Paul Babeu Turns Distortion of Truth Into an Art Form

Comments (0) By Monica Alonzo Thursday, May 17 2012

It was a breezy recent evening in Florence as Pinal County Sheriff Paul Babeu walked to the podium in his crisp, dark uniform, which included a Smokey hat replete with a gold star pinned to its front.

Babeu with U.S. Senator John McCain.

Babeu as an altar boy in Massachusetts.

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Babeu was there to lead a memorial for fallen peace officers from his county, and the bald and blustery orator defined for the crowd outside the Sheriff's Office what he believes defines heroes:

"These men and women are the people that, when everyone else is running in a different direction, [they] are running toward the crisis, helping people, not knowing how it's going to end."

At the end of the ceremony, Babeu was besieged by reporters asking whether he planned to drop out of the race in Arizona's Fourth Congressional District, as sources had been suggesting to the media for a couple of days. As he walked away, he said he would not answer "political questions."

About eight hours later, he posted a letter on his congressional campaign website that he was, indeed, dropping out of the race and instead running for re-election as sheriff — after which he submitted to a round of TV and radio interviews with reporters who aren't inclined to ask tough questions.

During those appearances, Babeu cast himself as the hero.

"We've been under attack the last few months," he told a reporter for KTVK Channel 3, referring to various allegations of wrongdoing leveled against him. "But it's nothing new to me. I've run after armed criminals, not knowing how it would end."

Babeu insisted that he ended his congressional campaign to enter the sheriff's race because his handpicked successor, Chief Deputy Steve Henry, decided to drop out. Babeu wants the public to believe that Henry, who hasn't publicly commented on the turn of events, decided to quit his campaign after the federal government — which is investigating Babeu and his top deputies for unlawful politicking on the job — told him he couldn't be chief deputy and run for sheriff at the same time.

What Babeu fails to mention, of course, is that he could've served out his term as a lame-duck sheriff and selflessly allowed his chief deputy to stay in the race.

Despite Babeu's excuses, he had a dismal shot at winning the congressional seat, following New Times' reporting that his gay, Mexican ex-lover said the sheriff had threatened to deport him if he revealed their relationship. Running for sheriff again was Babeu's only play to remain in politics.

Asked on TV, after his big decision, who was to blame for his current political woes, he insisted that he is one of several "Arizona leaders" under attack by President Barack Obama's administration.

He had said the same thing a few weeks earlier when he was still in the throes of the congressional race. Only then, he was more specific, invoking the names of not only Obama, but U.S Attorney General Eric Holder and Homeland Security Secretary and former Arizona Governor Janet Napolitano as scourges on American society.

"I have always stood up nationally to fight these people," he shrieked during the congressional debate in Prescott, "to be a spokesman on behalf of not just my county [but] our state, to bring sanity to [the immigration] issue."

But the "sanity" he has brought as self-anointed "spokesman" for Arizona has been to distort the truth: predicting shootouts between his deputies and drug-cartel members that never took place, claiming "off-the-charts" border violence, when federal crime statistics show a decreasing trend, and misleading the public with assertions that Obama has cut back on border-security resources when the opposite is true.

Babeu boldly claimed in Prescott that his mission — his duty as a sworn officer of the law — has been to "enforce all the laws" (anti-immigrant-speak for going after undocumented car-washers and gardeners with as much gusto as immigrant murderers and drug runners).

It's the same line that he's used many times in whatever race he's run in Arizona, but beneath his layers of convenient "truth" is the actual truth: When Babeu was running for sheriff the first time, he made a point of telling Pinal County residents that he would not enforce immigration laws by going after illegal aliens who come here merely to feed their families.

His war with the Obama administration that he brags about boils down to dozens of appearances on Fox News nationally and on similarly arch-conservative talk shows.

Now tangled in professional and personal scandals, Babeu doesn't enjoy Fox's attention anymore. He's plummeted from national Republican star to morally challenged pariah in his party — which is the real reason he has suddenly opted to run again for sheriff instead of for Congress.

Polls showed that he had no chance of winning the congressional seat, and many believe he will have an uphill battle to win re-election to his current job. Ironically, Henry would've had a much better shot at winning.

Babeu's promising political career began to unravel when New Times reported that Jose Orozco, Babeu's ex-boyfriend, whose immigration status was questionable during their relationship, accused the sheriff and his camp of abuse of power ("Mexican Ex-Lover Says Sheriff's Attorney Threatened Him," February 16).