When minority Democrats are caught in a corruption net they can’t slip out of, they will usually play the race card. “Oh woe is me, here I am a poor brown skinned boy (or girl) from the bad side of town trying to pull myself up by the bootstraps and the evil racist right wing is lying about me trying to keep me down,” or something close, can be heard as a panicky, knee jerk response to being caught having committed a crime. It can often signal that the final act of the drama is not far off.

Democrat Senator Bob Menendez of New Jersey is one of these “poor, put-upon minorities.”

The evil right wingers just can’t let go of allegations that poor Bob got paid off by a rich Miami eye doctor to ensure that life became very good for him. What poor Bob accepted in return for selling out the rest of us was being flown to the Dominican Republic, on the doctor’s private plane, for three sex tours where he was serviced by underage hookers. That is a federal crime, or it would be if the hookers could be found; but alas, they have disappeared.

But what do the facts say? The FBI and the IRS raided the office of Salmon Melgen, the doctor involved,  because they believe he owes the government millions in unpaid taxes. The papers also say poor Bob “discovered” a bookkeeping error and has now “paid” $58,000 to Melgen for flying him down to see the underage hookers again and again.

Now those underage hookers can’t be found – hmmmm. End of scandal, right? Not so fast: an American hooker who is of age has come forward to say she has serviced poor Bob and OTHER U. S. Senators.

This must be serious because over the weekend, poor Bob went to a Black church in New Jersey crying and wringing his hands about being picked on by those “evil right wingers.”

Where this is going is hard to say; but the timing of having the American hooker, who has been found and will come forward, is bad news for poor Bob. Someone who has the real cards is determined to trump his phony “race” card. Someone with the power wants to bring him down.       

LA Police Chief Charlie Beck has made a bad decision.

Life is a series of decisions. No one should understand this more than Los Angeles Police Chief Charlie Beck. For obvious reasons, in any situation, your ideal position is one of “win or break even.” Those who are in the public area, especially big city police chiefs, more often than not find themselves in the opposite position: “lose or break even”; but that’s part of the job.

Since the “lose or break even” dilemma is virtually unavoidable as a rule, voluntarily placing yourself in one is especially foolish. When the best you can do is not lose, you ought to not go there; but Chief Beck doesn’t seem to understand this simple logic.

Beck was in the unenviable position of overseeing the everyday functions of a big city police department AND supervising the most important manhunt in recent memory. But at the top of his “to do” list was finding Christopher Dorner, a hate-filled mongrel who wanted to kill cops because he was fired from the LAPD in 2007.

As a rookie, Dorner was judged to have falsely reported seeing his training officer kick a mentally ill man during an arrest. The evidence against Dorner was persuasive enough to get him fired.

So Dorner went on a killing spree aimed at getting even with those he believed responsible for his firing. He had already killed three people, including the daughter of the police captain who unsuccessfully represented him in his hearing and her companion. A few hours later, he ambushed two on-duty uniformed police officers, killing one and wounding the other.

Clearly, Beck had big problems; but he added to them by announcing he would review Dorner’s case. This was foolish beyond words! What could have happened as a result of that review? The firing could have been found to be unjust; but whether a correct conclusion or not, Beck would have looked like a sap and a weakling just at a time when his officers needed him to stand tall and strong.

If the review upheld Dorner’s firing, Beck would have gained nothing.  But more importantly, while men under his command were being killed by a monster and psychopath, Beck would have clearly made himself appear more concerned with the political correctness of a 6 year old internal review than with the lives of his officers. But apparently, special allowances had to be made, what with Dorner being a black officer. After all, what if he were somehow justified in murdering those who had been “unfair” to him?

It’s bad enough that Beck voluntarily put himself and his department in a “lose or break even” box. Now every officer in the Department will wonder whether their Chief is more concerned with the safety of his men or the politics of the next life-and-death situation.

Beck might have caught Dorner, but he made his job one Hell of a lot tougher in the future.

Photo credit: Antonio Villaraigosa (Creative Commons)