hindsight, consequences, and all that

do you think that maybe mayor ballard would've thought twice about his central campaign plank—taking control of IMPD—if he'd known that 2008 would be the year of dirty cops?

naturally, ballard apologists are spinning themselves dizzy in their attempts to portray all these arrested cops as proof that things are getting cleaned up under valiant greg ballard after the two-headed abomination that was bart peterson and sheriff frank anderson. but that theory doesn't hold much water when you consider that most of this month's arrests were made by the FBI, not IMPD. (to be fair, the alleged police-pimp who was arrested yesterday was nabbed by IMPD.)

politically speaking, if everything's going to fall apart, you want it to happen under the other guy's watch, not yours. if sheriff anderson were still in charge of IMPD, this would be the perfect opportunity to hoot & holler about how they hate him. if this had happened under the peterson/anderson watch, no doubt bart-haters would be dancing in the street. instead, they're stuck doing the it's-not-our-guy's-fault-it's-the-guy-before-him's-fault, which is such a familar old number by now that they must be getting as sick of it as the rest of us. or maybe, when they hear people laughing at them, they'll claim they were just being satirical.

also, while we're speaking politically, do you really believe that when IMPD detectives were going through the books of alleged johns, they just happened to choose the name of a former bart peterson official at random? ¶