The paper ledes today with a long, if not really in-depth, look at the bozo who’s been at the forefront of taking the state back into the stone age.

Here’s how it begins:

Nothing stops Russell Pearce.

Not a heart attack. Not a stroke. Not a bullet in the chest.

And most certainly not the criticism from opponents who have long accused him of putting politics ahead of facts, pushing too hard and cooperating too little.

The story does its best to deal with a few of Pearce’s most obvious vulnerabilities, but as usual with the Republic, the staff there just doesn’t seem up to the task.

For example, the reference to “putting politics ahead of facts” in the third paragraph is an initial taste of an issue the story flits back to, but never deals with head-on:

How Pearce talks incessantly about immigrant-fueled crime, when the facts clearly show that crimes' been declining in the state for a decade.

The reporter, Gary Nelson, interviewed Pearce for the story. There’s a lot of he-said she-said in the story about crime, but he never confronts Pearce with the facts, so Pearce is never forced to deal with his fabrications and fear-mongering.

There’s a lot on Pearce’s background with a wacko Mormon fringe figure, W. Cleon Skousen. (The article describes him with a straight face as a “Mormon political theorist.”)

But we don’t get to hear from Pearce what his vision is about church and state. (And nothing about how the Mormons feel about SB 1070.)

And one more thing: Pearce could have been asked why, if he’s so devoted to the Constitution, he’s promoting a bill about immigrant births that plainly is rendered moot by the 14th Amendment.