Say what?

Say what?  A county district attorney is convicted of drunk driving, and serves time in jail.  The popular, long-serving governor of the state demands that she resign.  The governor threatened to veto future funding for the district attorney's office if she didn't step down – and after she still didn't resign, the governor did veto the district attorney's funding.

Told that way, I'm supportive of the governor: if you have a bad apple employee, you need to fire him or her.  He didn't have the authority to fire her, but he did have the authority to withhold funding for her office.

Or so he thought.

Governor Rick Perry has been indicted for abuse of power.  The district attorney (Rosemary Lehmberg) served her sentence and is still the Travis County district attorney.  I'm sure the fact that Perry is a conservative Republican and that Lehmberg is a progressive Democrat has nothing whatsoever to do with it.  Nah, it couldn't.

I am surprised, though, that the Democrats would really want to defend a drunk driving district attorney.  Her behavior when arrested was not exactly commendable.  Her behavior after conviction was even less so.  Those Texas progressives (now there's two words that don't seem compatible!) must really, really hate Governor Perry.

Perry is not my idea of a hero.  There are many areas of disagreement between he and I.  But I do like the way he tried to deal with this problem employee.  It doesn't seem right, or American, and most especially not Texan, for him to be punished for this.  In the days of yore, the Governor would have whipped out a pearl-handled six-shooter and dealt out some Texas justice.  Cutting off the district attorney's funding sounds like a suitably civilized version of that to me...

Update: Hot Air is all over this, with video of the district attorney's DUI stop and booking.