What’s next? Mark Chmura for the town board? (I know, I know. He was acquitted. Snarky comment retracted).

For the first time in 18 years, starting this week, Paul is no longer your district attorney.

His first case on the other side of the legal table: Squaring off against Michael Jackson McGee Jr. and McGee’s attorney, Michael Maistelman, in the recall effort. Yep, Maistelman is the guy accused of rigging the state Elections Board against Mark Green. It’s the case my husband handed off to District Attorney Brad Schimel (a great guy).

Strange world, isn’t it?

I like the New Berlin firm Paul chose to join, Gatzke and Ruppelt SC. It was important to my husband to stay rooted in Waukesha County, his home. He clicked with Jim Gatzke, a former mayor who also left politics. Contrary to the speculation, I’d be shocked if Paul ran for judge.

Normally, I avoid writing about my husband. But the other newspaper in town gave E. Michael McCann a flattering goodbye profile, and gave Paul a few snarky comments about hanging up his prosecutorial hat after saying he wanted to be a career prosecutor (What’s he supposed to do? Sell shoes?) Not that there’s anything wrong with that.

So, I have a few things to say. Take them or leave them.

The most telling anecdote that comes to mind when I think about Paul’s career is, yes, the Chmura case. The jury spoke. And I will not second-guess them. Nor has Paul ever done so. It was a tough case, as are many sexual assault cases.

After the verdict came down, Paul went home and watched TV. The next day, he went ice fishing with a television reporter.

The guy went ice fishing! And he never revisited or second guessed it.

If he had been McCann, they would have written flattering narratives about the courageous prosecutor seeking justice against a celebrity from his own political party by taking on a tough and potentially politically lethal case. Instead, they said he was doing it for political gain. They would have shredded him if he didn’t charge him too. But, really, none of that factored into his decision.

After Paul charged Chmura, my brother remarked: "Is Paul nuts? Charging a Packer in Wisconsin is like indicting the pope in Rome."

Paul believed the case belonged in front of a jury, win or lose.

He was that kind of a prosecutor.

The guy’s curriculum vitae is something like 40 pages long. Meals on Wheels. DARE. Crimestoppers. Boy Scouts. You name it. One recent year, he stood outside the Pick ‘n Save ringing bells in the cold for the Salvation Army.

He was that kind of prosecutor.

He created his office’s first specialized units dealing with narcotics, sexual assault and domestic violence. He modernized the office and contributed on a state level to many criminal justice measures, like the sexual predator law. He’s been honored with major awards for his work on drunken driving, domestic violence and victims’ rights in particular, for the sort of stuff the media never showed any interest in, namely the things that really mattered.

I once gave him a quote from Winston Churchill that said something like: So you have enemies? Good. It means you stood for something at some point in your life. Say what you want about Paul. He took a stand.

His favorite story is about a victim who, after a case he won, ran down the hall toward him. He was going to step aside because he was sure she was running toward someone else. But she was running toward him, overcome with emotion. It wasn’t a high profile case. That’s the legacy that matters.

Raised by a single mother on the south side of Milwaukee in a family of six boys, he is truly a self-made guy. Nothing was handed to him. He worked in a factory after high school, changed tires, pumped gas. I probably respect that most.

He’s not perfect. Sometimes, I would cringe when he shot his mouth off in the press. Usually, he was right. He was never a politician, not really, just a cop. He didn’t calculate his comments or filter them. Sometimes, they shredded him for it, like when he said the attorney general’s race was bought with personal cash. Ask him about that now? He will say, "Well, I said it because the attorney general’s race was bought with personal cash." (But Kathleen Falk would have been a million times worse.)

Waukesha County has remained a great place to live. That’s been a joint effort. And, as the county’s top cop, my husband played a role. That’s something I’m really proud of.

You know, there are some really positive things about being out of the public eye, or so I keep telling myself. Let the media focus on someone else.

Then, Bill O’Reilly called and asked my husband to go on his show Thursday to talk about an illegal alien.

Yeah, I know what you’re thinking. Nothing much has changed, heh?

(Jessica McBride is a member of the journalism faculty at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, a blogger publishing at http://www.620wtmj.com/_content/talk/jessicamcbride/index.asp and a Merton resident. Her column runs Saturdays in The Freeman.)