His latest defense? That whole thing where his house didn't have water? Jew's response: "Ask yourself this: When it comes down to government run operations, do they ever make mistakes?" It is when the elected official's excuse is that government screws up.

Jew's other excuse? Sometimes his father (who pays the bills on the Sunset house) forgets to do things. What does his father forget? Jew replied, "Things." You can just see Ed Jew's lawyer slapping his forehead in despair, can't you?

The rest of the situation isn't looking much better for Jew: not only is he now under investigation by the ethics commission, but an anonymous employee of the Quickly bubble tea store that paid Jew the $40,000 in the first place is contradicting Jew's story that the whole money exchange was payment for a consultant -- the employee says that Jew came to them and said they had permit problems and would need to pay money for them to go away. The owner of the rival bubble tea shop in the Sunset (Wonderful) had no comment. Has it really come to this? The Sunset is having a bubble tea turf war? No wonder no one takes our city seriously.

As Chris Daly noted to the Chron, in the politician's "hierarchy of no-nos," not accepting sacks of money is the ironclad rule number two. (The first, Daly clarified, is "no disappearing interns.") Daly's rule number three is, of course, always dress up to interrupt meetings.

no good