It's good to be king.

So Hutchinson County (Texas) district attorney Clay L. Ballman discovered on May 12, 2005 when he was involved in an accident. He was drunk, and fled the scene, leaving the other individual involved in the attack chasing him down and calling 9/11, where he was found to be intoxicated. He pled guilty, received 4 days in jail and a fine and resumed his job.

The mother of the daughter involved in the collision is having a difficult time finding an attorney to help her petition for his removal under a seldom used Texas law that allows officials to be removed for use of intoxicants.

My questions are: how far have we degraded when drinking and driving combined with a hit and run is not AUTOMATIC justification for removal of an official who is often charged with prosecuting others who commit the same, and sometimes even lesser, offenses? Why do we not hold officials charged with upholding the law responsible for obeying the law as well? And why is this woman having such difficulty getting representation in this case when MADD shows up in force to protest far lesser travesties?

When our Constitution was written, it was written with the intent that all of the citizens in this country should be of equal status. Titles of nobility were expressly forbidden. Yet we've made the position of elected officials essentially titles of nobility and granted them immunity from the very laws they are empowered to enforce. Clay Ballman, at the very east, should no longer be the sitting DA in Hutchinson County.

Let's hope his fiefdom exercises some common sense and topples him from his throne come the next election.