This week in Tuscaloosa, Dr. Philip Bobo was acquitted of five corruption charges from an eight-year-old incident involving state medical service contracts. Dr. Bobo was head of the emergency department at the hospital in Tuscaloosa and also ran a clinic around the corner from our house in Forest Lake, called Emergi-Care, which treated members of our family from time to time for the various and sundry medical issues that keep happening in a houseful of growing boys. I always felt that Emergi-Care was a wonderful neighborhood amenity.
Dr. Bobo and his good friend, former Alabama governor Don Siegelman, had been in hot water ever since the Republicans took over from the Democrats in Alabama. Tuesday morning, the New York Times editorialized that as soon as the U.S. Department of Justice gets a new Attorney General, the role of Republican operatives in the Siegelman matter should be investigated. Siegelman is currently in prison. A jury deliverated for eight days before acquitting Dr. Bobo; the Tuscaloosa News noted that his popularity in the community may have saved him.
Sad to say, meticulous good conduct is not what saved Dr. Bobo. It seems that he and Governor Siegelman were comfortable playing hardball with state money. Hardball can look like corruption after your party loses an election. And then the corruption charges can look corrupt themselves after the party in charge of charging loses an election......
Dr. Bobo
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