Christmas leftovers . . .

•  Maricopa County Attorney Andrew Thomas - at war and, in his mind, under siege from countless battlefronts - issued the oddest statement last week.

In a joint written statement with Sheriff Joe Arpaio, his partner in . . . er, law enforcement, or something like it . . . Thomas wrote, in part:

“We’re not intimidated.”

Andy Thomas is not intimidated? Well, how about the county supervisors you’re threatening to throw into prison for a few hundred years for felonious paperwork filing? Don’t you suppose that they’re a little nervous, Andy?

Thomas’ latest fight with the Board of Supervisors is over control of the board’s lawyers. Why Thomas chose to drag his political goombah, Arpaio, into this debate is anyone’s guess. I suppose it’s always handy to have someone with a tank and a .50-caliber machine gun on your side when you’re preparing for an intimidating onslaught from county supervisors.

But just who does Thomas think is trying to intimidate, anyway?

I spoke with one of the county supervisors early last week. This supervisor - who I will not identify in any way, other than to say it’s not the indicted one - was without exception the most intimidated politician I’ve ever spoken with. This politician would not speak to me over a land phone line for fear that Thomas might be listening. He/she was worried about stopping by The Arizona Republic building for fear that Thomas’ agents might be snapping pictures nearby.

Andy Thomas doesn’t know from intimidation. Except how to apply it.

•  Republicans on the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee released a report on Dec. 11 regarding global warming. Its title pretty much summed up the contents: “More Than 650 International Scientists Dissent Over Man-Made Global Warming Claims; Scientists Continue To Debunk ‘Consensus’ in 2008.”

Precision of language is important regarding sensitive issues, and you just don’t get much more sensitive than global warming.

In the report, the Republicans are not denying global warming. They are not even arguing the degree of human contribution to warming. For the most part, they are not arguing about global warming at all.

They are arguing the presumptuous conclusion of the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change that there is a hard and fast “consensus” among scientists about all aspects of warming and that the debate is ended - a position so fundamentally anti-scientific in nature that it boggles the mind.

Anyway, you can find it at the committee’s Web site at epw.senate.gov/public. Click on “Minority Page.”

•  One last word about “intimidation.”

This is one of those little stories that hardly seemed relevant to anything at the time but now speaks loudly about the guys at war with the county supervisors.

Last April, I wrote one of those little “Quick Hits” that appear at the top of our Opinion pages. It was about Joe Dana, the Channel 12 reporter who is such a burr in the side of Arpaio and his squad of yes-men. I applauded Dana’s reporting.

That same day, I received a message from one of Arpaio’s stable of press spokespeople, warning me (in a silly, half-veiled way) that unless I wanted to “assume personal liability for Joseph Dana’s actions,” I should provide him with “just what specific knowledge (I) possess about the smearing and slandering (KPNX-TV) is responsible for promulgating in the community . . . ”

This press spokesman (who, I should note, carries a badge) copied his messages to me to a pair of Phoenix-area private law firms.

Now, I’m not going to suggest I’ve never been intimidated. I am but human. But I don’t believe I could ever again look in a mirror without cursing if I let this self-important knucklehead scare me in the slightest. So, I boxed his ears a bit for employing such awful grammar in his e-mails and kicked him on his way.

And I paid no heed at all to his laughably half-veiled threats or his lawyers. Besides, I hear he’s no longer on the press beat.

Now, however, I take that passing incident more seriously. It’s not just about harmless, officious pomposity anymore.

There are real people out there who fear being thrown into jail on trumped-up charges. There are real people who, for good cause, fear wasting thousands on legal-defense bills.

Like I said, that’s intimidation.

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