Opinion: All Roads Lead to California, Even From Florida

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So the sheriff of Lee County, Florida, was warming up a Sarah Palin rally in the town of Estero the other day.

Mike Scott told the roaring multitude, ‘On November 4, let’s leave Barack Hussein Obama wondering what happened!’

Lee County ... does that ring any mission bells in the minds of Californians?

It should.

Lee County is where, nearly three years ago, California’s onetime insurance commissioner Chuck Quackenbush put on a lawman’s uniform and went to work as a sheriff’s deputy. Back here in the
Golden State, in 2000, he resigned rather than face impeachment over a scandal concerning money given by insurance companies to some of Quackenbush’s favorite charities, among them his kids’ sports camp and an education fund that paid for TV spots starring himself.

Earlier this year, in Lee County, Quackenbush shot a guy who got his Taser away from him during an arrest.

Quackenbush, as I said, wears the uniform of the Lee County Sheriff’s Department.

So does Mike Scott. Unfortunately for him, he wore it to the Palin rally. Now he’s being investigated for potential violations of the Hatch Act, that 1939 federal law that bans public officials like Scott from using their positions to influence elections – and that extends to wearing the official uniform at an unofficial political event.

Worse, maybe, from Scott’s point of view, the Palin campaign said it was displeased that Scott used Obama’s full name, the repetition of which is believed to be a deliberate means of raising red-herring questions about his religion and his Americanism: ‘We do not condone this inappropriate rhetoric.’

Right after Scott’s speech, a local radio host declared that Obama ‘hangs around with terrorists.’ No Palin statement of disavowal coming there.

Los Angeles Times photo