Arizona has more than one hysterical and reckless sheriff

When you see a Drudge hedline like this, you figure it’s about Joe Arpaio:

It’s actually Paul Babeu, the attention queen who appeared in John McCain’s “Complete the danged fence” commercial.

The story is just a posting on a far-right fake-news web site that allows Babeu to natter on about how Barack Obama and the ACLU are teaming up to stop him, Babeu, from protecting the country from a “homeland security threat.”

J.D. Hayworth—on the attack!

J.D. Hayworth is capitalizing on the revelation yesterday that one of John McCain’s prominent sheriff supporters called in to a racist radio show in Tennessee.

The Republic:

J.D. Hayworth has called for his GOP primary rival to pull campaign ads featuring Pinal County Sheriff Paul Babeu in the wake of the lawman’s recent appearance on a “pro-White” radio show.

Babeu, a vocal proponent of Arizona’s new immigration law, has appeared in two of Sen. John McCain’s television ads, the most recent taking airwaves last week.

In a statement released Wednesday, Hayworth said McCain needs to distance himself from the sheriff for his affiliation with “The Political Cesspool Radio Show,” a Tennessee-based talk show that has been named a “hate group” by the Southern Poverty Law Center and portrayed as a “White nationalist” program.

Babeu’s press person, Tim Gaffney, says he set the interview up without knowing about the content of the show and that it wasn’t the sheriff’s fault. This may or may not be true; Stepthen Lemons reports that the host of the show in question told a different story:

Interestingly, the show’s primary host James Edwards responded to the controversy on his blog by saying that Babeu is “confused” about what transpired.

“First of all,” he writes, “my co-host, Eddie Miller, had multiple conversations with both Tim Gaffney (Babeu’s press secretary) and the Sheriff himself before Babeu appeared on our live broadcast of July 10, 2010.

“For Sheriff Babeu to change his mind and now regret coming on our show, for whatever reason, is his right. For him to act as though he had no idea of our ideology is a lie.”

Original Arizona Daily Star story here. New Times story here.