A remarkable thing happened late Monday afternoon in a courthouse in Houston. It was a victory of sorts for ACORN, and for Shirley Sherrod, and for Mary Landrieu, and for the Kerry for President campaign, for that matter. Criminal ratfcking wastreated as, well, a crime.
Prosecutors in Harris County said one of the leaders of the Center for Medical Progress—an anti-abortion group that made secretly recorded videos purporting to show Planned Parenthood officials trying to illegally profit from the sale of fetal tissue—had been indicted on a charge of tampering with a governmental record, a felony, and on a misdemeanor charge related to purchasing human organs. That leader, David R. Daleiden, 27, the director of the center, had posed as a biotechnology representative to infiltrate Planned Parenthood affiliates and surreptitiously record his efforts to procure tissue for research. Another center employee, Sandra S. Merritt, 62, was indicted on a felony charge of tampering with a governmental record. The record-tampering charges accused Mr. Daleiden and Ms. Merritt of making and presenting fake California driver's licenses, with the intent to defraud, for their April meeting at Planned Parenthood in Houston.
