Denham Recall: The Slip Starts Showing

The intellectual inconsistencies are impossible to miss in this story on the Denham recall. It'd be a lot more effective to cry and whine about a power grab and unfair tactics, for example, if you DON'T tip off that you're planning on doing it yourself.

Jon Fleischman, vice chairman of the California Republican Party, said Perata was misusing the recall process, which is meant to boot people from office for serious misconduct. Fleischman and other activists in Orange County said that if the Denham recall succeeds, a similar campaign might be launched against Lou Correa, a Democratic state senator from Santa Ana.

Actually, the right answer is to reform the recall process, not to vow to "misuse" it again, if you want to remain on the intellectual and moral high ground.

But that's not surprising, of course, since the same people whining about the recall today are the ones who benefited from it in 2003.

Republican Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, who supported the budget Denham refused to vote for and even traveled at the time to Denham's district to pressure him, has disparaged the recall that's on the June 3 ballot.

"Obviously, it is political," Schwarzenegger said when asked about the effort at a recent Sacramento news conference, adding that the budget vote as "a reason for recall I think is ludicrous."

Riiiight, because Gray Davis wasn't recalled because of a budget deficit.

Like Fleischman, Denham says Perata was abusing the recall process, which is meant to remove from office people who act illegally. But backers of the recall effort note that Denham contributed $17,000 in 2003 to the Republican-led effort to recall Gov. Gray Davis, who was under criticism for the budget mess but had not been accused of criminal conduct.

It's just so hard to keep things straight, and figure out which are the RIGHT recalls and which are the WRONG ones. So good that we have honest brokers like Jon Fleischman and Jeff Denham to set us straight.

It's also a bad thing, we're told, that people in Sacramento and abroad are telling the good people of the 12th District what to do. Good thing there's none of that happening among Denham supporters:

Denham has raised $1.1 million to fight the recall. Major contributions include $50,000 from the Los Angeles Casinos Political Action Committee and $25,000 from the Pechanga Band of Mission Indians, which has a casino in Temecula.

Most of the members of the Los Angeles Casinos PAC, we all know, live in Stanislaus County.