Don Hill tries to change the subject

I've always admired and respected the politician in Don Hill. I followed him closely when he was on the Dallas City Council and found him to be the most compassionate member of that council. He voted more often with his heart than with his head and I liked that. I was fortunate enough to be in a position for a while that allowed me to write speeches for him and I felt during this time that one of the best things that could happen to our city would be for Don Hill to some day be elected mayor.

That's why I felt like the boy Phillipe in The Fallen Idol when the Justice Department raided City Hall and later filed a series of criminal corruption charges against Hill. My dismay mounted as those who were charged along with Hill plea bargained their cases and agreed to testify against the former mayor pro temp. All during this time, Hill remained conspicuously silent.

Now, less than a week before his trial is set to begin, Hill has broken that silence, claiming in an interview with Gromer Jeffers Jr. of the Dallas Morning News that the charges against him were politically motivated from a justice department that, under former President George Bush, specifically targeted Democratic office holders.

"The FBI and the Justice Department has a duty and role and responsibility to investigate things that are illegal and I respect that," Hill told Jeffers. "The way they went about investigating, targeting and now prosecuting me was not fair from the standpoint of I'm a Democrat, the was an effort made throughout the country to target local Democrats and that, in my judgment, is unfair and unjust."

Hill's charges that the Bush Justice Department specifically targeted Democrats are true. In fact, a Congressional committee has been investigating this very thing, but was stymied because Bush protected the two key persons the committee needed to interview, Harriet Miers and Carl Rove, by claiming presidential immunity. What the committee was looking into, however, was the firing of Democratic-affiliated U.S. attorneys. Did the targeting reach down to municipal levels? Does it really matter?

But it is also true that Hill's claims have absolutely nothing to do with his innocence or guilt on the specific charges filed against him. Like all clever politicians, he is trying to shift the subject of the debate. But this tactic worked for O.J. Simpson in his criminal murder trial, so who's to say it might not work again.