Feinstein grandstanded on Mirkarimi

This morning's front-page story in the Chronicle explains why Katherine Feinstein refused to swear in Ross Mirkarimi as sheriff: she knew she would be out of work at the end of the year, and some political grandstanding---before Mirkarimi had even been charged---would get her some useful publicity when she started looking for another sinecure.

Speaking of opportunism, Mirkarimi and District Attorney Gascon have that in common: both switched political parties when it was opportune. Mirkarimi dumped the Green Party to become a Democrat before running for sheriff, and Gascon dumped the Republican Party when he came to a San Francisco that's dominated by the Democratic Party.

Looks like the domestic violence furies---who put up anti-Mirkarimi billboards in SF before charges were even filed---have either given up on the idea of recalling Mirkarimi or are floating the online petition as a trial balloon to see how much support it has.

The problem these zealots have is that if Ron Conway, who bankrolled their campaign against Supervisor Olague, pays for the recall he will become a bigger issue than Mirkarimi. Regardless of how progressives feel about Mirkarimi, they resent the conservative, fat-cat Conway's attempt to buy elections in San Francisco.

The gun nut issue



Graphic from Daily Kos

James Fallows in the Atlantic has some excellent recent posts on the gun issue (and the right-wing slurs on Chuck Hagel).

 

More or less in jest, I once compared the gun fetish to the bike fetish, which was unfair, since the bike fetishists only screw up traffic, while the gun obsession actually kills people. What they have in common: the belief that their venerated objects have serious political significance.

 

The local angle: The only thing I agreed with Chris Daly about was his attempt to ban guns in San Francisco, which passed with more than 57% of the vote in 2005 (page 82 here). Alas, It was thrown out by the court when the NRA litigated.

 

The Gun Nut Community has always thought that Barack Obama was going to go after their guns, but in reality he's never had much interest in the issue, except now when there's a national consensus---let's hope it isn't temporary---to do something about the routine gun carnage in the US. The Supreme Court's contemptible Second Amendment Heller decision in 2008 will make doing anything harder.

This is from early 2009!

My prediction in 2009: "Of course our leaders aren't going to act on gun control. Evidently we'll just have to get used to the periodic bloodletting wherein innocents are slaughtered by nuts with guns." I hope that's no longer the case.