Let's see now: Maggie Brooks wants the MCC trustees to be nice as they look for a new president. Anybody who's not willing to set aside personal agendas should resign from the board, she said during a press conference last week.

Wouldn't you love to know who she's talking about?

Wouldn't you love to know why she didn't say who she was talking about?

It's entirely possible that she's appalled, at last, by the stubbornness of the trustees who want former County Legislator Bill Smith to be the next president. Maybe she recognizes that it's not a good idea to put - I don't know: contracts for Republican donors? A big state pension for Smith? - ahead of the welfare of the college. Maybe she's worried about the harm this is causing to the college. Maybe she's gotten so many calls from angry Republicans and business leaders that the pressure has become too much.

Why, some critics are asking, did she wait until now to speak up? Well, she didn't wait, of course. She spoke out pretty clearly in a Democrat and Chronicle op-ed piece on April 2. At that point, the trustees' search committees had selected two experienced educators as the finalists: Kenneth Ender, a community college president in New Jersey, and Broome Community College President Laurence Spraggs.

But in a contentious meeting on March 24, the board had voted 6 to 4 to add two local candidates: Smith and business owner Dennis Kessler. That led to protests from faculty, students, and some members of the search committees.

Brooks jumped right in. In her op-ed piece, she scolded critics of the late additions for generating "a destructive conflict." She complained that the search committees hadn't recommended a local candidate. She praised the board for adding Smith and Kessler, insisting that "a local background gives any candidate a competitive advantage."

And, significantly, she pointed to the experience of Erie Community College, whose trustees named former Representative Jack Quinn as the new president in January. "They understood that his background in governing would not be a hindrance but an asset," Brooks wrote.

You'd have to be pretty naïve not to read that as a Smith endorsement.

Once again, Brooks is complaining about the conflict at MCC. She wants the board to pick former MCC President Peter Spina as an interim president, and she wants the trustees to start the selection all over again - something that Smith backer John Parrinello had pushed for.

And that's apparently where we're headed.

I enjoyed the little diplomatic dance performed by the Democrat and Chronicle's editorial writers last week, urging the MCC board to revote and get this over with. You could make a reasonable case for that, I guess: Unless somebody in the Smith faction on the board agrees to back off, we'll pay for another search, put the college through another drama, and end up with Smith anyway. But the D&C, afraid to ruffle anybody's feathers, stopped at that. It had no opinion on the presidential candidates, insisting: "Let's be clear: This page is not endorsing either Smith or Kessler."

Perish the thought.

Speaking of curiosities: I'm puzzled by this growing insistence that if Barack Obama wins the nomination, sexism is to blame. And I'm dumbfounded at women who say an Obama win will be one more instance of a man taking something that a woman deserved.

So we should vote for Clinton simply because she's a woman? That's demeaning. Many of us are against Clinton because of her positions on issues, large and small - Iraq and Cuba, for starters. And because of her pandering. Because we believe Obama's the better candidate. Because we like what he has done to inspire voters. Because we believe he's the candidate most likely to rely on diplomacy rather than force.

"Equality" means we'll apply the same criteria to Clinton that we apply to any candidate.