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| Chesa Boudin, defective |
Political language – and with variations, this is true of all political parties, from Conservatives to Anarchists – is designed to make lies sound truthful and murder respectable, and to give an appearance of solidity to pure wind – George Orwell
California, most people understand, has been the petri dish
of postmodern progressivism. Early in June, District Attorney Chesa Boudin of
San Francisco was recalled, apparently for having failed to do his job.
The recall vote was unambiguously decisive. The San Francisco Chronicle reported on June 7, “San
Francisco voters overwhelmingly voted to remove District Attorney Chesa
Boudin from office on Tuesday, favoring a recall effort that argued his
progressive reforms were too lenient and made the city less safe.
“Boudin trailed by about 20 percentage points Tuesday evening,
according to the latest figures from city elections officials. Around 60% of
San Franciscans who cast ballots voted to recall him.”
The charge against Boudin was led by Mary Jung, a chairwoman
of the recall campaign, who later observed, “This election does not mean that
San Francisco has drifted to the far right on our approach to criminal justice.
In fact, San Francisco has been a national beacon for progressive criminal
justice reform for decades and will continue to do so with new leadership.”
This being San Francisco, there were two sides to the
recall.
USA Today reported, “Recall proponents said Boudin
was ideologically inflexible and inexperienced, often siding with criminals
instead of victims. Recall opponents said the recall was a Republican power
grab meant to undermine public safety reforms.”
Boudin quickly claimed victim status, the default position
for postmodern progressives when a tide turns against them. "This is not a
recall campaign interested in safety or in truth or in justice or in
solutions,” Boudin said at a campaign event surrounded by Asian American,
African American and Latino community leaders. “It's interested in division, in
fear and spreading hate and undermining policies ... that make our communities
safer."
The communities have now expressed their disagreement with
Boudin by recalling him.
The USA report thought it worth mentioning that “Boudin was
a baby when his parents, left-wing Weather Underground radicals, served as
drivers in a botched 1981 robbery in New York that left two police officers and
a security guard dead. They were sentenced to decades in prison.
“While campaigning, he spoke of the pain of stepping through
metal detectors to hug his parents and vowed to reform a system that tears
apart families. Kathy Boudin was released on parole in 2003 and died of cancer
in May. David Gilbert was granted parole in October.”
A Yahoo News account laid out in lurid detail the
case against Boudin.
Boudin’s troubles did
not truly begin until the last day of 2020, when a driver killed two women in
central San Francisco on New Year’s Eve. The suspect, Troy McAlister, had been
cycling through the Bay Area criminal justice system for years, but a plea deal earlier
that year with the district attorney’s office had freed him, and critics tied Boudin to the attack.
Just a month later, a
jogger was struck and killed by the driver of a stolen car. The victim, Sheria Musyoka, had emigrated from Kenya to attend
Dartmouth College. He had recently moved to San Francisco with his wife and
young child. Suspected driver Jerry Lyons was, like McAlister, a repeat
offender — the very kind of person Boudin argued nonpunitive policies could
help.
Instead, he found
himself increasingly on the defensive after the two killings, his protestation
of blamelessness coming across as callous to some. Musyoka’s widow, Hannah Ege,
bluntly said that Boudin was at fault. “This freak accident was no freak
accident,” she told a local outlet. “It was someone who was out in the public
who should not have been out in public.”
Boudin was also
seemingly flummoxed by the rise in anti-Asian violence, describing the killing
of 84-year-old Vicha Ratanapakdee as the result of a “temper tantrum” on the
part of the 19-year-old assailant. The following month, a man fatally shot six Asian women in
Atlanta,
bringing the crisis of anti-Asian violence to the fore of the national
conversation. Though he tried to depict himself as an ally of the city’s large
and influential Chinese-language community, the effort fell far short.
One of the reasons “crime doesn’t pay” in the United States
is that there are plenty of prosecutors about who make sure that criminals pay
for their crimes. Boudin was not one of these, and that is why he was given the
boot by San Franciscans who were not prepared to shut their eyes to “lies that
make murder respectable.”
If there is a Boudin in Connecticut’s political mineshaft,
he could not be recalled, because the state, much less progressive than
California on this one point, has no recall provision.
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