Terry Keel Doth Protest Too Much?

I read with great interest an article in the Austin American-Statesman concerning Terry Keel’s denial that he was campaigning for Mindy Montford for Travis County DA. Check out a couple of paragraphs from that piece:

Republican Terry Keel said he wanted nothing to do with the Democratic primary runoff for Travis County district attorney until a local political Internet site anonymously reported that he was campaigning for candidate Mindy Montford, a contention he swears is false.

The fiery Texas House parliamentarian, a former prosecutor, sheriff and legislator, was irked by the link to a Democratic race. He began investigating the source of the report on AustinPoliticalReport.com, which on Tuesday was disseminated in an e-mail by the campaign for Rosemary Lehmberg, Montford’s opponent in the April 8 matchup.

[...]

Turns out, Keel says, AustinPoliticalReport.com is registered to Kelly Fero, an Austin political consultant retained by Lehmberg to work on her campaign.

Keel is threatening a libel lawsuit against Fero, who did not respond to e-mails or phone calls for comment.

The most outrageous part of this story isn’t that Fero may be involved with Austin Political Report. The most outrageous part of the story is Terry Keel’s loud protestations.

Regardless of what side of the fence you fall upon in the Travis County DA’s race, and regardless of whether you believe that Keel does or doesn’t support Montford, you have to agree that the quote from Hamlet, “The lady doth protest too much,” just might apply.

It’s one thing to say, “these rumors are misguided.” It’s quite another to threaten a lawsuit over something that you can hear anywhere two or three political insiders are gathered in Austin–and was being talked about long before Austin Political Report published it.

Keep in mind that this is Terry Keel we are talking about. The same Terry Keel who helped Tom Craddick keep control of the Texas House last year. This is the same man who advised Tom Craddick on how he could retain total authority in the House as (we guess) a private citizen or personal counsel and then went on to assume the role of House Parliamentarian and help the speaker carry out the Keel-devised plan.

It doesn’t matter what side you are on, it doesn’t matter who you support, and it doesn’t matter who does or doesn’t own or write the Austin Political Report. But, this is quite a lot of protestation when a simple statement would have sufficed.

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