to face a career challenge. To those, good luck and hopefully you will not take with you or continue to use the policies of the Rosenthal office.
Michael,
Well, this is a strange turn of events. Me supporting the Dem and you supporting the Pub?!?! I understand the issues with Bradford and I don't seek to minimize them. However, Lykos has her own issues with civil rights, too. Bradford has also refrained from making personal attacks on the ADAs and now with the stage set for November, there is no need for him to start now. I think if he takes the "firm but fair" stand with the ADAs, he will be the candidate many support. After Lykos and all she has said about the good people of the Office, it is my fervent hope that she does not win.
Anon 9:50,
Of course the ADAs are concerned about their jobs. Is that so unnatural. They want to keep on with careers in public service. Back before Chuck Rosenthal found his delete key, people considered it a noble profession. It still is a noble profession. Its just experiencing some horrible P.R. right now. As for supporting Jim, I would be more inclined to agree with you if he hadn't lied to so many people who trusted him.
I was really busy yesterday. Needed to bill hours, pick up the kids, get them dinner, go the gym. Had to make a speical effort to get out and vote.
I wasn't going to vote, but for ONE thing. I go to Church. I make an effort to get to Church EVERY Sunday and for Wed. night fellowship too. I do NOT go to Lakewood. I'm not really comfortable with Rev. Osteen's preaching, I think it is a bit light on the Gospel and a bit heavy on the power of positive thinking.
That being said I have a lot of respect for Lakewood, they strike me as sincere Christians who are doing their level best to walk the walk. I don't think that the people who go to Lakewood are screwballs and nuts, just as I don't think any sincere Christian is a screwball or a nut.
So I made a special effort to get out and vote yesterday.
Sorry to be anonymous but I don't have an OpenID or Google/Blogger ID and don't have the time to get one right now.
Larry Rasczak
I won't vote for either of the above. May the worst win. And I agree about Jim L. .... what a disappointment he turned out to be...I guess he's planning on some big career boost if HIS candidate "takes" office. I don't think enough Repubs stayed with the party for the primary and that hurt Kelly. I'm going to sit back and see if the "changes" that are coming are going to be what the fools have in mind.
I saw her last Sunday, I was rooting for her. When I found out, I said "damn" and did a silly blog post expressing the art of shouting "damn!"
I'm surprised so many people are directing their anger at Jim. You can be sad that your friend lost, but what are you gaining there? Some are suggesting that his actions have been super political... really? Lets not forget that he could have easily filed to have both Lykos and Seigler out of the race from the beginning. Seigler is a dam good prosecutor. But only an idiot would think that Leitner would not have been great for the job. He is far from a liar. For whatever reasons upon which he decided to vote for Lykos, get over it. Obviously a majority of voters agreeed.
Anon,
Thank you for pointing out what everyone has seem to have forgotten. Jim was the only true candidate that should have been on the ballot. Kelly, Pat nor Doug had the guts to file to run against Chuck. If people really want to be mad, be mad at the Republican Party and the so called "Leaders." Be mad at Chuck.
Jim Leitner is not a liar. He is not a politician. He was the better of the four candidates.
If the whole truth could ever be told, there were ADA's supporting Jim. Why didn't they support Kelly? I guess will never know because of the fear factor that reigns at the CJC.
Will Pat or Bradford be better than Jim or Kelly? Unfortunately, we will never know.
Another anonymous blogger
Anons,
I make no argument with you that Jim Leitner was a good candidate who had the requisite experience to be the D.A. I strongly disagree that he was more qualified than Kelly, however.
Why he didn't file the lawsuit is best answered by him and Republican Party leaders, in my opinion.
I tend to agree with Grits and some other politically educated posters that Leitner's endorsement had as little to do with Lykos' victory as my endorsement of Kelly was responsible for the March 4th results. There is a sharp division between lawyers whose intelligence I respect over whether or not the lawsuit could have been won.
But make no mistake about it.
Jim Leitner is a liar.
He lied to the faces of numerous prosecutors. If he had, from the beginning, said "Look guys, I'm sorry if it's going to upset you, but if I don't make the runoff, I'm supporting Pat Lykos", the ADAs who formerly respected him would have been disappointed, but they still would have respected him.
But that's not what he did. Somebody wrote it earlier that the issue with Jim is personal. Prosecutors deal with defense attorneys on a daily basis, and it is EXTREMELY RARE that a defense attorney would blatantly lie to them.
Part of the reason that there is so much venom spewing at Jim right now is that nobody ever expected this to come from HIM.
But, hey, Jim, it's your reputation. I guess you can do whatever you want to with it, right?
just to be clear - are you saying that Jim said something to the effect that if he didn't get the nomination that he would support kelly??
if not, could you please clarify as to what this horrible lie was?
thanks.
Rumors that Jim planned on endorsing Lykos once he failed to make the runoff started circulating fairly early in the campaign. The ADAs who were keenly aware of Lykos' reputation for being a ruthless bureaucrat who would be a monster to work for went to Jim and asked if that was true.
He blatantly lied to their faces that he would never do such a thing because he knew how bad Lykos would be for the Office and that she would fire good people and good prosecutors because they had opposed her. He lied to every person that asked him about it. His friends also adamantly denied that he would ever support someone of Lykos' bad character.
The people at the Office who thought Jim was their friend found out the hardway that he was not. No one ever asked him to endorse Kelly. They just asked him if he was going to weigh in on it. Rather than tell them "sorry, but that's what I'm going to do", he lied like a gradeschooler.
Part of the reason the ADAs are so angry and Jim's reputation has plummeted so badly was because they thought so highly of Jim. He was someone that they admired and respected and he lied to their faces. I feel badly for his wife Michelle, because she is a sweet person, but what Jim did is unforgiveable.
But, I guess that's what happens when you sell your soul to party leadership, isn't it?
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