What was she thinking?

The heart of Salt Lake County mayor Nancy Workman was in the right place. She wanted to help young people find their moorings.

Unfortunately, her signature was allegedly in the wrong place: on unauthorized checks that kicked funds into the program.

The mayor is innocent until proven guilty, of course. But already, in the public arena, she finds herself in what might be called the "Ronald Reagan Dilemma." When the Iran-Contra scandal surfaced, President Reagan had two ways to go. He was either a lawbreaker or he was clueless. He built his defense around "cluelessness."

Workman is staking out that same territory.

As for the political fallout, nothing fascinates the American public more than a breath-taking fall from power. It captures the imagination in a way the recent Genesis "crash and burn" video never can. And many pundits are already busy writing the script for Mayor Workman's passion play.

Some see her as a person who decided that, indeed, ends do justify the means. Being ruthless and shifty in a good cause is really being efficient and philanthropic; that she allowed her belief in the "greater good" to lead her to finesse the details.

Others see a Shakespearean model — the rise to power, the inevitable onset of pride, the inevitable collapse. "Macbeth" in Salt Lake County.

Some even feel that Mayor Workman borrowed from Mexican history, positioning herself as a patrona, someone who dishes out favor and disdain, calls the shots and watches over those who stand by her.

Some hold out for the mayor to be acquitted and, like the Thunderbird, thunder back from the ashes of scandal.

However it plays out, the early going has indeed produced some lush political theater — the mayor firing perhaps the state's most reputable defense attorney in order to hire a former colleague of the prosecutor; the odd "disconnect" of the mayor's smiling, "school picture" mug shot for the police blotter; the charges of nepotism and phantoms and dead-of-night doings.

In recent comments, the mayor has said she hoped for a speedy resolution.

Though nobody wants to see the mayor in prison orange and would wince at being called morbid, the truth is many Utahns — in their heart of hearts — are just beginning to enjoy the show.