You were flabbergasted to hear Sand Land's top Dem, Governor Janet Napolitano, come to the defense of GOP brown-basher Russell Pearce? This cynical sandpiper wasn't. Far from it.
Asked about recent revelations of alleged domestic abuse in a sworn, notarized divorce petition signed by Pearce's wife, LuAnne, in 1980, the self-proclaimed champion of children and women pooh-poohed the issue, bemoaning two attack fliers sent to Mesa GOPers and authored by Republican political consultant Nathan Sproul, the closest thing we've got in town to the late Lee Atwater.
One Sproul flier dealt with LuAnne's allegations that her hubby was "possessed of a violent temper" and had "from time to time hit and shoved" her. The other dealt with Pearce's long association with flabby turd-Reicher J.T. Ready, with whom Pearce publicly palled around on the Arizona Capitol lawn during a June 2007 nativist rally. This, long after the ADL had outed the two-ton stormtrooper as a swastika-licker.
The battle for the state Senate seat in Mesa shouldn't have anything to do with Pearce's "personal domestic relations record or whatever it is they're throwing out there," the Guv stupidly sniffed. Catch that phrase, "personal domestic relations record," and keep in mind that Nappy's sitting on her haunches, waiting for Barack Obama to whip John McCain's geriatric caboose and appoint her to some cushy federal job in D.C.
Would that happen if Manet's own "personal domestic relations record" were exposed? Assuming the woman's capable of falling in love with anything but her own political ladder-climb, no.
Not that there's any sin in guest-coaching the Phoenix Mercury or possessing a closet full of checked, shoulder-padded sport coats. Indeed, this raptor doesn't believe there's a gosh darn thing wrong with being the much older and much less cool version of the Calamity Jane character from the HBO series Deadwood.
But seriously, Napolitano's denied more than once that she's a closeted lesbian, so who is this oriole to argue? And Pearce has presented himself as a devoted family man, a self-depiction undercut both by LuAnne's sworn 1980 statement and by a 1974 incident report from the Mesa Police Department, which this merciless magpie recently divulged.
You can read the tawdry doc in its entirety on the blog of this avian's doppelganger, Feathered Bastard. The report details how Pearce allegedly busted down the door of his estranged first wife's abode in an attempt to find her messing around with a 16-year-old. According to the building manager, Pearce would hang out in the parking lot, spying on the lady, like some '70s-style rendition of that cable reality show Cheaters.
Nappy's apparent duplicity about her personal life, and her outrageous hypocrisy in opposing same-sex marriage (thereby stabbing Zona gays in the back), has kept her from serious consideration as a veep, first by Democratic presidential nominee John Kerry and now by Obama. The mere fact of being gay might help her if she'd own up to it and fight for that community's equal rights. But Nappy's the Benedict Arnold of the GLBT world. Hardly a proud role for a self-proclaimed progressive.
SUPREMACIST SLEAZE
But even if we accept the logic behind the Guv's belittling an account of domestic violence, why would she tut-tut Pearce's playing footsie with a real-life, honest-to-Jehovah goosestepper?
Let's be honest. Napolitano's never been much for championing civil rights or battling racism. This state's overrun with skinheads and white supremacists. Xenophobia and Mexican-hating are more popular in AZ than tubing the freakin' Salt River, for cryin' out loud.
World-infamous Holocaust-denier David Irving recently spoke to a group of white supremacists at a family restaurant in the Valley. This month, the neo-Nazi Nationalist Coalition is sponsoring a "family night" for like-minded ofays. Next month, there will be a humongo Oi-Fest in the West Valley. (And that ain't oy, as in oy vey, bubbee.)
Skinheads, bikers, and assorted white-power wackos will assemble in Tonopah to cheer on a series of racist skinhead bands. And there are plenty more events planned. For instance, every December, local neo-Nazis throw a wingding called Winterfest, their pagan version of an Xmas party.
Does Nappy care about this activity and what it says about our state? Apparently not. She can't even find it in herself to denounce a political nemesis for gallivanting around with a known neo-Nazi, for speaking from the same podium and posing for pics with the National Socialist while working a crowd together.
Remember, this is the same Napolitano who as U.S. Attorney for Arizona looked the other way in 1997 when the Border Patrol and Chandler cops rounded up Hispanics in a mini-replay of the Dwight D. Eisenhower administration's "Operation Wetback," a program beloved of the prejudiced Pearce.
Sure, Janet gets a point or three for pulling state funding for Sheriff Joe Arpaio's more recent Hispanic-hunting sweeps. But we should not forget the political tit-for-tat that took place in '97 when Napolitano downplayed a federal investigation into Arpaio's gulags. She called a lawsuit targeting the barbarity of Joe's jails "a technicality" and "a lawyer's paper."
To return the favor, in 2002, during Nappy's first gubernatorial run, Arpaio cut a TV commercial for her, lauding her prosecutorial prowess, stopping just short of endorsing her.
Arpaio's misdeeds are not the only ones Nappy overlooked as a prosecutor. Guess whom she let off the hook in 1999 when he was the head of the Motor Vehicle Division and under investigation for tampering with a Tucson woman's driving record? Yep, none other than Russell "White Pride" Pearce.
If you check Pearce's state House bio, it mentions his tenure with the MVD in the same breathless vein that Al Gore used to mention the Internet. You know, almost like he invented the thing. One thing Pearce fails to mention — that he was fired from his job as the MVD's director by his boss, then Arizona Department of Transportation Director Mary Peters, now Transportation Secretary under George W. Bush.
Peters fired Pearce and two underlings, according to 1999 press accounts, because Pearce did a favor for a state legislator and helped out that legislator's constituent Laurie Groombridge, who'd garnered a couple of DUIs. Seems Groombridge wanted one dropped from her record so she could dodge a yearlong suspension of her driver's license.
The tampering with Groombridge's state driving record triggered an investigation from the state attorney general, who was then none other than (ta-da!) Janet Napolitano. True to form, Nappy punted on charging Pearce, claiming it was a really a personnel issue for ADOT. Unlike Nappy, however, Peters had a pair and kicked Russ' tuchis to the curb, sending his cronies packin', too.
Must've really hurt Russ' macho pride, getting canned by a girl.
At the time, one of Pearce's flunkies tried to suggest to a reporter that Russ had been cleared. But Peters shot that one down, telling the Arizona Republic, "There's a big difference between being cleared and choosing not to file criminal charges."
Nappy avoided going after the bigmouth bass and, instead, decided to pursue a case against a minnow: Pearce's son, Justin Pearce, then age 20. Justin held a low-level job at the MVD and ended up getting busted for giving his friends fake licenses so they could buy beer.
Justin pleaded guilty and received probation for tampering with a public record. But hadn't his dad done the same thing? Why didn't Nappy pursue Big Poppa, rather than just one of his boys?
FULTON'S FOLLY
Like George Washington, confronted with a chopped-down cherry tree, Maricopa County Supervisor Fulton Brock could not tell a lie. At least not when he was caught red-handed taping four community activists during a recent meeting Brock had with the quartet in the county supervisors' Orwellian auditorium.
When Linda Brown of the Arizona Advocacy Network asked the thick-as-a-brick Brock point-blank if they were being taped, Brock acknowledged that they were, saying, "If you're concerned about that, I apologize."
Way to poison the well with your constituents, Brock-head! Thing is, this drawling doofus (who sounds like he just fell off a turnip truck) had an opportunity to reach across the table to the reps of those groups who've been packing Board of Supes meetings for the past few months, demanding that county employee Sheriff Joe be accountable. But Brock blew it.
Plus his Georgie-porgie fit of honesty came only at the meeting's end. During it, he claimed that the county supes had no say over Arpaio because the sheriff's elected. Bzzzt. Wrong answer, Fulton. The supes control the sheriff's purse strings. And like the Randy Newman song goes, "It's money that matters."
Normally, Brock and his fellow supes ape feudal barons, declining such meetings as this one, and refusing to call back journalists, acting as though they're to the manor born, instead of elected. How do these hayseeds get away with treating citizens of the nation's fourth-most-populous county like they're pissants?
Well, normally no one pays any attention to them. They slip under the radar because their meetings are sparsely attended and barely reported on. But that all changed in June when orgs like Maricopa Citizens for Safety and Accountability and ACORN started raising hell, demanding that the supes do their jobs for a change.
The supes have since been crapping in their pleated breeches — and dress skirt (if we include lone female, Dem, and sometime Joe-critic Mary Rose Wilcox). That's likely why Brock got the order to pull a Tricky Dick Nixon and tape the sit-down with Brown, MCSA's Raquel Teran and Randy Parraz, and ACORN's Teresa Castro.
You heard this yardbird right: Brock admitted to Arizona Republic reporter Yvonne Wingett that he was following orders, telling her, "My only instruction was to video(tape) the meeting in case something got out of hand."
Instruction? From whom, Lord Fauntleroy, Sheriff Joe himself? Actually, The Bird's sources have informed him that the video was being broadcast live to the supes' laptops. So the meeting was a set-up from jump.
At one point, when activists tell him that some Hispanics are so afraid of law enforcement that they avoid going to church, Brock wonders aloud how he can go back to his colleagues with such a strange report. The whole thing was an act. Brock knew the taping was ongoing, and that his fellow supes would soon be watching, if they weren't already.
In the DVD of the meet, Brock keeps asking the activists to put their complaints in writing. When they point to numerous news reports concerning the Sheriff's Office's cruelty, corruption, and inefficiency, Fulton replies, "See, newspapers can say anything they want to, from a local newspaper to a New Times story to a blog or whatever."
Thanks for the name-check, Brock-head.
Testing your theory, Fulton, this finch figures you for an A-1 hypocrite. But The Bird will let people judge for themselves. The tape of you pretending to be a public servant is on the Feathered Bastard blog.
In discussing the tape with this pecker, Linda Brown compared the controversy to an episode of Green Acres, one of this tweeter's fave shows from years gone by.
"Hooterville goes all KGB is basically what we're talking about," Brown observed, referring to the town wherein the hick sitcom was set. "It's so weird, them having this paranoia."
Not so weird, really. The supes have a lot to hide, and they don't need no durn activists showing up to tell them what for. Why, even during this taped confab, Brock-head blurted out that when the county health van goes into certain Hispanic neighborhoods, folks vamoose because they're afraid mean ol' Sheriff Joe's arrived to round 'em up. Brock almost immediately realizes he's let the feline outta the sack.
"You can't say, 'Supervisor Brock even said that intimidation's so great that when the health vans go into certain neighborhoods, that people scatter,'" he warned the community leaders following his admission.
Too late, Brock-brain. Maybe you should've thought of that before you decided to emulate J. Edgar Hoover. Admit it, Fulton, you ain't smart enough to be sneaky. If you were that slick, you wouldn't act like you belong on the Harper Valley PTA instead of on the Maricopa County Board of Supervisors.
