A fault line divides SLO County’s center-left progressives. It separates melodramatic idealists from practical realists; it separates former SLO County Planning Commissioner Sarah Christie from County Supervisor Jim Patterson. This division sometimes generates tart disagreements, like Christie’s claimed “betrayal” by Patterson.
When President Obama’s green-jobs advisor Van Jones recently resigned, no great ripple of controversy ensued because Jones refused to encourage one. The same is true for White House Counsel Greg Craig, who also refused to make a hullabaloo upon tendering his resignation. They both knew that when their service to the president became a liability, they were obliged to quietly step aside.
But Christie doesn’t think such ethics should apply to her. She believes she’s an exception. She’s assumed the role of a victim undone by sinister, shadowy forces. It’s the American paranoid style, played to perfection. She simply can’t imagine that a long-suffering Patterson might simply have grown weary of her theatrics, which have lately grown truly extravagant.
This article appears in Dec 31, 2009 – Jan 7, 2010.