In case you missed it....

...Miami Today publisher Michael Lewis shares some thoughts on Miami-Dade mayor Carlos Alvarez and his Banana Republic move to have the recall signatures thrown out.

And you thought soap operas were passé.

Unfortunately, this daily drama, with its never-ending twists and turns, isn't fiction. It's impeding the county, and many players in the cast are to blame.

Start with our nominally strong mayor, who by turning to a specious loophole to avert a legally mandated recall vote is rapidly morphing from upstanding tough cop into cringing loser.

Whether a recall was ever vital — we felt mayoral missteps that ignored public need weren't so grave as to trigger such drastic action — Mayor Carlos Alvarez's fight should be at the polls.

Instead, he chooses a picayune legalism, claiming a deputy's formal signature in clerk Harvey Ruvin's office wasn't sufficient to initiate the recall process.

But Mr. Alvarez used a deputy clerk's signature himself several years ago to get voters to add to his powers.

His response: he got away with impropriety but his opponents won't. That's no tough cop talking.

Weaseling out in the face of 112,000 recall signatures is no path for Mr. Alvarez. He should go down fighting, not on a technical knockout. He's likely to be memorialized, pitifully, as the cop who couldn't shoot straight.