--30--

*Gotta kick out of Gov. Dirk Kempthorne this week. He (or should I say his flack, Mike Journee?) wrote a letter slamming my editorial of a week ago, which bashed the shabby way he treated Post Falls City Administrator Jim Hammond re: that Board of Education reappointment or lack thereof. In his first try, Dirk/Journee complained about the potshot and accused the S-R of being adamantly opposed to charter schools and school choice. When I pointed out to Journee that this paper has a long, established history of supporting school choice and charter schools, he shamelessly sent back a revised letter a few days later with this line: "That's why I was so disheartened that the Spokesman-Review, a proponent of charter schools and supporter of Jim Hammond, would denigrate his appointment (to the Charter School Commission) in the way it did." Talk about spin. The guv should just admit he jerked Jim around. And give it a rest.

*File this one from a No Holds Barred reader under courthouse conspiracy theory: "Heard an interesting bit of postelection yada, yada: Frank Henderson is supposedly going to 'place hold' his House District 5 seat for a term until Gus is up for re-election on the commission, which he's told lots of people he has no intention of running for again. Gus aspires to the state legislature at the end of the term but this was the first I'd heard of this theory. I think out here in the River City Gus' stock isn't too high, and he'd be hard-pressed to be re-elected to the commission, so I don't see him as a lock to win a legislative seat. I hope Frank lives to be 110 and serves most of those years in Boise!"

*Another reader pointed out that Mark Compton -- no relation to Dick -- has beaten (in chronological order) Alice Rankin and Ron Rankin for GOPrecinct committeeman and then the Rankins' daughter, Kerri Thoreson, for county vice chair, on Wednesday. You might call 'im a Rankin Slayer. (You'll see this one in Monday's Huckleberries. Too interesting an item to pass up.)

*Finally, I want to thank you for making this a successful blog. On Wednesday, I had 683 page hits, a nice increase from the 400 to 600 page hits I've been running all along. My goal is to reach at least 1,000 hits within a year.

DFO