Did Janet Know?

It's been a busy week, which translated into less posting than the local political news scene warranted -- so time to catch up a little.

For example, the bizarre Trung Nguyen recall episode. The sheer incompetence of it is head-turning. And the fact they were trying to recall Trung from the OC Board of Education when he is a trustee of the Garden Grove School District is a pretty clear indication it had nothing to do with genuine constituent satisfaction. My guess is they didn't even care about collecting enough signatures to actually qualify, just push it along far enough so Trung could be hit with mailers next year claiming voters "tried to recall him from the school board."

Of course, the big question is what, if any, involvement Supervisor Janet Nguyen had in this snafu. For her part, Janet was johnny-on-the-spot with a disavowal. In fact, the disavowal was issued the day the story broke. Team Janet has at least one lesson from the illegal legal defense fund controversy - don't let the story fester.

But is the disavowal true or false? Was Janet in on this thing, or were her supporters giving a keystone cops re-enactment of Henry II's knights' response to his exasperated cry of "Will no one rid me of this turbulent priest?"

As readers are well aware, one of those signing the recall petition was Jimmy Gaughan, who is married to Janet's sister, who works on Janet's supervisor staff.

The politically-impaired recall proponents are Main Street merchants who claim their motivation was Trung's support of the anti-Viet Weekly protests on Main Street. If that's the case, why single out Trung Nguyen out of all the Vietnamese electeds -- like Supervisor Janet Nguyen -- who support the protesters?

I'll go out on a limb and suggest it's because Trung is challenging Janet in the June primary.

Janet's disavowal was pretty unequivocal, but even then its requires a pretty determined act of suspended disbelief to think there's no connection to her, or at least to those around her. The recall petition was filed a week before Peggy Lowe broke the story. Either Supervisor Nguyen heard from her sister that her sister's husband had signed a petition to recall Janet's arch-enemy and then did nothing about it until it became public, or we're to believe that Jimmy Gaughan said nothing about to his wife, who in turn said nothing about it to her sister.

In any case, it wasn't great timing for Supervisor Janet Nguyen, who seemed to be picking up momentum and turning a corner: she seemed to be settling into the job, snagged the Lincoln Club of Orange County's endorsement of her re-election, and it had been a while since any embarrassing stories of self-inflicted political wounds had surfaced.

But Janet's quick, emphatic disavowal -- rather than a guilty silence -- help shoo the story away, so at least her team is more sure-footed politically than a few months ago.

Comments

Thanks harvey. Joe dunn would be a massive improvement over janet nguyen anyday even if he is a democrat there are still 4 reps on the bos. The gop could affod to give a seatto a dem. Especially janets seat. At least we would close a welfare office in little saigon by electing joe dunn.