Mrs. White in a wad

Rumors that James Howard Gibbons has left his wife in the naïve hope that Bill White will finally make an honest woman of him haven’t been verified - and no one can really know what’s in his heart, but we often feel like an intrusive little brother reading our big sister’s sad diary entries when we peruse the Chron editorial page.

Mayor White can do no wrong. He is a god among men, a tower of ethics, and peer of immortals who once hurled a bear into the face of the sun simply because it pleased him to do so. Men want to be him and Chronicle editors want to be with him.

When Dollar Bill White turned Houston upside down and shook loose nearly $2 Million at a single fundraiser, amassing a campaign fortune of $3.3 to defend his term-limited local office against the kind of token perennial candidate who makes perennial candidates look bad, where was the Chronicle’s ethical indignation?

Said the Chron: That's well above the $1.9 million U.S. Sens. John McCain, R-Ariz., and Joseph Biden, D-Del., each have on hand to campaign for their party's presidential nominations. On the local scene, the mayor's abundance dwarfs that of City Controller Annise Parker.

Oh jeez…nothing breeds awkwardness at a good cocktail party like Gibbons or Tim Flek bragging about a man’s “abundance.”

So what was their final judgment: While the governor has a lot more hair than the mayor, White's proven ability to raise money likely would place him on an even financial playing field with Perry (July 24th, 2007). Oh, what a relief! He's stashing all that cash for the noble purpose of defeating Republicans.

And these are the same church ladies now frantically wagging their index fingers at Republican County Commissioners Jerry Eversole and Steve Radack for raising a mere couple hundred thousand without serious opposition.

The same high school social scene setters who expect us to believe that El Franco Lee has somehow miraculously transformed into an exemplar of ethics in government (paging Dan Feldstein).

The truth is that the Republican commissioners do have serious opposition, in the form of the local media. The odd tag-team performance by Wayne “The Coke Addled Hurricane Fighter” Dolcefino and the pious ladies at the Chron is sure proof that the Democrats are running hard in 2008, and their allies in the media see blood in the water. It's hard to believe any station director could really expect good TV out of five nights of Starbucks reports.

Other local Republicans would be wise to follow at least some of the examples set by Radack & Eversole, and arm up while they still have the power to do so. Even "safe" incumbents need to be able to fund direct communications with their constituents, because the press has taken sides.