We have never been the smallest target on the playing court.

Those of us who call Salt Lake City and vicinity home know that. To the outsider, we can come off as a bit odd, stereotypically speaking. People make fun of us for our conservative lifestyle, for liquor laws only slightly more complicated than quantum physics, for our two-party system (Republican and Far Right Republican), for buying into Ponzi schemes like they're M&Ms.

We call young people elders and that confuses people. We have our share of religious — what shall we call them? — "nutcakes," who do all sorts of things because God told them to, including have all sorts of wives. We are the clearinghouse for polygamy jokes. We're the place that gave the world Enid & Joe. We've had as much to do as anyone with popularizing clogging. We live by the largest lake west of the Mississippi and nobody swims in it. We edited "Titanic." We couldn't even buy an Olympics properly. Oh my heck, people even make fun of us for the way we say "oh my heck."

And name another city that was once marched on by the U.S. Army?

OK, other than in the South.

The last thing we need is a mayor of Salt Lake City — the very heart of where we live and what we are — who encourages the rest of the class.

But Rocky Anderson isn't exactly keeping the heat off, is he? What in the name of Tom Welch does he think he's doing? He's not out to fix potholes or revitalize downtown (too bad Katrina didn't come here, the city is already boarded up). He's out to fix the world.

This came to a head a couple of weeks ago when the president of the United States visited Salt Lake City to speak to the Veterans of Foreign Wars convention at the Salt Palace and, as most of the world now knows, Mayor Rocky led the anti-war protests.

There was George W. Bush doing his best George W. Bush impersonation, and there was Rocky — the mayor of the host city — doing his best Michael Moore impersonation.

The First Amendment covers a lot of ground, but being tasteless isn't part of it.

That was embarrassing enough, but that wasn't all. In the wake of the inevitable protests against Rocky's protest, Rocky ended up firing his chief of communications, Deeda Seed.

According to published reports, Rocky didn't like the way public relations was handled on the issue.

He expected positive public relations after a sitting mayor of a major American city openly disrespected the nation's highest elected officer.

Handling P.R. for the Valdez oil slick would have been easier.

So Deeda Seed, a person who sang Rocky's praises for years and helped him get elected and then re-elected, who has officially, as his primary spokesperson, had his back for the last year, who has defended him vigorously against Davis County, against North Salt Lake, against anybody who doesn't agree with the Kyoto Protocol and who drives a vehicle that uses fossil fuel, and against an increasingly disillusioned media, becomes the sixth mayoral spokesperson to be replaced in six years.

Nomatter how you spin it, this looks odd. And more odd, we don't need. It's tough enough having everyone think we're run by a church, without also throwing Jane Fonda into the mix.

---

Lee Benson's column runs Sunday, Monday, Wednesday and Friday. Please send e-mail to benson@desnews.com and faxes to 801-237-2527.