SF Mayor Violates Godwin's Law

San Francisco's Mayor Willie Brown, a colorful political hondler well-known for his hardball tactics, is squealing like a stuck pig in the aftermath of Supervisor Chris Daly's aborted stint as acting mayor:

San Francisco Mayor Willie Brown likened Supervisor Chris Daly to a stalker and suicide bomber Friday – and tossed in off-hand references to Osama bin Laden and Hitler as well – for using his powers as acting mayor to make two appointments to the city's Public Utilities Commission while Brown was in Tibet.

"When you conspire and calculate what you intend to do several days before you're designated as the acting mayor, you really are venal, you really are violative of all the protocols,'' Brown said after cutting short a trade and promotion trip to China.

Brown is a sore loser. While he was on a political junket in Chinese-occupied Tibet, Daly short-circuited the Brown machine's patronage process, by installing two environmentalists on the city's PUC instead of the ward heelers Brown had lined up for the jobs. It turns out that, by the city's charter, the acting mayor has the full legal power of San Francisco's elected mayor. Daly's appointees are legal members of the PUC, and can only be removed for cause ... or if the city Board of Supervisors overturns the appointments by a 2/3 vote. Daly says Brown just doesn't have the votes to do it.

Fellow supervisor Aaron Peskin describe Daly's action as "a page out of the book of young Assemblyman Willie Brown." San Francisco resident's are laughing at Brown's discomfiture:

"I thought it was hilarious," said [Roger] White, a 38-year-old BART employee who lives in the Castro. "I think it was a cool thing to do, and Brown opened himself up for it. It was hysterical and I can't wait to see what happens next. "