An attempt to recall Lincoln County's duly elected sheriff ended in an unmitigated failure.
The petitioner, Ginny Emerson of Eureka, failed to turn in a single signature before a three-month deadline expired last week.
But the failure, according to Emerson, is not her own. Rather, the blame lies with the cowering Lincoln County public, she intimated in a written excuse released to the press. (Throughout this process, Emerson herself has declined to answer any direct questions from us.)
It's commendable to question the sheriff's procedures and decision. It's quite another thing to allege his incompetence and launch a recall, which is a very serious and difficult matter indeed.
Having undertaken such an enormous task and failing, Emerson now insinuates that "questions still to be answered are the concerns and fears of the many people that we spoke to about signing the petition and business owners fearful of hosting the petition in their place of business."
That's pure hogwash.
It takes a lot more than a sheriff in Libby to scare the folks we know in Lincoln County. If they wanted to sign a petition, nothing this side of the grave is going to stop them. Intimidation doesn't work with the courageous business owners we know. If they wanted a petition on their front counter, you'd see it there.
And if residents were being bullied in any way by a big bad sheriff in Libby, they'd speak up about it on their own, loud and clear.
The suggestion that county residents were too afraid to sign Emerson's petition is a laughable evasion to steer away from her utter failure through an ineffective campaign to even collect the required number of signatures to carry the recall forward, let alone scrutinize its merits.
Emerson refused to say how many signatures she actually collected, and her unaccountable petition is worth noting for this reason. She has been a candidate for county office in the past. She has said she likely will be in the future.
If she does, we have confidence voters will demonstrate the courage to vote accordingly.