If DeSantis and other competitors of Trump’s for the GOP nomination want to condemn Bragg and Democrats generally for politicizing law enforcement while being lax in the prosecution of real crime, they should knock themselves out. That should be a big theme of the 2024 campaign. But that will never be enough for the Trump diehards, who demand that Republicans defend Trump himself. That should be a bridge too far. Trump should not be prosecuted, but that doesn’t mean his conduct is defensible — or, better, that anyone should expend energy composing strained defenses of it.

More importantly, DeSantis and other candidates must remember that the current Stormy frenzy is likely to be fleeting. As I’ve previously suggested, once the first prosecutor has crossed the Rubicon, others are sure to follow. …

The Stormy Daniels hush-money caper is all the rage . . . for this week. Very soon, it is going to be yesterday’s news, superseded by new charges involving behavior by Donald Trump that is even less defensible. It would be a mistake for Governor DeSantis and others to get in the habit of sounding like the former president’s defense lawyers. That’s going to be a full-time job.

[And that’s why you hire lawyers. Besides, the demand that DeSantis and others rush to the defense of a man who has spent the last several weeks tossing personal insults at him is risible at best. DeSantis can certainly be expected to address the weaponization of government against political opponents, but he’s got no reason to throw himself on a pyre for a man who’s rhetorically firebombing him already. If Trump needs political allies, then maybe he should have considered that before making personal attacks on his opponents *and their wives*. — Ed]