Sunday, January 2, 2011

Editorial: No good reason for Pearce to reinterpret Constitution

The unnamed Courier editor gets it right on Sen Pearce's idiotic war on mythical anchor babies. I'd only have encouraged him to be a little more pointed about it, and it's "tenet," editor, not "tenant." Look it up.

What the editor doesn't get to is the developing pattern in Pearce's actions. With 1070, the birther bill, the anchor-baby foolishness, assigning himself as chair of the Senate Rules committee and the attempt to rig the redistricting commission, Pearce is constantly asserting that he knows better than anyone, including decades of judges and our country's best legal minds, what our laws "really mean." There's a whiff of megalomania in everything he's doing, and the national-media attention on him is making it worse.

So far I've been giving him the benefit of the doubt, in a way, imagining that he's been simply pumping up these never-win issues to gain notoriety and power, not really believing that his arguments carry any legal weight. But lately I'm less sure. He may really be as nutz as he appears.

Waiting for the thaw: Rather than doing something about the snow

I can imagine it's not easy to get official comment over the holiday weekend, but Doug doesn't even indicate that he tried in his story today. My experience has been similar to that of many commenters on Paula's we're-totally-prepared story from Thursday -- thickly iced streets suited only to six-wheel offroad vehicles, rare sightings of response equipment, and I've yet to see a single cinder anywhere. Courier reporters ought to be asking pointed questions of City staff and elected officials.

Tomorrow everyone goes back to work. If the streets aren't in better shape by morning, it'll be a nightmare.