ED DRISCOLL: Tina Brown Could Not Be Reached for Comment.

REMINDER: In 2009, President Obama “Joked” About Auditing His Enemies.

MICHAEL BARONE: A decent lawyer should tell liberals they’re damned fools and ought to stop.

“About half the practice of a decent lawyer consists in telling would-be clients that they are damned fools and should stop.” So supposedly said Elihu Root, New York lawyer and secretary of war and of state, and U.S. senator from 1909 to 1915.

Today it seems that many liberal “would-be clients” are in desperate need of what Root called “a decent lawyer.”

Take Texans for Public Justice, the so-called public interest group that has been pushing for the indictment of Gov. Rick Perry by a grand jury at the urging of special prosecutor Michael McCrum.

The basis for the indictment is, in the words of liberal New York Magazine writer Jonathan Chait, “unbelievably ridiculous.” The first count says that Perry violated a vaguely worded statute by threatening to veto an appropriation. That, even though the Texas Constitution gives governors the veto power and the U.S. Constitution’s First Amendment protects their right to free speech.

The second count states that it was illegal “coercion” to demand the resignation of Rosemary Lehmberg, head of the public integrity prosecution unit whose funding Perry vetoed, after she was arrested for drunk driving with blood alcohol content three times the legal limit.

“To describe the indictment as ‘frivolous’ gives it far more credence than it deserves,” Chait said. Liberal Harvard law professor Alan Dershowitz agreed. Perry’s actions, he said, are “not anything for a criminal indictment,” adding that the indictment is reminiscent of “what happens in totalitarian societies.”

The editorial writers of the Washington Post and the New York Times agreed. A “tendentious prosecution,” the Post wrote, noting that it was not the first one launched in Austin. The Texas town also produced the 2006 campaign finance indictment of former House Majority Leader Tom DeLay that was finally ruled invalid last year.

The Times, after making clear its distaste for Perry (“one of the least thoughtful and most damaging state leaders in America”), wrote that “the indictment appears to be the product of an overzealous prosecution.”

Many Texas liberals, perhaps shellshocked after losing every statewide race since 1994, are still chortling over Perry’s predicament. But the obvious injustice of the indictment may help more than hurt Perry. A decent lawyer would have told them to stop.

It’s also served as a wakeup call to the GOP on the importance of lawfare-related issues, something I’ve been pushing for a while. Dems will regret it if — or when — the Republicans get serious on this front.

NOTHING CREEPY ABOUT THIS: Government to Track ‘False, Misleading’ Ideas on Twitter.

The National Science Foundation is financing the creation of a web service that will monitor “suspicious memes” and what it considers “false and misleading ideas,” with a major focus on political activity online.

The “Truthy” database, created by researchers at Indiana University, is designed to “detect political smears, astroturfing, misinformation, and other social pollution.”

Yeah, I’m not worried that a database named for a Colbert slam at the right will be subject to political abuse or anything. The researchers are:

Program Manager: Balasubramanian Kalyanasundaram

Filippo Menczer (Principal Investigator)
Alessandro Vespignani (Co-Principal Investigator)
Alessandro Flammini (Co-Principal Investigator)
Johan Bollen (Co-Principal Investigator)

I’ll be watching to see how this is used, and encourage everyone else to do the same. Remember when protest was patriotic? Now, apparently, it’s been fundamentally transformed.

PROTECTING THE NARRATIVE: Networks Dodge Huge IRS Scandal News as DOJ Attorney Says Lost Lerner E-Mails Do Exist.

THE COUNTRY’S IN THE VERY BEST OF HANDS. The Hill: White House struggles with message on threat of ISIS.

The White House is struggling to deliver a clear message on the threat posed by radical Islamist group ISIS and what the administration might do to counteract it.

Officials have sowed confusion by giving different statements at different times on the level of danger posed by the Islamic group, whose full name is the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria.

Obama’s decision last year to ask Congress for authority to level Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s forces with air strikes is also haunting the administration as it mulls strikes in Syria against ISIS. There have been no guarantees that similar Congressional approval will be sought this time around.

White House press secretary Josh Earnest was peppered with questions on the issue Monday. Referring to the proposed strikes against the Assad regime last year, Earnest responded, “That was a different situation, right?”

But he said little that was definitive about whether attacks against ISIS in Syria are now being considered. Any such action would represent a major escalation from the current situation, in which the U.S. is carrying out airstrikes against ISIS positions in northwestern Iraq.

Strikes within Syria would not merely represent a significant ramping-up of U.S, military action. They would also risk providing de facto assistance to the Assad regime, even while the United States hopes that government will be deposed.

The issue of congressional approval for strikes inside Syria was given another twist late on Monday when Sen. Tim Kaine (Va.), a Democrat known to be close to Obama, issued a statement insisting that “I do not believe that our expanded military operations against ISIL are covered under existing authorizations from Congress.”

Our junior-varsity administration is in over its head, and even they’re starting to notice. But they’re still dragging their feet.

THE MAN IS A MEDIA GENIUS: Glenn Beck, Conquering Hero.

THAT’S GREAT. NOW WALK THE WALK. Yale’s New President Stands Up For Free Speech.

PEJMAN YOUSEFZADEH: Remember How Obamacare Is Supposedly No Longer a Campaign Issue?

WELL, THIS SEEMS PROMISING: Saudi foreign minister: we must denounce our hatred toward Israel and begin normalize ties with Jewish nation.

LIFE IN POST-RACIAL AMERICA: Mississippi man beaten after he’s warned restaurant wasn’t safe for whites, witness says.

A relative, Bradley Barnes of Madison, told The Associated Press by telephone on Sunday that his brother-in-law was in a medically induced coma following brain surgery. “They’re going to try and wake him up tomorrow and see what damage was done,” Barnes said, describing Weems as a 32-year-old former Marine who had served in Iraq.

David Knighten of West Point told AP earlier by phone that he and Weems had gone to a Waffle House early Saturday. He said a man waved him over outside the restaurant and told him politely that people were upset by the killing of 18-year-old Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri, and it wasn’t a safe place for whites. When he went in, he said, Weems was inside and was arguing with other men. . . .

Knighten, who said he had served with the Air Force in Afghanistan, said he came out of the restroom to find Weems surrounded. “I was trying to defuse the situation,” he said.

After some shoving, he said, the security guard told everyone to leave.

Knighten said some people blocked him from leaving with Weems. When he got out, he said, Weems was down and people were kicking him. Knighten said others attacked him, adding “I do remember racial slurs being yelled from the crowd.”

Knighten says he has broken bones in his face, a cut over his left eye and a blood clot in his right eye.

Police did not arrive until after the crowd had left, he said.

But this is a relief: “This does not appear to be a hate crime.”

GIVE ME THE MAN AND I WILL FIND A CRIME: “Hey Wisconsin conservatives. You’re not paranoid, Democrats really are out to get you.”

I’m with Kurt Schlichter — the way you break them of this is to do it back to them, twice as hard.

JUDICIAL WATCH: Missing IRS Emails Are Backed Up.

HIGHER EDUCATION BUBBLE UPDATE, LEGAL EDUCATION EDITION: Number of Prospective Law Profs Drops 17% from 2013 (26% From 2010). A few years ago I was talking with an extremely smart former student who was interested in law teaching. She got back to me a few weeks later and said she had done some research and didn’t think legal education was going to do very well in coming years, and would thus stay in practice. Like I said, she’s extremely smart. . . .

IN CAMILLE PAGLIA’S WORDS, WE’LL ALL BE LIVING IN GRASS HUTS: Gay Patriot: What Happens When the Patriarchy Is Smashed?

SCIENCE: Cell-Phone Data Might Help Predict Ebola’s Spread.

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MY USA TODAY COLUMN FOR TOMORROW: Hammers, Nails, and Accountability: The Militarization of Policing and What To Do About It.

TRAIN WRECK UPDATE: Universities Passing On ObamaCare Costs To Employees. The Insta-Daughter recently got an email from her school saying that they’re limiting hours for student workers to 20 a week because of ObamaCare.

WHAT COULD GO WRONG? Stacy McCain Is Reading Feminist Theory.

LIKE THE US LEGAL SYSTEM, THE UK LEGAL SYSTEM OPERATES AS A TORPEDO FOR BIG COPYRIGHT: Crime And Punishment? 33 Months In Jail For Filming And Uploading Fast & Furious 6.

JIM TREACHER: With All The Other Problems In The World, The Internet Is Still Keeping Taylor Swift Honest.

IS FACIAL SYMMETRY OVERRATED? Attractive faces and good health may not be related. Standards of attractiveness are so uniform worldwide that it seems like it must mean something.

A CIVIL RIGHTS VICTORY: California’s Firearms Waiting Period Deemed Unconstitutional. “California’s 10-day waiting period for gun purchases was ruled unconstitutional by a federal judge this morning in a significant victory for Second Amendment civil rights. The laws were challenged by California gun owners Jeffrey Silvester and Brandon Combs, as well as two gun rights groups, The Calguns Foundation and Second Amendment Foundation. In the decision released this morning, Federal Eastern District of California Senior Judge Anthony W. Ishii, appointed to the bench by President Bill Clinton, found that ‘the 10-day waiting periods of Penal Code [sections 26815(a) and 27540(a)] violate the Second Amendment’ as applied to members of certain classifications, like Silvester and Combs, and ‘burdens the Second Amendment rights of the Plaintiffs.'”

THE DRESS CODE IS THE ONE CODE THEY’LL NEVER CRACK: The White House Gives Up on Making Coders Dress Like Adults.