Kentucky-Fried Joe

• They call Joe "America's toughest sheriff." And that's just his stool sample.

PEARCE'S READY

Oddly, state Representative Russell Pearce wasn't on the stage shish-kebabing his old boss, Sheriff Joe, but he was in the lobby afterward. And since it's not every day that you get to grill one of Sand Land's most prejudiced pols, this beak-bearer made its way over to Pearce to see if he would disavow his own personal Willie Horton-like albatross: Mesa neo-Nazi J.T. Ready.

"There was a point where I thought J.T. was a good guy," the bullet-headed legislator confessed. "But I was disappointed by that picture I saw [of J.T. demonstrating with neo-Nazis in Omaha, Nebraska]."

So was Ready the fella who sent Pearce that neo-Nazi National Alliance e-mail that got Pearce in such a pickle last year when he forwarded it to followers?

"I'm not going to get into that," he said, shaking his head. "That's old history. It doesn't matter who sent it. That's my job to be alert when I read."

In journalism, that's what they call a non-denial denial.

"I don't think J.T.'s a bad guy, I think his association with these groups is wrong," insisted Pearce.

Really? So what about the vicious, anti-Semitic screeds J.T. posts on NewSaxon.com, "an online community for whites, by whites"? Is Pearce okay with that? Pearce said no, so The Bird advised the lawmaker not to hang out with J.T. anymore.

"I never did," Pearce shot back.

This tallywhacker told Pearce that's a lie because The Bird was at that June rally, watched Pearce and Ready work the crowd together arm-in-arm, and has the photos to prove it.

"That's not my fault," cried Pearce. "I don't push people away. I was also at the side of Al Rodriguez and J.D. Hayworth. You didn't take those pictures."

That's because neither Rodriguez, an anti-illegal immigrant activist, nor former Congressman Hayworth is a neo-Nazi.

Pearce is readying himself (pun intended) for a run against Congressman Jeff Flake next year. And what he'd better learn fast is that there's some scum, like J.T. Ready, whom he needs to push away. He'd better, 'cause The Bird will be watching.