The Honolulu Police Commission can be a treacherous meeting of political rip currents, runoff from old grudges and stealthy sharks hiding in the murky waters. Ordinarily it's quiet and calm, but throw in the important task of picking a new police chief and everything gets muddy and choppy and jaws start snapping.

Everybody knows this. It's expected. Which is why the Police Commission's questionable complication of the selection of the new chief should not have happened. When everybody is already expecting tricks and favorites and a finger on the scale, you have to be extra sure to play it super straight.

Mayor Mufi Hannemann gave a non-denial denial when responding to questions about his involvement in the selection:

"Give me a name, give me an organization that we can go counterpoint with. But as far as I'm concerned, that's just a rumor," he said.

We'd give you the names of who was saying you were orchestrating the whole thing, but the list of people who weren't saying it is much shorter, and you already have those folks on staff.

The whole business about the Police Commission wanting to "expand the pool" of finalists by adding two names just does not ring true despite all the explaining and exasperated sighing about the media creating a controversy where there was none. Two members of the selection committee resigned in protest. Reporters did what they're supposed to do and asked, "Why?"

Why indeed? Expanding the pool of candidates is a good thing, but it is something that happens in the beginning of the process, not at the point where you get down to the finalists. The act of choosing finalists means narrowing the field, not expanding it. What was the selection committee for, if not to select? Was it actually a suggestion committee? Like, "Well, we think these four are pretty good, but some of the others are swell, too. You all just go ahead and chose because really, they're all winners!"

Clearly the rules got changed in the middle of the process or the selection committee members wouldn't have balked. In the end it all worked out, but the process was a mess. Louis Kealoha seems a choice that suits all parties, and he was on the short list before it was made longer.