Yesterday Yahoo carried this story: 

SC sheriff: No pot charge for Phelps after photo

I'm not quite sure if this was all a publicity stunt designed to ruin Mr. Phelps endorcement career or if Sheriff Lott is just an idiot.  As always I'm sure you're now scratching your head and wondering what I'm on about.

Once again, I think I'm the only one in the nation who sees the flaw here.  Unless the sheriff backed down because his prosecutor took the time to explain things to him, I guess I can hope for that.

But suppose Sheriff Lott had decided to pursue this to the end.  Just how would that work?  What we have here is a photo, just a photo, of Phelps doing something with a bong.  Anything beyond that is just an assumption.

Leave North Carolina for a moment and head for California.  Imagine yourself in law enforcement there.  Now imagine that, off duty, you go to see a movie with your family.  That one event is likely to keep you busy for quite some time if you're like Sheriff Lott.  He would go nuts!  I've seen movies where they kill people, I think they call these murder mysteries.  There are movies with bank robberies, adultery, assult and even illegal parking. As a cop in the Hollywood area you might actually see some of these people in the course of your work.  Imagine Sheriff Lott hooking up George Clooney for robbing those casinos.  Oh happy day!

But it just doesn't work that way.  Now I know that Phelps has admitted to having screwed up.  And you know that I'm not about to excuse anyone for smoking pot.  But let's be completely honest here.  You don't know that's what he was smoking.  You don't know what was really going on in that photo.  You don't know that it wasn't staged.  Hell, you don't even know that it's really Phelps in that photo.

It doesn't matter that the good sheriff has decided to back down on this.  We really do need to see this pursued to the end.  Not the thing with Phelps, the problem with Sheriff Lott.  His comments, his sideways threats of arrest, his casual disregard for freedom...all of it is inappropriate.  Again we have a fine example of a law enforcement officer who has his head so far up where the sun don't shine that he has no clue what his job really is.  He's got no clue what this country is really about.  He has no concept of freedom.

Sheriff Lott needs to be removed from the system.  More importantly, the law enforcement system needs an overhaul.