Mikal Watts Thinks Money Buys Everything

As bloggers wake up this morning, we're all checking our emails and noticing the Houston Chronicle and The San Antonio Express News articles from last night, and not only finding out about Watts' significant contributions to justices that hear his appeals cases, but also that he's using that fact to pressure courtroom opponents into out of court settlements. This may be a bigger story than I originally thought at 2am...

PS. Here's the letter in PDF

Here's more Commentary from refinish69 at DMPFTL about Watts' appeals court buying:

Mikal Watts wants to buy a US Senate Seat. He has no experience in politics but thinks his money entitles him to one of the highest elected positions that of US Senator from Texas. What is worse than his stances on Choice (womens or the fact that he thinks Gays and Lesbian chose to be gay) and his touting of Republican speaking points when calling for "Clean" steam cell research is his touting that he bought Justices.

Mikal is starting to sound more and more like Cornyn or -god forbid, Shrub everyday. Texas deserves better than this.

PDiddie at Brains and Eggs seems to agree:

The only qualification Mikal Watts seems to have in standing for public office is that he has millions of dollars to spend getting himself elected. I just can't see much difference between him and John "Bush's Box Turtle" Cornyn.

Pretty hideous if that's our two choices in 2008.

Vince Leibowitz at Capitol Annex on how Watts has opened himself up to attacks by the GOP:

Admittedly, Watts’ defense isn’t totally illegitimate, although I disagree that the [Texas Supreme Court] rarely up cases on appeal when the plaintiff prevails at the intermediate appellate level. However, the letter is a pretty tough smoking gun for a candidate who, should he win the party’s nomination, will be relentlessly attacked by the GOP because he is a trial lawyer. Having that added piece of baggage won’t help.

CouldBeTrue at South Texas Chisme:

It seems that Mikal likes to throw his money around to gain personal power. Okay, that's not news. What is news, is that Mikal claimed in a letter to an opposing attorney that he had bought the Democratic appeals courts judges. Of course, the opposing attorney noted that the Texas Supreme Court was a bunch of Republican corporate puppets.

Do you want someone with that kind of arrogance to win the Democratic primary? Do you want someone that politically tone deaf to win? Do you want such a poor excuse for a politician to officially carry the Democratic label?

I say no. (oops, were those rhetorical questions?)

Check out a new posts:
Paul Burka from BurkaBlog at Texas Monthly: Don't Put It in Writing
MyDD by Texas Nate: Wanna Be Bush Dog Practices Law the Way He Campaigns
Burnt Orange Report, also by Texas Nate:Mikal Watts: A Pattern of Buying Influence
Daily Kos by Kos himself: TX-Sen: Watts used campaign donations to threaten foe