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So maybe it wasn’t “business as usual” after all.

Critics have been hounding Gov. Rick Perry for weeks about his decision to fire three members of the Forensic Science Commission before they could finish investigating the case of an apparently innocent man executed in 2004. The governor’s office has said the replacements were bureaucratic business as usual.

Well, this morning The Chicago Tribune is reporting that the governor’s office pressured the Forensic Science Commission to scale back (or end) its investigation into the case of Cameron Todd Willingham. (Perry allowed Willingham’s execution despite receiving last-minute mitigating evidence.)

The story is a must read. Here’s the lead:

Just months before the controversial removal of three members of a state commission investigating the forensics that led to a Texas man’s 2004 execution, top aides to Gov. Rick Perry tried to pressure the chairman of the panel over the direction of the inquiry, the chairman has told the Tribune.Samuel Bassett, whom Perry replaced on the Texas Forensic Science Commission two weeks ago, said he twice was called to meetings with Perry’s top attorneys. At one of those meetings, Bassett said he was told they were unhappy with the course of the commission’s investigation.”

The Tribune reports that Perry’s office also expressed concern about the cost of hiring a national expert to examine the Willingham case:

According to Bassett, the governor’s attorneys questioned the cost of the inquiry and asked why a fire scientist from Texas could not be hired to examine the case instead of the expert from Maryland that the panel ultimately settled on.”

Attorneys from Perry’s office later started attending commission meetings. One of the attorneys, David Cabrales, apparently told Bassett that:

Bassett said, Cabrales told him in February that the Willingham investigation was not the kind of work the legislature intended for the commission.”

That’s just a shocking statement. And incorrect. Anyone who’s followed the Forensic Science Commission knows that the Legislature created the commission to investigate cases exactly like Willingham’s.

In fact, Barry Scheck of the Innocence Project — when lobbying for the commission’s creation and funding in 2005 and 2007 — frequently mentioned the Willingham case in his arguments for why Texas needed a commission to investigate flawed forensics. And almost immediately after the commission received funding in 2007, the Innocence Project asked the commission to make Willingham one of its first investigations.

It’s unusual for the governor’s office to become so deeply involved in a small state government body — to say nothing of trying to manipulate its work.

Of course, Perry likely didn’t want the Forensic Science Commission to conclude that the forensics in Willingham’s case were flawed — that might have made Texas the first state in the country to officially admit executing an innocent man.

It certainly appears that Gov. Perry’s office pressured the Forensic Science Commission to scale back the Willingham investigation.

And when some of the commissioners would play along, they were replaced.

Maybe it’s time for Saturday Night Live to recharge its writing staff by hiring a few of Texas’ sharpest wits. I refer, of course, to those side-stitching comedians batting out emails for the Republican Party of Texas. While SNL could come up with nothing better than a lame line in the mouth of a lousy Obama impersonator (“I won it for not being George Bush”), it only took a few hours after the world learned the strange, surprising news of President Obama’s Nobel Peace Prize on Friday for Texas GOP party headquarters to issue a vintage, though poorly proofread, blast of snark — with an appeal for donations duly attached. “The Nobel Committee gave the president its most prestigious award for what he wants to do, not what he’s done,” the party wrote. “That made us wonder, what other prestigious award will the president win next? Surely the Nobel is only the first of many accolades.”He loves NCAA basketall [sic]. Perhaps he’ll be awarded a national championship. Or maybe the NBA will name him this year’s MVP. He drives a car. Perhaps Motor Trend will name him Car of the Year.”He has actually written two books. Perhaps a Pulizter [sic], or a Nobel for literature, will come his way.”The president is known to like pie. Perhaps he’ll win a blue ribbon at the Illinois State Fair.”He did host the ‘beer summit.’ Perhaps he’ll be named a Real Man of Genius.”Surely a Cy Young, a Heisman, a Vince Lombardi trophy, and the America’s Cup will take their places on the president’s mantle soon. And his Tour de France shirt and US Open blazer must be in the mail by now.”He could be awarded the NASCAR Sprint Cup, because no one turns left like President Obama.” The email then devolved into an encomium to the Texas GOP and a promise that “A donation today will help us fight for you here in Texas, and it will also send the message that no matter what the European left elites think, we want President Obama and the Democrats to keep their hands off Texas.”Reportedly the president will personally receive a cash award of over $1.4 million for winning the Nobel. Could you spare one one-thousandth of that – $14.00 – to help us and send the world a message at the same time?” Pony up, Texans: The world awaits. On the state party’s Web site, a subsequent message added a whole ‘nother layer of irony, in a note making the fatuous demand that Obama’s re-election campaign “report the 2009 Nobel Peace Prize as a campaign contribution from a foreign source.” This missive begins: “Far be it from us to come out swinging on the news that President Barack Obama has won the Nobel Peace Prize. We find it more a source of amusement than outrage, though today’s devaluation of past Nobel laureates is worth lamenting.” And far be it from Observer to join the Texas Republican Party in decrying the “devaluation” of that venerable 1973 Peace Prize recipient, Henry Kissinger. While some of Texas’ Republican congressmen joined in the snarkfest — Lamar Smith reportedly chucked at Obama’s honor, while Michael McCaul stayed on message by calling it “the equivalent to awarding the Heisman in September” — one did make a mighty salient point in the Statesman. Three guesses which one it was.

“The aggressiveness that we have had (abroad) with the previous administration is continuing,” said Ron Paul. “It looks like more troops are going to go into Afghanistan, it looks like Pakistan will be a new front.”

Despite the recent rain, the drought lingers on, albeit not as severe as a couple months ago.

In fact, as the Statesman‘s Asher Price reports, rivers and lakes in Central Texas are still at or near historical lows. One water supplier is preparing for drastic cuts:

Lower Colorado River Authority officials told water customers Friday to prepare for a 35 percent cut in their use.

The LCRA board could declare the drought the worst-ever at its Oct. 21 meeting. That would mean an immediate and total cut of water to downriver farmers and give water customers about 90 days to start cutting their use by 35 percent. The possibility of such cuts was floated at the board’s September meeting.

The troubled federal agency in charge of the Rio Grande might have a new commissioner soon, according to  El Paso’s Newspaper Tree.

The current commissioner of the International Boundary and Water Commission C.W. “Bill” Ruth has been on “personal leave” since the Inspector General showed up last week to investigate some serious allegations made by the agency’s former general counsel Robert McCarthy.

Reportedly there are a few names in the ring for a possible replacement. El Pasoan Ed Drusina is  working the phone lines hard and collecting letters of recommendation to win the presidential appointment, according to Newspaper Tree.

Here is a little on Drusina’s background from David Crowder’s article in the NPT:

Drusina, 57, is a graduate of Burges High School and holds an engineering degree from the University of Texas at El Paso.

Until recently, he was president of OMNI Construction Services LLC, a subsidiary of the El Paso engineering and construction firm, Moreno Cardenas Inc. While with Moreno Cardenas, the company reported, Drusina was construction manager for over $28 million of infrastructure construction associated with El Paso Water Utilities’ desalination plant.

He is now the El Paso area director for Paragon Project Resources Inc., a national engineering firm with offices in El Paso.”

Anyone who wants this position should be commended,  (or possibly have his or her sanity checked )because it’s going to be a pain in the Elephant Butte to clean up the mess. If McCarthy’s allegations are true about the IBWC the new commisioner will need a large mop and some intestinal fortitude to get the job done.

Rick Perry made more head-scratching public comments yesterday about Cameron Todd Willingham, a likely innocent man executed in 2004.

Asked about Willingham and accusations that he’s trying to scuttle the investigation into the case, the governor told KHOU in Houston:

I suggest folks take a look at the process when it’s over with and the results. I think that’s really important…..What’s most important is an appropriate answer and that’s what we’re going to do….I think the court has made a decision and I agree with the courts.  So, unless there’s some change of that ruling, I agree with the courts.”

In the first sentence, Perry asks for patience to let the process work. As Grits has pointed out, we will know soon enough whether John Bradley — the prosecutor Perry chose to head the Forensic Science Commission — is committed to the Willingham investigation.

Perry also argues that he’s simply agreeing with the courts’ rulings in the case. That’s true.

But I will note that in death penalty cases, the governor has an explicit role in the process that’s separate from the courts.

Perry reviewed the Willingham case before the execution. The governor’s role isn’t to just rubber-stamp court rulings. It’s supposed to be another check in the system before someone is put to death.

Moreover, Perry was given mitigating evidence — which wasn’t available to the trial or appeals courts — that showed the forensics in the case were utterly flawed. And yet he allowed the execution to go forward.

I don’t begrudge Perry the right to defend himself, especially on an issue that’s become so politicized just months before an election. And, yes, the courts sent Willingham to the execution chamber. But Perry had a hand in it too.