Omaha's stinking, steaming pile of recall

Sometimes, I'm so right I disgust myself.

I didn't want to be right.

But it looks like we're going to have a mayoral-recall election in Omaha. From the number of signatures, it even looks like there's a chance we'll actually throw Mayor Jim Suttle out of office.

Let the unbudgeted hemorrhage of city funds begin. Special elections ain't cheap.

Anyway, this is what I wrote here July 3, 2009:

OK, I'll start by saying this: Omaha, generally, is a city that can withstand idiot politicians without missing a beat. The Big O's new mayor, however, is going to put us to the test.

Sometime in the next four years -- if not the next four months -- I predict we'll not only cry uncle, we'll be crying "Walt Calinger." If not "Fred Conley."

AT THE TIME, I wasn't particularly enamored of the new mayor. He was not off to a good start.

He wasn't leading on budget matters, and he seemingly was doing his best to make the worst impression. And you know what they say about not getting a second chance to make a good first impression.

Well, now Jim Suttle knows what they mean, too.

If you regularly read this space, you know I've taken my shots at the mayor -- really hard shots at the mayor. Really, he did not get off to a good start in anybody's eyes.

Ironically, though, I think Suttle has been gaining his footing this year. He's been starting to lead, and he is acting responsibly on the city's budget problems, realizing we can't cut our way out of the financial thicket the city finds itself in.

The money has to come from somewhere, and in a commonwealth, that would be your pocket.

OBVIOUSLY, the spoiled teen-agers who make up way too much of the city's electorate think otherwise. But having no plan, no foresight and no clue is no excuse to call off a good temper tantrum.

No matter who has to pay for it.

Recall elections were meant to be a last resort for the electorate. Now, in this age of unending political warfare, it's a first-strike option when the chips don't fall your way. And it's deadly when wielded by people whose good sense is only underperformed by their maturity and intelligence.

I call it the downside of universal suffrage. Government of the people, by the people and for the people is only as good as . . . the people. And when the people have it in their minds to be a bunch of spoiled brats, you're kind of hosed.

But that's where we are in Omaha, by God, Nebraska. Folks seemingly have come to the conclusion that sh*tting in their own bed is how you run a city and, in that respect, they display much less sense than my dogs.

Nornally, I'd say, "Well, it's their bed." But it's not.

The recall-mad people of Omaha are sh*tting in my bed, too. And yours.

Perhaps it's time to make that fact well understood.