Mr. Toy's Mental Notes

Tuesday evening KSBW News ran a 30 minute showdown interview with Monterey County Sheriff Mike Kanalakis, and Fred Garcia who is running to replace Kanalakis in the next election. If you have followed the local news lately, you know that Garcia held, until recently, the rank of Commander in the Sheriff's department and he was head of the Homeland Security division until the Sheriff demoted Garcia two steps in rank for insubordination and improper campaign practices. Shortly thereafter Garcia resigned, and Monterey County politics got very interesting.   After watching the interview, I am thoroughly dismayed with Sheriff Kanalakis on this matter. Yes, Garcia exercised poor judgment in using a county copier, mailing list, and rubber stamp to prepare some campaign materials. But that minor lapse of good sense pales in comparison to Kanalakis demoting Garcia for insubordination just because the two had an honest disagreement about the affordability of a helicopter. The helic...

With the recent passing of Alexander Haig, a famous old soundbite has been dragged up once again, and misinterpreted once again.   On the day when President Reagan was wounded in an assassination attempt there was, understandably, a fair amount of confusion in Washington. Al Haig spoke at a press briefing in the White House to explain what was happening. One of the things he said was "I am in control, here at the White House, pending the return of the Vice President." I remember it well. I watched it on live TV. He was trying to reassure everyone that in the President's absence White House affairs were being attended to even though the president was in the hospital and Vice president Bush was en-route and temporarily unavailable.   In the days that followed, the only part of the quotation anybody talked about was the "I am in charge" part. By taking the phrase out of context, Haig was widely criticized for assuming Presidential powers in violation of th...