Before moving on to the specifics of the 2023 Arlington/Falls Church Democratic primary for commonwealth’s attorney, let us stop and at least give some praise, limited though it may be.
When compared to the other two Soros-funded prosecutors who won office four years ago largely under the radar screen of most Northern Virginia voters, Arlington Commonwealth’s Attorney Parisa Dehghani-Tafti:
• Is certainly more competent than Loudoun County’s top prosecutor, Buta Biberaj, whose tenure has seemed to be marred by one administrative blunder after another.
• Is decidedly less personally unappetizing than Fairfax County prosecutor Steve Descano, whose smug arrogance and my-way-or-the-highway approach has won him few friends but a plethora of enemies.
And we do believe that Dehghani-Tafti, after coming into office as a left-wing activist with zero nuts-and-bolts knowledge of how to run a prosecutor’s office, has learned a few things along the way (unlike Biberaj) and has proved herself willing to listen to other points of view (unlike Descano).
And yet, Dehghani-Tafti is, in the final analysis, essentially the same person she was in 2019. Her worldview seems to view criminals as victims, police often as bad apples and crime victims as seldom worth troubling oneself with.
True, she still has her fans living behind upper-middle-class/upper-class ramparts where real-world implications of catch-and-release justice have yet to breach, and we’re sure the career criminals are giddy both with the office’s policies, and the revolving door of staff, which combine to make full-throttled prosecution largely impossible.
So, despite some improvements in her performance, we are not hopping on the Dehghani-Tafti bandwagon. The world has moved on from where it was in 2019, and what is needed now is not ideologues – anywhere on the political spectrum – but a far more nuanced approach that puts victims first, engages collaboratively with the public-safety community and treats both violent criminals and repeat offenders as the societal threats they are.
Using that criteria, Josh Katcher is the preferred choice in the June 20 primary. Katcher has the experience of actually working in courtrooms (Dehghani-Tafti does not personally try cases, as all her predecessors did) and he understands – as did the iconic if fictional Jack McCoy of “Law & Order” – that liberal inclinations and respect for civil rights can coexist with tough but fair prosecution of those who either have committed heinous crimes or those for whom criminal activity has become a lifestyle choice.
Even some of Dehghani-Tafti’s staunchest supporters are wondering, albeit quietly, if the wind is out of her political sails. We are less sure she’s an endangered species.
And we remain somewhat perplexed by the campaign being run by Katcher, who worked in the prosecutor’s office both before the arrival of Dehghani-Tafti and for a period during her tenure. His campaign has been something of a muddle (it has the decided feel of being run by consultants lacking deep roots in the community), and his messaging seems to lack consistency and vigor.
Katcher will need to be stronger to capture voters in the waning weeks of the campaign. Because you’d better believe that the left-wing groups whose money catapulted Dehghani-Tafti into office in 2019 will open the financial spigots once again if they feel her renomination is imperiled.
