Editor's Note

That Joke Isn't Funny Anymore

For awhile, I've been using my appearances on the various political talk shows in town to say that the Weekly was tenatively leaning towards endorsing Al Melvin for the Republican nomination in this year's governor's race. The primary race is likely going to be a disaster with so many candidates in the fray, so why not create some imaginary buzz for Southern Arizona's own dim bulb of a legislator?

But then Monday, Cap'n Al had to go and ruin our fun with his appearance on Anderson Cooper's CNN show. If you didn't happen to catch the slow motion trainwreck of his attempt to defend SB 1062 (which surely has been vetoed by the time you're reading this, right? Please??), you're probably better off, but take my word for it ... it's not just that he couldn't mount a half-decent defense of the terrible bill, but that he barely seemed coherent, claiming at one point that Arizona is a state that has eliminated discrimination entirely. I wish I were exaggerating. He actually said that.

The Cap'n might have been the last person in the Arizona Legislature still defending SB 1062, a bill so widely disliked that Mitt Romney ended up tweeting Jan Brewer to ask for a veto, but let's be honest, most of the damage was already done when those clowns passed the bill in the first place, pushed along by Cathi Herrod and the Center for Arizona Policy. On Tuesday, in the midst of our collective angst, the Arizona Senate passed a bill to allow gold coins to be used as legal tender, which might be a plus for the state's pirates and Glenn Beck's advertisers, but probably not among the main issues our state is facing.

I'm trying to be hopeful that the SB 1062 fiasco might be the last straw, driving some of these ideological clowns out of office, but who knows? We're always just a few votes away from another appearance on the Daily Show as the laughing stock of the 50 states. Let's cross our fingers that November might be the end of our collective embarassment as the people who got us in this situation in the first place have to answer for their vote.

Dan Gibson can be heard on Fook Music Mornings on 92.1 FM KFMA most Fridays around 8 a.m., and on DeSimone's Daily Double on 1030 AM KVOI Thursday, March 6 from 8 a.m. to 9 a.m.