PHOENIX (By Ed Montini, Arizona Republic) July 14, 2005 - The problem with the critics of someone like Maricopa County Attorney Andrew Thomas is that they believe him to be a lawyer and a prosecutor instead of what he really is: a clairvoyant.

It's a common mistake among regular folk. Just this week Phoenix attorney Anthony Bustamante and a collection of lawyers, human-rights activists and community groups asked Thomas to reconsider his decision not to charge the soldier who held seven undocumented immigrants at gunpoint in April.

They spent months researching court cases, outlined what they believed to be relevant legal precedents, then produced a lengthy report for Thomas to read and consider. They assumed that logic and well-reasoned argument have a place in the justice system.

It was a complete waste of time. Thomas could have told them in advance that he would not change his mind, possessing as he does a type of "political extrasensory perception."

Those who are blessed (Or is it cursed?) with political ESP are able to foresee the answer to any question in terms of how it might advance their careers.

For example, letting the soldier/vigilante Patrick Haab off the hook appears predetermined if one looks at Thomas' desire to maintain his appeal to anti-immigration voters. And so does Thomas' decision to blow off the report by Bustamante's group.

"I've made it clear that our office reviews the law and the facts of the case extensively, and that's where I came down," the county attorney said on Monday.

On Tuesday, Bustamante told me: "We're dismayed that he took the position he did without studying the legal points. A lot of scholarship went into it, and for him not to do his own scholarship and respond is disappointing. That's the least we would have expected of a public figure."

I contacted Thomas' office to ask if the report would be given further consideration. (Although, even without a crystal ball attached to my word processor, I could have predicted the answer.)

"He (Thomas) stands convinced that his decision was correct," said Thomas' spokesman Bill FitzGerald.

A lot of otherwise regular people possess a form of second sight when it comes to politics and politicians. Did it surprise any of you, for instance, that Thomas condemned Gov. Janet Napolitano's immigration summit before it took place on Tuesday? Or that her other political rivals denounced the event in advance?

It doesn't require a gift for prophecy to recognize that Thomas, at some point, might fancy Napolitano's job or the job of one of our congressmen or senators.

So, too, might some of the state officeholders who went to the Flagstaff summit in order to get their pictures on TV.

It did not take a fortuneteller to foresee members of the state Legislature whining outside the meeting because they weren't allowed to politicize a half-day law enforcement gathering. Nor would a soothsayer be going out on a limb to say that we'll re-elect the whiners, anyway.

But the people who are stuck doing the real work on problems like immigration don't have time to play for cameras or try to get their names in the paper. They have jobs of serious consequence that must be performed day in, day out. Or as one of them put it, "There's only one way to eat an elephant, and that's one bite at a time."

As for the politicians and their cronies, they'll say that they could have predicted that a hack like me would criticize them. It's their way of trying to divert your attention from the real issue. Which of course is completely predictable.