Matier & Ross today have a story about a police officer who is in a little bit of trouble for writing a letter to the Chron criticizing the Mayor's homeless policy. In the letter, officer John Lewis, complained that the current plan, mainly to roust the homeless at 4 in the morning, is ineffective and that the homeless people he encounters neither wants services nor are scared off by the idea of citations. His idea is to roust the homeless, or at least watch over them, during the day when the homeless aren't asleep but in their full drunken/drugged out state. Lewis is now "under investigation" with the possibility of being reprimanded for what could easily be assumed as his act of letter writing.

Somehow, this story got out there and got picked up by that bastion of right-wing nuttery, the Free Republic. So we checked out the comments-- usually high comedy-- and was somewhat disappointed in the comments. Not one use of the phrase "libtard" or "Hitlery" and only one person referred to San Francisco as the "people's republic." Strangely, we actually found a comment that was kinda interesting:

"The point about citing them at 4:00 am is to roust them and harrass them, in the sort of passive-aggressive hypocritical manner that suits the local electorate. This sort of policy is why Newsom is so popular - the locals really don’t like the homeless and want them gone (and are quite conservative in many other surprising ways), but they don’t want it done in a way that will upset their sensibilities."