OK, I confess I haven't been paying enough attention to the race for governor here in Pa. -- in fact, I believe my only post was to criticize the Tony Williams (a.k.a. "Anthony Williams," a.k.a. "Anthony Hardy Williams" -- he really needs to sort that out before his next election) campaign for taking so much money from a small group of wealthy single-issue donors. There's a lot about the race I don't really get. Democrat Dan Onorato's appeal -- other than that he looks like a candidate that some ad agency called up from Central Casting -- sort of baffles me.
And the Republican nominee, attorney general Tom Corbett? The one thing everybody knows about him is that he's indicted a lot of politicos -- a lot of Democrats and some Republicans -- on corruption charges; some have criticized those probes as politically motivated career enhancers for the ambitious AG, but I disagree. Look, many very good prosecutions are furthered by a prosecutor's ego. Rudy Giuliani (a Republican) and Eliot Spitzer (a Democrat) are egomanaical politicians whom I can't stand -- but they went after the mob, corrupt pols, and Wall Street. I much prefer that to prosecutors (and yes I'm looking at you Lynne Abraham) who prefer to play footsie with the political machine or their donors. I was concerned, however, when Corbett announced a headline-grabbing waste-of-time lawsuit against national health reform.
But now we have this.
And it's a game changer.
Corbett's actions here look like one of the most stunning abuses of power I've seen in a while -- not just in Pennsylvania but anywhere.
A blog focused on exposing the alleged "hypocrisy" of Attorney General Tom Corbett and the Twitter account associated with that blog could soon be enjoying a bounce in reader interest, thanks to a subpoena ordered by Corbett's office earlier this month.
Corbett, who won a primary against Rep. Sam Rohrer Tuesday and will be the Republican nominee for governor in November, subpoenaed Twitter representatives to appear as grand jury witnesses to “testify and give evidence regarding alleged violations of the laws of Pennsylvania.''
The case could gain viral attention, since the subpoena calls into question the right to free speech, specifically from anonymous posters on the World Wide Web.
Maybe I'm missing some nuance here but at first blush it looks like the anonymous owners of these two Twitter accounts and blogs are doing nothing more than exercising their 1st Amendment rights of free speech to criticize Corbett's public actions. If Corbett believes that he has been libelled by any of the blog or Twitter posts, he is within his rights to personally sue them (a difficult case for him to win, as a public figure). But that is a far different thing from using the power of the state and the grand jury.
My Philly.com colleague, David Merrell, has more on this.
Corbett is not commenting right now -- but he needs to explain this, immediately. In one sense, though, it may be good for the voters of Pennsylvania to learn about this now, more than five months before the election. The state has enough problems retooling its Rust Belt economy -- a power-mad governor abusing civil liberties would be too much for it to bear.
UPDATE: This article from the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette advances the theory that the account belongs to a defendent in one of Corbett's cases who is awaiting sentencing. As noted above, there's no reason why Corbett's office cannot be more transparent. And if that's the reason, I still do not believe that the AG's actions are justified, given the free speech issues involved.
The article also notes that Corbett's aides are seeking an excessively long sentence in this case. The whole episode makes Team Corbett come off as vindictive and petty. Just what Pennsylvania needs in its next governor. Also, if he's going after one guy, why go after two Twitter accounts?
Footnote: Anticipating what commenters are going to argue, I don't see an analogy here between what I've been writing about with Rep. Anthony Weiner and Goldline and Corbett's actions. As I noted yesterday, Goldline is a corporation that appears to be shortchanging consumers in a way that warrants more investigation; an analogy to what Corbett is doing would be if Weiner or someone else in government tried to subpoena Glenn Beck himself or shut down his Web site. That -- which I cannot imagine happening -- would be ludicrous, just like what Corbett is doing here is ludicrous.
"I don't see an analogy here between what I've been writing about with Rep. Anthony Weiner and Goldline and Corbett's actions." I do. Both Goldlines customers and Corbett should use civil courts (not fed or state power) to prove their cases (fraud and libel respectively).— RG
The pathetic collection of haters who comment anonymously on this blog should be praying this goes no further. If Corbett has his way every comment in every blog could be brought under the same scrutiny and pressure to identify who that person making those anonymous comments actually is.— Les Ismore
Comment removed.- And right on cue...nutty Bill Atkins— Les Ismore
- Corbett's department is rife with conflicts of interest. Since PA law permits politicians to run for higher office without resigning, he gets to "investigate" the same pols he's soliciting for money and support. Notice how he didn't find a speck of corruption in the Republican leadership caucus - even though they were awarding bonuses to staff members for work they did on their campaigns? Also, Corbett (a former Waste Management Inc. lobbyist) recently sued a PA town for enforcing regulations against sludge dumping. What a sweetheart! No wonder they love him. Sure would be nice if the state's two biggest papers had a full-time statehouse reporter...
- Methinks Corbett is about to learn all about the Streisand effect. Dumb, dumb, dumb....— GreyHippie
- S.O.S. from Will The Shill... "Democrats good, Republicans bad". Or when "Democrats bad", it's "yeah but Republicans worse". When are we going to get some diversity of thought at philly.com?— fafafooey
- He is a bad, bad man. He should be put in the same prisons he loves to send others to! He should be forced to resign immediately!— carla commenate
- This is connected to a criminal case, not a civil case. Do you know what the contents of those tweets are? My guess is that somewhere along the line the tweeters either published information subject to legal restriction, or indicated knowledge of a crime (kinda like Sestak admitting in public that the Obama administration illegally tried to entice him to withdraw from the race)that is subject to valid investigation.— Mirror
If he's simply trying to silence a critic, then that is straight up abuse of power, and he should step down as AG and withdraw from the Governor's race. There's no room for that in our democracy. If there is something else going on, such as pursuing leaks of ongoing grand jury investigations, then perhaps Corbett deserves an apology from the toxic leftists who regularly poison the waters of democracy.— Mr. Smith- Corbett's office issued a quasi-denial this morning -- why isn't this front-page news at the Inky-Daily News, as it is at the Harrisburg Patriot-News and the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette? And how can a sitting attorney general run for governor without those dual roles, law enforcer and candidate, posing a serious conflict of interest issue? The Philadelphia media continues its descent into sycophancy. You, Will Bunch, are among the few last journalists standing in what used to be a decent media town.— aviben
- Will, you know enough to begin your campaign immediately following the primary. You're as tranparent as a cheap pane of glass. Nevertheless, it doth stirreth the bile of thou liberal brethren.— lefty
- WILL BUNCH AS LOONEY AS KEITHO - to far left whack jobs attacking republicans for a living.— Manny Trillo
Will, your concern about first amendment rights is a lie! If you were really concerned you would would have posted about this http://cnsnews.com/news/article/65720 which I sent you last week. It is not freedom of speech you love, it's the left's love of their speech. Pure fraud here.— georgel- casablancaPA's blog raises some great questions about Corbett - why didn't Corbett indict Orie - for obvious campaign/legislative misuse? One of Orie's staffers told the State AG's office about the misuse - and Corbett did nothing - but Orie is a PA State Republican— pal
Will Bunch, a senior writer at the Philadelphia Daily News, blogs about his obsessions, including national and local politics and world affairs, the media, pop music, the Philadelphia Phillies, soccer and other sports, not necessarily in that order.
E-mail Will by clicking here.
PLEASE COMMENT WITH PASSION...
...but not with racial slurs, potentially libelous allegations, obscenities or other juvenile noise. Such comments will, at our discretion, be deleted in their entirety, and repeat offenders will be blocked from commenting. ALSO: Any commenter advocating killing any government official will be immediately banned.
Thanks.
- Atrios
- Kiko's House
- Suburban Guerilla
- Booman Tribune
- All-Spin Zone
- Philly (Dragonballyee)
- Afro-Netizen
- Rowhouse Logic
- MyDD
- Bad Attitudes
- Billmon
- iFlipFlop
- CorrenteWire
- upyernoz
- Tattered Coat
- Fables of the Reconstruction
- Slacktivist
- Citizen Mom
- The Next Mayor
- Philly Future
- Philadelphia Will Do
- Philebrity
- Young Philly Politics
- Phillyblog
- Welcome to Phillyville
- Phawker
- A List of Things Thrown Five Minutes Ago
- Keystone Blog
- Philadelphia - America's Hometown
- BlankBaby
- Above Average Jane
- Phillyist
- Metroblogging Philadelphia
- The Clog
- Josh Marshall
- Daily Kos
- Juan Cole
- Oliver Willis
- Andy Borowitz
- War and Piece
- Wonkette
- BuzzFlash
- Raw Story
- Cursor
- Crooks and Liars
- Swing State Project
- Kevin Drum
- Talk Left
- AmericaBlog
- Hullabaloo
- Mad Kane
- Think Progress
- Jesus' General
- The Carpetbagger Report
- Majikthise
- Echidne of the Snakes
- David Sirota
- Glenn Greenwald
- TBogg
- Fire Dog Lake
- Taylor Marsh
- Matthew Yglesias
- Jon Swift
- Drudge Report
- Beer Leaguer
- The 700 Level
- Dick Polman
- Balls, Sticks and Stuff
- Shallow Center
- Philling Station
- Phillies Nation
- A Citizen's Blog
- The Good Phight
- Romenesko
- Editor and Publisher
- Pressthink
- Buzzmachine
- The Inksniffer
- Media Bloodhound
- Eat the Press
- Mickey Kaus
- Media (Huffington Post)
- Blinq
- The Corner
- Instapundit
- Andrew Sullivan
- Free Republic
- James Taranto
- Blonde Sagacity
- ScrappleFace
- Blogorrhea
- February
- January
- December 2011
- November 2011
- October 2011
- September 2011
- August 2011
- July 2011
- June 2011
- May 2011
- April 2011
- March 2011
- February 2011
- January 2011
- December 2010
- November 2010
- October 2010
- September 2010
- August 2010
- July 2010
- June 2010
- May 2010
- April 2010
- March 2010
- February 2010
- January 2010
- December 2009
- November 2009
- October 2009
- September 2009
- August 2009
- July 2009
- June 2009
- May 2009
- April 2009
- March 2009
- February 2009
- January 2009
- December 2008
- November 2008
- October 2008
- September 2008
- August 2008
- July 2008
- June 2008
- May 2008
- April 2008
- March 2008
- January 2008
- News | Sports | Business | What's Happening | Restaurants & Food | Entertainment | Living | Marketplace | Jobs
