Janice Daniels: Teh Ghey is the same as smoking

Republicans have struck upon a novel and exciting strategy to deflect attention from censoring use of anatomical terms in House floor debates (where once, it must be pointed out, two men fought with fists, neither of which were punished for their breach of common rules of decorum): Wind up Janice Daniels to say something even stupider:

On a radio talk show Wednesday, Daniels recalled remarks she made in a meeting with high school students to WXYT-AM (1270) host Charlie Langton.

"I said that a doctor could be brought in ... and talk about the dangers of the homosexual lifestyle. Just the same as I could find a doctor to come in and talk about the dangers of the smoking lifestyle," Daniels said.

Okay, to be fair to everyone. She said this the day after petitions to recall her were filed with the Oakland County clerk, and the same day that Lisa Brown uttered the "Voldemort" of anatomical terms in her floor speech. She was also speaking in defence of why she shouldn't be recalled.

From the looks of things, however, it appears that Janice Daniels is resting her hopes to defend against a recall on the old Nixon 51 percent strategy. That is, she doesn't want to appeal to all voters, just the majority plus one necessary to win an election. You are free to note the irony that one of the reasons the recall organizers have given in recalling her is that she's a divisive force in the community.

By the way, for media people paying attention, especially those inclined to write opinion pieces, this is a perfect example of why people are afforded a wide latitude of reasons in recalling elected officials.  Janice Daniels has been bad for business in Troy by first antagonizing the national convention industry and then by rejecting on purely teabagger reasons a transit center that would help retailers, and did so after rejecting the authority of the city charter, from which she derives whatever authority she has as mayor. There are different avenues to remove her from office for being a crook (it wasn't a citizen recall that bounced Kwame, after all), but only one to remove an elected official from being a general embarrassment to the entire community.