The Bird wonders just what Joe Arpaio's top dog is doing down in Honduras

This dastardly duck dug most of what Saban had to say, especially his promises to reopen satellite jail facilities, not renew the expensive MCSO lease on HQ offices at the Wells Fargo Bank Building, go after the 40,000 felony warrants Arpaio's ignored, and "order an immediate and detailed audit of existing finances and expenditure patterns" within the MCSO.

Of course, this worm-wrangler would've liked Saban's speechifying even better if he'd pledged to close Tent City. But heck, even Rome wasn't unbuilt in a day. This clucker ain't countin' his chicks yet, but he does believe Saban has a chance to take Joe, entrenched though our sadistic ol' sheriff may be.

Matt Mignanelli

Honduras This Week Online

Honduran high jinks: (from left) MCSO Chief Deputy Dave Hendershott, Honduran police official Julio Benitez, retired MCSO deputy Roger Marshall, and MCSO Captain Jim Miller.

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• Joe Arpaio
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• Elections and Voting

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Remember, Saban ran against Arpaio in the 2004 Republican primary, and ended up getting 44 percent of the vote. This despite Arpaio's smear tactics against Saban as detailed in New Times journo Paul Rubin's cover story, "Boob's Tube" (January 25, 2007). If it had not been for the smear, Saban would likely have won his party's nomination. Especially since many in the party bucked Arpaio in 2004.

Saban's since switched to the Dem column, which gives him a better chance of taking Arpaio to the woodshed, especially with Republicans and Independents able to cross over and vote for Saban's new Democratic self.

Will the sheriff slime Saban again? That would be a foolish move, one likely to backfire, much in the same way there was a backlash to the arrest of this blackbird's bosses Michael Lacey and Jim Larkin by members of the MCSO's Selective Enforcement Unit in October.

"Numbered are the days," spoke Saban, "when members of the press and our citizens need to fear having a sheriff who violates their constitutional rights to privacy and freedom of speech."

Sounds good to the winged wonder, who counts some 292 days 'til the general election, and (hope against hope) removal of Joe from office.