Last week was a whirlwind one for San Francisco Sheriff Ross Mirkarimi: on Monday he learned via reporter inquiry that his driver's license had been suspended, on Tuesday we learned that he's had a pretty rough driving record in the past year or so, and by Wednesday his license was back in good standing again. And now the embattled sheriff is saying that this is just another in a long list of ways Mayor Ed Lee is trying to get him down.

It's a story some disdained, like the San Francisco Examiner's Jonah Owen Lamb...

...though, to be fair, it's possible that my tongue-in-cheek use of "nightmare" might have been a bit too much for the excellent, hard-working Lamb.

But others took the story quite seriously. (Look at the comments on any of SFist's posts on the issue to see what I mean.)

From where Mirkarimi stands, however, this is all politics. While he doesn't appear to note what I speculated on, that the Chron was likely fed the initial suspended license story by anti-Mirk forces, he does have some choice words for Lee.

Mirkarimi's haters, he tells Matier and Ross, "have capitalized on my mistakes and misfortunes. That’s fair game in politics. I can take that."

However, he still believes that the buzz around this latest issue to befall Mirkarimi “is about Mayor Ed Lee consolidating power” and turning SFPD (not the Sheriff's Department, which Mirkarimi oversees) 'into his Praetorian Guard.”

For those of you who fail to recall your history, the Praetorian Guard were the elite but frequently corrupt private army used by Roman Emperors from 275 B.C. until their dissolution by Constantine I in 4 A.D. They're known for helping to assassinate Caligula, among other notable moments.

ANYWAY. Back to Mirkarimi. He says that “I know that without a contested mayor’s race, mine is going to be the top-of-the-ticket, pay-per-view event of the election" and argues that "the mayor ignores the mistakes of the SFPD or his own friends.”

“I’m already hearing about boasts of the mayor’s friends putting up $500,000 to beat me. They want their own police chief, their own fire chief, and now he wants one of his own as sheriff."

“This is a rough town...If my socks are mismatched, it gets reported negatively — but look at my overall record."

Previously: Sheriff Ross Mirkarimi's Suspended Driver's License Nightmare Is Over, But Big Questions Remain
Inmate Found Dead Tuesday Is SF County Jail's Third Fatality Of 2015
Ross Mirkarimi Got His Domestic Violence Conviction Expunged
Public Defender: SF Jail Inmates Are Made To Fight While Sheriff's Deputies Bet On Them
SF Jail Escapee Was Major Drug Kingpin, No One Knows How He Got Low-Security Clearance
Sheriff's Deputy In Lynne Spalding Case: 'No, I Didn't Smell Her...'
He's The Sheriff: Ross Mirkarimi To Keep Job