Orange County California Gets Its First Female Sheriff. A Howl of Sexism Rises From the Garbage Pit

The story so far....

You may remember America's Sheriff Mike Carona, a tough guy Sheriff who won many acolades (mostly spurred on by Republican talking points) when he totally failed to find a kidnapped 5 year old before she was brutally murdered.  Go figure.

In fact, it was said that Karl Rove was interested in grooming Sheriff Carona for state wide position, like Attorney General and from there who knows, especially in the early years of the new millennium when the news media had trouble suggesting that Republicans could do any wrong.

Well, last year corruption charges on some of the good Sheriffs cronies (which he had selected for high positions in the Sheriff's department though they had no law enforcement training) shed like on the corruption of the top guy and his wife, oh, and his mistress. 

First Sheriff Mike said he was going to keep his job until proven guilty to help prepare his defense, then suddenly in January he decided to quit to help prepare his defense (No word whether he will be helping with the defense of his spouse, and or mistress) leaving the department in need of a new Sheriff.

On June 10, 2008 the Orange County Board of Supervisors, composed of 5 members, chose Sandra Hutchens as the new Sheriff over  the Chief of the Santa Ana Police Department, Mr. Paul Walters.  (Santa Ana is a working class city within Orange County.)

Let me say here that Paul Walters is a fine police chief from what I hear.  In fact, he lost out to Guiliani man William Bratton for LAPD chief in what should be the bigger scandal.  But we can only hope that some day soon the G man will move on to something statewide.  At one point the LA Times reported that he was out of town for a quarter of his tenure, often on the East Coast.  What we should do, is to dump Bratton and offet Walters a mansion in the Pacific Palisades with an ocean view, private beach, whatever it takes to convince him to come up here to the LA area. LA's Lee Baca is a pretty good Sheriff or I'd suggest that switch too.

But two out of five of the Orange County supervisors are women.

So the story goes that because they both voted for Sandra Hutchens it was a case of sexism. (Don't try to get it.  You'd have to understand the Orange County Republican male mind.) What they conveniently forgot was that a man voted for Hutchens, as well.

And, obviously Ms. Hutchens has some serious creds too, or she wouldn't be in the position to have a chance.

 In fact, Ms Hutchens, according to the Orange County Register report "New sheriff is self-described 'change agent' " is "a retired division chief with the Los Angeles Sheriff’s Department" .  Also noted was the fact that she had no connection with Carona, unlike most of those who worked in the area.

Ms. Hutchens promised changed, though I don't doubt that Chief Walters would have brought change, too, myself. Carona wasn't the only problem in the department.  A computer tech was beaten to death in one of the jails with the apparent approval of the guards on duty that night. 

 Ms. Hutchens promised a housecleaning at the department, which I think was an unfortunate promise.  Oh, I'm sure she intends to clean up the department, but it reminds me of our clown in Sacramento*.  When he was running in 2003 to unseat Gray Davis in the recall, he carried a broom around talking about how he was going to clean up the state government -- which never happened. 

The LA Times has more on the specifics of the sexist comments in Orange County at "Critics see bias in O.C. sheriff pick ".  One Santa Ana councilman allegedly suggested that Mr. Walker should don false breasts to get the job. The councilman denied the allegations to the Times reporter so I'll let them deal with the name of the guy. You can read about other charges of sexism in the Times report. 

I'm sure you have a place like Orange County somewhere near you.

*(Well the governor isn't really "in" our state capital of Sacramento.  He actually lives in the Los Angeles area and commutes 700 milles each working day by jet, because moving would be too inconvenient for his family.  Therefore, he actually spends more time out of Sacramento.  Also in January 2007, the LA Times reported that at one time he had racked up a record of spending at least 20% of his time outside the state in his first 3 1/4 years of office.) return to * above

tags: orange county  sandra hutchens  paul walker  republicans  orange county sheriff  orange county supervisors  los angeles county sheriff  santa ana  

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