Cross Posted at Legal Schnauzer
Surely modern conservatism features brainpower somewhere. But with John Boehner, Michele Bachman, Glenn Beck, and the like dominating the national stage, it's hard to know for sure.
Even on the local level, conservative officials seemingly can't put two and two together and get four. Consider Mike Hale, the sheriff of Jefferson County, Alabama, which includes Birmingham.
Hale is a bona fide Bush Republican. In fact, Hale's bona fides are so strong that he hired Rob Riley, son of former GOP Governor Bob Riley, to help handle his department's legal work. As regular readers know, the Rileys have strong ties to such Bush luminaries as Karl Rove, Bill Canary, Jack Abramoff, and Michael Scanlon. Few people on the planet are more tainted by Bush-era sleaze than Bob and Rob Riley.
It seems safe to say that Mike Hale approved of the policies that George W. Bush and Bob Riley pushed over the past eight to 10 years. So why is Mike Hale whining now?
As a county sheriff, Hale relies heavily on state tax dollars--and those have been drying up in the ongoing recession that Bush and Riley helped create. State budgets are oozing red ink around the country, but Hale's situation became even worse after the Alabama Supreme Court last month threw out Jefferson County's occupational tax and business-license fee, which generated $74 million in fiscal 2010.
Did Hale notice the Alabama Supreme Court is dominated by Bush Republicans and conclude that GOP financial management is not so good for his department? Not on your life. In the midst of his complaining, Hale never mentions that it is Republicans like himself who caused this crisis.
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