Journalist and visiting professor Phil Busse, shown above in his skivvies blowing on power tools for some reason (City Pages says that's him, blame them), was forced into resignation on Monday after writing an article describing his experience in stealing McCain signs from people's yards. 

The article, entitled "Confessions of a Lawn Sign Stealer", was written for The Huffington Post and tells of his night of illegality in procuring eight McCain campaign signs along Highway 19. For some reason, writing of his crime in full detail and publishing it on a popular online journal got him in trouble, as he was effectively fired from his position as professor at St. Olaf. Who'd a thunk it, huh?

Busse describes his article as "a childish thrill" that "clearly was stupid", and for some reason this self-awareness didn't earn him any pity points. "Yanking out the signs and running like a scared rabbit back to my idling car was one of the single-most exhilarating and empowering political acts that I have ever done," writes Busse.  How this was empowering in any way eludes me, and how this is a political act rather than an act of theft and vandalism is also puzzling. Was Obama elected because this dude jacked a few signs that were replaced within a day? This sort of juvenile tactic is not only divisive and mean-spirited, but, after reading his article, not really very interesting.

What is interesting is the fact that this is not the first time Busse has had his feet to the flames thanks to his journalistic integrity: The City Pages did a quick Google search and found the St. Olaf professor to have run into numerous issues concerning his writings in the past (I suppose they also turned off Moderate SafeSearch and found this gem of a photograph).

Busse is being charged with a misdemeanor for his publicly-admitted crimes, and may face a $1,000 fine and 90 days in jail. Hope your article and the cheap thrill you got from petty vandalism was worth it, Paul.