What is it with Travis County prosecutors?

Has Rosemary Lehmberg, through some sort of history of drinking that led up to her DWI arrest, set a bad attitude? Assistant prosecutor Brandon Grunewald's facing the same problem; no report yet on just how drunk he may have been, per BAC.

And, we now have "complications." Two people hurt in the Grunewald crash, one of them talking to lawyers. Brandon, you may become "chum" for Rosemary to feed to the sharks instead of himself.

Were Tricky Ricky Perry and his take no prisoners, make no agreements stance not in place, Lehmberg would be outta there already. And, probably, Grunewald would be joining her.

That said, per KXAN's reporting, Lehmberg herself appears to need a PR person. One who would have told her not to say this:

"It's a first offense DWI and I don't know what will happen until I have all the facts," explained Lehmberg. "I have never terminated an employee for a first offense DWI and we have had employees with first offense DWI up and down the ranks."

Yikes. "Up and down the ranks?"

What's needed? In all cases like this, only allowing the governor to appoint a replacement until the next available election date, not for the remainder of the term, perhaps.

For instance, if Tricky Ricky only had the power to replace her until January, 2014, with the replacement to fill out her term being selected in a special election in November along with constitutional amendment voting, there we would go.

Kuff has the latest news: A special prosecutor is investigating whether Perry's threat to veto Public Integrity Unit funding if Lehmberg wouldn't resign amounts to coercion, legally defined.

Perry was the one who started playing politics with this, not local or state democrats. So, unless he would agree to a state law to depoliticize such situations with this position, there's nothing else to do but back a flawed DA, even if flawed staff are riding on her coattails.

That also said, some Austin Democratic attorney had sure as hell better "primary" Lehmberg next election.

And, given that Grunewald's been with the Travis DA's office about 5 years, or when Lehmberg started as DA, and given just how drunk she was at the time of her arrest, yeah, it's fair to ask about cultural attitudes in that office.