From the Mike Ragsdale transcript [1]:

416 MR: Your going to think this is a smart alec answer but I'm not trying to be...trying to be that way that would be like me asking you does the Sheriff [run his] construction business out of his...out of his office... uh, ljust don't have any answer to that, it's none of my business

So it's OK to run political operations out of an elected office as long as some other elected official is running a business out of their elected office? What if elected officials just ran government out of their elected offices? What a concept.

And, does anyone know what the "squirrel squad" or the "termite thing with the school board" mentioned in the transcript is all about?

UPDATE: The "termite thing" is explained in comments. Someone else told us the "Squirrel Squad" is a, uhm, "special unit" in the Sheriff's Dept. that conducts, uh, "special investigations."

More after the jump.

526 MR: No, I've got a few questions for you guys
527 TC: I know your very busy
528 MR: I've got, no, I've got some questions for you guys
529 TC: Ok.
530 MR: If yon were sitting in my situation and you looked at this kind of
531 thing, you guys are some of the best pros that I've ever met, I
532 mean there are there are very few of any people better then the
533 folks that we have at our Sheriff's Department at solving
534 things...why is this taking so long and the reason I ask that
535 question is because...1'11 be blunt with you ...1 think it's political.

[..]

680 MR: And I guess that's that's our question ...you know, uh, you guys
681 do a wonderful job of solving you know, crimes, I mean there's
682 nobody in the country better at solving murders and drugs and
683 that land of stuff then you guys are but to have one of your senior
684 ranking guys out there in the middle of a cold winter night
685 or..• chasing some kid down the interstate, it appears a little bit on
686 the odd side to the casual observer