Two governors -- Deal and Perry -- similar ethics of "abuse of power"?

Gov. Rick Perry has been indicted by a grand jury in Texas over allegations that he abused the power of his office by threatening to veto the budgetary funding for the office that investigates wrong-doing by state office-holders, as long as the current chair remained in office.    She refused to resign, and he did veto funding.

Gov. Nathan Deal was facing an ethics charge on the handling of his campaign finances during his run for governor in 2010.   As the ethics investigation heated up in 2011, and subpoenas were about to be served, the executive director of the ethics commission was told that budget cuts required her salary to be cut by $35,000 (not surprisingly, she resigned) and that the job of her deputy (and a key investigator in the charges) would be eliminated.

Aren't these two situations quite similar?    

The main surface difference seems to be that Gov. Deal denies having anything to do with the job changes at the ethics commission -- although it has been established that his office had already picked her replacement, and in the end they got the settlement they wanted.  In addition, the replacement has since then revealed that she felt pressured by two members of the governor's senior staff to settle his ethics charges without a public hearing.  And that is what happened:  no public hearing, a negotiated settlement resulting in a wrist-slap fine for technical errors in financial disclosure reports.

It really strains credulity to contend that Gov. Deal was not involved in this tampering with an investigation and abuse of power.   Of course, his finger-prints are not on it, but that's how he operates -- just like Gov. Chris Christie is technically not the one who ordered the bridge closing and all the other abuses of power in New Jersey.

So, if the Perry case merits a grand jury indictment in Texas, why do we not have an independent investigator looking into Deal's deal here in Georgia?    Because Deal's got the Attorney General in his pocket, and he won't order an independent investigation.

Is our governor even slicker than theirs?    Well, truth be told, I would never expect Nathan Deal to have an "Oops" moment in debate;   he's too buttoned down for that.  He never speaks in anything resembling abandon.  He would just drone and drone and drone and put everyone to sleep.

Fortunately, I don't believe we've heard the end of this yet.    For one thing, Jason Carter is going to keep it alive in their competitive race for the governor's seat in the November election.

Ralph