James Talarico Rushes to the Defense of Convicted Murderer Karmelo Anthony

So Talarico finally opens his mouth on this, and of course he picks the wrong side. A guy running for Senate in Texas had weeks to say something about a kid who ended up dead and a killer who's now been convicted, and when he finally breaks his silence, he doesn't have a word for the family burying their son. He's got sympathy for the one who did the killing.

That's not an accident. That's a candidate reading the room he thinks he's talking to, not the room he's actually in. There's a whole activist wing of the Democratic base that has convinced itself every young Black defendant is automatically a victim of the system no matter what a jury found, and Talarico apparently decided that crowd mattered more than the ordinary Texans who just watched a trial conclude with a conviction. Juries exist for a reason. When politicians start second-guessing verdicts because the defendant fits a narrative they're comfortable with, they're not defending justice, they're just picking sides after the fact and calling it compassion.

The timing tells you everything too. He didn't rush out with a statement when the story first broke. He waited, watched which way the noise was blowing on social media, and then showed up late with his answer already picked. That's not moral courage. That's a man calculating which grievance industry he needs on his side heading into a statewide race.

Texans deserve a senator who can look at a conviction and a grieving family and say something honest, even when it's not the popular thing in his own party's activist base. Talarico showed us this week which instinct wins when he actually has to choose.