San Diego Staying Classy

Politics is largely public theater.  Never mind that it is a distraction while an army of Artful Dodgers pick your pockets clean.

I must say the San Diego political machines have created some theater that is more peculiar than most.

I'm in SD county, but not city.  Huge county.  Anyway, the mayor had been annoying people.  Some nicknamed him, "the emperor", but I didn't keep up with why.  The funny thing is that lot of people said they liked things he'd done as mayor but not how he did them.

Then his own party said he was rubbing his staff the wrong way--literally.   They even came up with a name for one of his moves, the Filner headlock.

Demonstrating their inability to do anything sane, republicans are jumping on the bandwagon in self-righteous competition with the democrats who got the band wagon going, and were trying to crank up the self righteous media posturing.   Republicans should play quiet calm and sympathetic to the dems who are leading the charge to get rid of their own mayor.

It's like two guitar players trying to one up each other.  Each surreptitiously bumping his volume up until you have ear bleed.  So the trick to looking better is to subtly encourage the other guitar player to bump his volume beyond sane, while never increasing your own.  People can only take so much hysteria.  They need breathers.


Everyone is outraged, "on behalf of women everywhere".    They are overacting.  I peg many of them for creeps, themselves, and the outrage act doesn't ring quite real.

Now his very recently exed fiance has come out with some kind of dirt.  Nothing really all that bad compared to the workplace accusations.  He may be a creep, but when exes come out with non-essential information just to join the mob, or for revenge, that is kind of low, too.

The classy thing is that they all seem to agree that righteous outrage is the way to play this opportunity. I predict this sort of thing will become more common as it clouds the view of how their power is being used and abused.  The impatient will be taking notes.  It is the 21st century American answer to a coup or storming the castle to capture or kill the king.

It is great that Filner won't quit.  This will drag out the drama.  I'm hoping for a complex twist of plot to emerge.  Air time guaranteed now that Gloria Allred is involved.   If you abuse a position of power, the least you can do is give the public a few months of good theater.  Filner has lived on the public dime for quite awhile.

If he's slick, he'll claim this public drama is "his way of giving back".

This is what happens when someone gets away with abusing power and position to grope women, and then he gropes the wrong one.  And then other women in the place get the word.  No putting back that can of worms.

The downside will be the cost to taxpayers for the probable trial to come.  Entertainment involving government and government people is never ever cheap.

I wonder if an Diego could ever be as classy as Hialeah was the last time I lived in Dade County, FL.  Hialeah's mayor had to cut his term a little short due to a conviction for embezzling from the city.   He did a little time, then ran for mayor again, and won.

That is classy.  A city full of people who elect a guy who steals from them then are too crazy not to do it again, enthusiastically.   And there are those who think mob rule is fine.  They are nuts.