Kane's defense is really offense

LET'S AGREE OUR state attorney general isn't in a good place.

But what if her reaction to her troubles isn't as nutty as it seems?

What if there's a plan?

For example: Kathleen Kane is a confirmed speaker at the Penn Ag Democrats summer picnic Wednesday afternoon in Pine Grove Mills, Centre County.

It's chicken barbecue, $25.

The Centre Daily Times quotes Penn Ag Dems' officer Peggy Lucas saying, "We encourage candidates to develop thoughtful policies to improve the quality of life for all rural Pennsylvanians."

Pine Grove Mills (population 1,500) is just about at the state's dead center, less than 6 miles from Penn State.

If anything about this strikes you as ironic, you know your state politics.

What strikes me is, whoa, pretty gutsy.

Kane faces a preliminary hearing next week on criminal charges, including a grand jury leak, obstruction and perjury. So this week she speaks at a political picnic with a focus on candidates running this year and next.

And, as it happens, the picnic's in the backyard of PSU, which gave Kane her avenue to office in 2012, when she ran promising to probe the state's investigation of Jerry Sandusky.

When in trouble, get back to basics.

This is sorta like that - let's call it unusual - public show Kane offered the media in the Capitol last week: a rambling 14-minute statement, no questions answered.

The first thing that occurred me was a Jack Nicholson line: "Sell crazy someplace else. We're all stocked up here."

And we are. In Harrisburg, in Pennsylvania, in politics generally; which is why I think Kane might actually be on to something.

Her main argument is everyone's out to get her.

Why?

Well, because she's an independent female nonpolitician trying to do right in a corrupt, hyper-political state run by men who love power as much as porn.

No real evidence. But a mix of men, power, porn and prosecution is potent, especially since it raises questions of why this grand jury leak was vigorously pursued while others (including about Kane's charges) are not.

The notion of a Democratic woman initially seen with unlimited political potential being singled out and pursued by Republican prosecutors and judges is at least plausible in a state known for partisanship.

Pennsylvania politics is so bad, anything's believable. And who knows what another chapter of "Porngate" could bring?

Did Kane screw up? You bet. In many ways, many times. She declined to prosecute fellow Democrats caught in a sting; she fired a top aide who testified against her; and evidence suggests she could lose her law license (hence her office), be impeached or get convicted.

So things for our attorney general are bleak.

But Kane is a mom of two school-aged sons (which she played to last week) portraying herself as an outside fighter against the evils of inside men.

In the court of public opinion, that's a weapon.

The day after Kane's "news" event, I was on two call-in radio shows, WHYY's "Radio Times" in Philly and WESA's "Essential Pittsburgh" in, well, Pittsburgh.

At both ends of the state, there were callers supportive of Kane.

They raised questions about presumption of innocence, harsh media treatment, disproportionate power of grand juries and, given the state's capacity for corruption, the possibility that Kane's "they're-out-to-get-me" claim is correct.

There are similar thoughts across social media.

Now, callers to talk radio in no way represent consensus, and most social media are madness.

But there's a wave washing over America that favors anyone who is or acts as an outsider. You see it in the rise of presidential candidates Donald Trump, Bernie Sanders and Carly Fiorina.

If it lasts, if Kane lasts, maybe it becomes a tide; one on which even crazy floats.

Blog: ph.ly/BaerGrowls

Columns: ph.ly/JohnBaer