Count 1: Dumb
Easy question: Who on Earth hires his paramour to work for him in a high-profile taxpayer-supported job--so much as a taxpayer-supported law-enforcement job--and then expects to win office again? Easy answer: Apart from David Soares, nobody, that’s who. Harder question: Why would Albany County voters even contemplate reelecting a district attorney who does? Answer: I haven't a clue. But if you do, please let us know.
The thing about Soares isn't--or shouldn't be--that he has broken some ethical or religious covenant and deserves metaphysical retribution through the ballot box. That's for very holy people to determine. But rather what Soares has violated is the Basic Intelligence Test, which deserves ballot box euthanasia. The Basic Intelligence Test says that you don't hire your girlfriend to work in the front-office of your high-profile office--you just don't. And if you don't have the native intelligence to figure this out, you'll probably die in a hunting accident or drown in your bathtub--ergo the world will probably be better and safer if you don't hold public office--especially law enforcement, where's there's lots of sharp objects, guns and criminals. It also violates the Basic Judgement Test which says if your judgement is so deficient that you can't make this judgement, it--your judgement, that is--probably ranks around that of a free-range chicken, so we're all really better-off that you don't hold public office and make big judgements--like whether or not to cross the street, no less indict somebody.
But who knows, perhaps David Soares in his own defense can point to a similar situation elsewhere here in the First World where a half-witted district attorney hires his big-baggaged honey (we'll get to her specific baggage later on), gets busted doing that, doesn't correct the situation, and then expects to win office. I tried googling for something similar, but I just can’t find anything as ridiculously in-the-public’s-face. Maybe it’s because in a lot of places this kind of stuff is against the law. But hey, if David Soares can find something similar, some precedent, we will gladly publish it. Or just drop it into the comment section below.
But what you can google and find lots of material are the terms ‘David Soares’, or more specifically ‘David Soares girlfriend.’ This is where the aggregated incomptence, arrogance, and stupidity of this guy hits you in the face like a January Nor'easter. Go ahead and click through.
And just for the record, this is what Soares has to say about it all:
“I find it unfortunate that my personal relationships are the subject of political fodder less than 24 hours after the announcement of my political opponent.”
“Unfortunate,” he says. It’s somebody else’s fault. Huh?
So really at the end of the day, and in plain words, only one question remains: Who’s the bigger idiot here, David Soares or the voters of Albany County?
Count 2: Dumber
Fox 23 News writes last autumn:
Three weeks of a relatively peaceful Occupy Albany came to an end over the weekend as dozens of the protesters were arrested for trespassing from Academy Park to Lafayette Park, in violation of a state-imposed curfew.
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And Albany County District Attorney David Soares says, no matter how many times they go back again, the cases against them will be dismissed in court. “We are not going to be prosecuting peaceful protestors,” said Soares. “There are only two conditions from which we will deviate from that posture and that is if there is damage to property or assaultive behavior toward law enforcement.”
So like arson, robbery, rape are copacetic with Soares? You may think we quibble here, but not so. This is just another manifestation of the district attorney's chaotically undisciplined and ad hoc conceptualization and communication. In other words, what kind of dumbass even thinks this carelessly, so much as put out an advertisement for it.
But there is something even more fundamentally dangerous contained in the Fox23 snip: a district attorney, sworn to uphold the state’s laws and constitution, grandiosely thumbs his nose at it, and in so doing effectively makes his own law. And it’s not that a lot of folks don’t support the rights of Occupy Albany to protest, because they do—overwhelmingly so. But it really starts going downhill really fast when the group calculatingly and defiantly breaks the law by moving from one ‘open’ and city-run Albany park to an adjacent ‘closed’ and state-run Albany park—and in full knowledge that this particular state-run park was closed to them.
The disappointing thing about this move by Occupy Albany is that there was no political purpose and nothing to be gained from moving unto the state-run territory except to humiliate and provoke the governor and agitate the various police agencies assigned to ensure the protesters don’t set themselves on fire or crap on the sidewalk. But the even more disappointing thing is that this all unfolded with the explicit legal partnership of David Soares. And the seamlessness of this stunt really makes you wonder if David Soares beforehand choreographed this park-trespass number with the protesters.
Think about it this way: It would be as if the governor—angry at something or other the district attorney did or didn’t do--instructed his political supporters to rally and pitch tents in front of the district attorney’s office with the proviso that should the police arrest any of them, he’d simply grant clemency. And then convenes a press conference to tell all this to the world.
And yeah, unfortunately, this is the entirely correct analogy.
So again here’s the basic question: Is David Soares a complete dolt, blind to the precedence of his stupidity; or a dug-in, Hugo Chavez-grade, revolutionary dude writing his own rules on the fly? And if either, what the hell is he doing as the district attorney of Albany County, where chiefly because of its designation as capital of the New York, the guy has both opportunity and leverage to underwrite untold idiocy, chaos, and dumb doctrine over the entire state—and like we'll see below, export all that to the rest of the United States.
Count 3: Dumbest
In what has to be a legal and historical embarrassment for New York, Soares a few years ago goes after alleged steroid providers in Orlando, Florida. Now just think about that one for a minute: Crack dealers are killing each other in the streets of Albany but the Albany County District Attorney, somehow engineers a bust on a steroid-distributing drugstore called Signature Pharmacy 1200 miles away. And of course, not surprisingly, he completely botches the job--as in surreally botch--wasting a boatload of sales tax revenue, and brings back nothing but abject embarrassment and recurrent and expensive legal headaches to the state and county he represents. Here’s what the New York Times--no enemy of Soares--writes about the culminating grand jury:
But in a bitingly worded decision, Judge Herrick described the case against Signature as “complex and unwieldy,” noting that prosecutors had presented four succeeding indictments to two grand juries over 15 months, often changing the specific counts charged against the Signature owners and employees and bringing new facts to bear against them.
....……
But during the presentation of the fourth and final indictment, the judge wrote, a prosecutor had misled the grand jury by failing to inform them that he had previously dismissed several of the counts being presented. Nor did the prosecutor offer sufficient instruction to the jury, Judge Herrick wrote.
“The grand jury was not advised as to which counts charged which particular crimes and, apparently were left to sift through the voluminous amount of materials and exhibits introduced, along with the new version of the indictment to figure it out for themselves,” he wrote.
Let’s just repeat that last paragraph for emphasis: “The grand jury was not advised as to which counts charged which particular crimes and, apparently were left to sift through the voluminous amount of materials and exhibits introduced, along with the new version of the indictment to figure it out for themselves.” This is way, way beyond just "wtf, David?" and into near-dissociative levels of incompetence and lassitude. But if you can derive something other than that, or any type of trifiling positive whatsoever, please let us know.
What else is there to think? Had Soares just used LegalZoom it probably would have turned out better. Seriously. And not for nothing, this Florida debacle would make for some phenomenal SNL skits except that this operation probably cost the county, all told, about $10 grand an hour. In fact, if Soares were representing an individual rather than a county, and at this price, and with this result, and while incubating this inane a legal misadventure, he’d probably get himself disbarred. I’m just not sure whether for incomprehensible incompetence or bankrupting his client.
Unfortunately for Albany County taxpayers, but fortunately for antagonistic bloggers like us, these three epi-debacles are only the tip of the melting ice cube that is David Soares. Consequently, this blog--like a growing number of individuals--believe that these and other horror stories need to be told before this existentially incompetent maniac is elected to a third term and can blow even more newly-capped local tax revenue by attempting to indict Mexican drug cartels, Burmese diamond dealers or maybe Russian plutonium smugglers. And so doing, of course, ignore any local, state, federal, or international law or standing treaty that displeases him or his political patrons. So telling this story and stopping this man is what this blog aims to do. And please take our word for it, it’s all going to come out: we’ve got the names and the numbers and the times and the dates. But should you also have useful things, please send them to us at albanybatman@gmail.com.
So check back early and often, you won’t be disappointed. If nothing else, you’re sure to get a few laughs because this guy is a walking, talking comedy of error whom we virtually guarantee will do some really, really bizarre and ridiculous things between now and primary day.
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