Do they make pinstripe straitjackets? I’m not asking for myself, but rather for our mayor, Kip Holden, who has gone completely insane.

Yesterday, with his face still bruised from last week’s EBR Metro Council pimp slap, Kip took to the airwaves on WJBO to publicly chastise EBR Sheriff Sid Gautreaux, Mayor Pro-Temp Mike Walker and the Mayor Pro-Temp’s political consultant. He even managed to work in a jab at Councilman Bones Addison, calling him a liar (Holden’s “liar list” is surpassed in length only by Edwin Edwards’ “naughty list,” but I digress.)

Then, Kip gets the state to order a bridge closed, one that had previously been rated a four. If you think it’s just a coincidence that seven days before the deadline to put the bond issue on the ballot, and a day after Kip said he wanted a public outcry in support of the bond, a bridge gets shut down that just happens to be in the district of one of the bond’s biggest opponents, well you’re probably stupid enough to vote for Kip again.

Like I’ve said before, Kip added money for bridges to this bond because he needed a selling point, and nothing sells like fear. It’s dirty politics at it’s worst, and Kip is a master. See my earlier post, for everything you need to know about Kip, his Obama-style scare tactics and our “failing bridges.”

So where was DPW in the months leading up to yesterday’s closure? How did a bridge that was rated a four deteriorate to a zero without anyone noticing? And again I ask, why did Kip not include money in the 2009 bond issue if bridge repair was so critical? And why has Kip continued to go to the mat for wasteful government spending, think $300,000 yearly for Bayou Country Superfest among this list of others, when “people’s lives are in danger?”

As The Advocate points out, most of our bridge repair funds come from state and federal grants. That’s insane. Are you telling me in the City-Parish’s almost $750 million budget that we can’t earmark more money for bridges? When is Kip going to make public safety a priority instead of trying to force new taxes on us citizens to fund things government should already be providing?

The sad reality is that Kip has grown increasingly unstable, leading many to compare him to former Mayor Pat Screen. Mayor Screen was famous for halting City-Parish road and construction work in council member’s districts when they opposed him.

Kind of like exacting revenge on Councilman Scott Wilson by closing a bridge in his district, on a key north-south thoroughfare to Central, as payback for Wilson sponsoring the Metro Council’s recent backhand and the death of Kip Tax III. But hey, maybe it’s a coincidence, and maybe Kip is actually mentally stable.

But then again, maybe not.