February 8, 2006 Over 40 former prosecutors and retired police officers
announced their support today of Bryan Lentz, the frontrunner for the
Democratic nomination in Pennsylvania’s seventh congressional district.
Lentz, an Iraq war veteran who virtually matched incumbent U.S. Rep. Curt
Weldon dollar-for-dollar in fundraising last quarter, served from 1993 to
1999 as an Assistant District Attorney in Philadelphia. (via press release on politicspa)
Wednesday, February 08, 2006
Endorsements for Lentz
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
Posts
4 comments:
Several of these friends of Lentz who signed the letter were invovled in prosecuting the RNC 420, the protestors arrested in Philly during the 2000 RNC convention. Nice company Lentz is keeping.
I don't really think the above argument holds. Prosecutors work for Lynn Abraham, the Democrat who is the elected DA of Phildadelphia. They're not in a position to decline her office's instructions and policies, just as Joe Sestak, a career Navy man who worked for Don Rumsfeld throughout the first Bush II term and routinely briefed him on all variety of military matters, arguably, had no choice but to help carry out military policy for the war in Iraq. In reality, neither Sestak nor these prosecutors had much to do in making policy.
Kudos to Lentz (and MANY) of the prosecutors on that list, for having supported Seth Williams, a reform Democrat, in an uphill, ultimately unsuccesful promary against Abraham. Abraham is a death penalty zealot (as in, she loves to invoke it) and conservative. Lentz and his friends tried valiantly to unseat her in the primary.
I think the important point is that these are people who have a certain credibility about law enforcement. There are those of us who think that safe streets and progressive values are not mutually exclusive. So I was glad to read about Lentz's track record, and it certainly helps dispel some of my concerns. I'm particularly impressed by his work on behalf of immigrant communities, & in tackling violent crime aimed at women and children.
So by that reasoning, Lentz wasn't doing anything special when he was a prosecutor, he was just doing what he was told by Lynn Abraham and following her policies. all he did was take the cases he was given becuase it was his job, just like these guys prosecutied the RNC protestors becuase it was their job. You can't have it both ways.
I'm hearing that Lentz is set to drop out of the race tomorrow. So much for everything he said about backroom deals...
Post a Comment