It hasn't improved my assessment of the Brooks administration, or my suspicions of Republican Party Chair Steve Minarik's role, to watch the selection of a new public defender play out.

Yes, the law (as a reader has pointed out) says that it's the County Legislature's responsibility to appoint a public defender. But that doesn't mean that a non-partisan committee couldn't have conducted the search and the screening.

That was done successfully in the past, for good reason. And I still maintain that there's only one reason the Republicans have dug in their heels on this: they want the public defender's office to be a patronage source, as it once was.

The Republicans' apparent choice for a public defender, Tim Donaher, is a highly respected attorney, with years of experience in the defender's office. Maybe he can resist pressure from the Minarik machine. We'll see.

Meantime, the all white, all male, predominantly suburban Republicans in the County Legislature have alienated African-American community leaders and turned the selection of an important public official into a racially charged issue. (Now where are those new Republican legislators who promised that they'd be independent?)