There is a problem with Ms. Coulter’s “Why Can’t I Get Arrested?”, in which she points to a series of “trumped-up criminal charges” against conservatives, and blames Democratic prosecutors. It seems to me Coulter misses the real issue, or simply sacrifices it for partisan point scoring.
Having said that, I am pretty sure she is correct, and that the indictments she cites are mostly a sham. I am also quite certain that for every rogue Democrat prosecutor there’s a Republican every bit as knavish. Patrick Fitzgerald’s “Plamegate” is indubitably bogus, just as the prosecutions of Conrad Black, Martha Stewart, and Michael Jackson are highly problematic. That is if the “Rights Of Englishmen“—due process, habeas corpus, the right to counsel; no crime without intent, no self incrimination, no retroactive law—count. And of course, some law is simply naturally illicit. Limbaugh might have been Addicted to that Rush, but the use of force against those who ingest, inject, or inhale drugs must be rejected. As I’ve written, “incarcerating people for their consumption choices has the consistency of arresting a survivor of suicide for attempted murder.”
Back to the central mistake in the Coulter column: Rogue prosecutors are deploying the law—law that is on the books for abuse by any Justice Department uberbloodhound, Democrat or Republican. It is not that Republicans are saints and Democrats are sinners, as Ms. Coulter’s tack suggests (they’re more or less competitively corrupt). Rather, rotten, unconstitutional law, and politically voracious prosecutors who abuse power are the problem.
