“Petty, public infighting plagued (Sharon) Ullman’s first go-round as commissioner, but, refreshingly, her current term has been far less dramatic.”

Sound familiar? We wrote these words less than two months ago — in a May 2 editorial endorsing Ullman. Things have changed since then.

First and foremost, Ullman lost to Dave Case in the May 15 Republican primary.

Then, in a twist of circumstance, Case was appointed to replace retired Vern Bisterfeldt on the Ada County Commission — meaning Case and Ullman will serve together until her term ends in January.

Then, last week, Ullman took to Facebook to launch a personal attack unlike any I’ve seen in local politics. She said Case and four other Idaho State Police troopers “assassinated” a Payette County reserve deputy during a December 1992 arrest.

Ullman can say that she was just posing the question, an attempt, she said, to “try to grab people’s attention.” But it doesn’t wash. This was an accusation, stated as fact. And Case says Ullman has her facts wrong; he says he was present during the shooting but did not draw his weapon.

This whole case has been fully adjudicated, through a coroner’s inquest, a wrongful death suit and two Idaho Supreme Court cases. Nothing supports Ullman’s assassination claim — or her decision to even bring this issue up.

Commissioners have plenty on their plate. They can start with the hot mess surrounding the Dynamis trash-to-energy plant — a project that Ullman adamantly supports and Case vehemently opposes. Even Rick Yzaguirre, the man with the unenviable task of serving as third commissioner with Ullman and Case, said Ullman’s comments were inappropriate.

Saying that this all echoes back to the old Ullman is unfair to the old Ullman. In her first run in the courthouse, Ullman squabbled over items such as the cost of vending machine sodas. I’m nostalgic for that now. This could be a long, ugly six months in the courthouse, as Ullman serves out her term.

One drawback to endorsements is that a paper sometimes has to live with choices that don’t work out so well. We have several of those: Brent Coles, John Bujak, John McGee, Larry Craig.

What we had seen from Ullman, after she returned to the courthouse in 2009, pointed to a changed commissioner. Someone who had seemed to mature into the job of public service. I’m not sure Ullman’s critics — and there are many of them — could have foreseen this type of post-election outburst.

In choosing between candidates, voters and editorial boards have to judge candidates’ positions — but also their personalities. The latter is by far the tougher task. Personally, I believe politicians can change over time.

But here’s the catch. They can also change back.

BREAKING BROKEN NEWS

It is always bad mojo to take delight in a fellow journalist’s mistakes — especially when you consider that I just expended more than 400 words Monday-morning quarterbacking our Ada County commissioner’s endorsement.

Still, the Twitter hashtag #CNNHeadlines was a sadistically funny time-waster Thursday.

Among my favorites: “Identity of Luke Skywalker’s Father Remains Mystery”; “Free bottles of high-fructose corn syrup for every citizen, sez Bloomberg”; and “Investigation finds that Billie Jean was indeed his lover.”

You get the idea. Schadenfreude, administered in 140-character doses and directed at CNN, which initially reported that the U.S. Supreme Court had junked the “individual mandate,” the foundation of the Obama health-care law.

It was a Dewey Beats Truman moment for the digital age, and CNN wasn’t alone. Fox News also jumped the gun but dodged the hashtag treatment. Maybe the Twitterverse grades news networks on a curve.

The lesson relearned is as old as journalism itself: Better to get it right than to get it first. But that is not as easy as it sounds, especially in today’s real-time news cycle.

The pressure to provide information when consumers want it — which is ASAP — is ever-present. We felt the pressure in our newsroom Thursday morning, as we tried to make sense between the erroneous reports and the dispatches from news outlets that got the story right. (We wound up making the right call, posting an accurate Associated Press news bulletin online.)

Mistakes are inevitable. In today’s news climate, mistakes are magnified — and they may actually be more likely to occur.

Kevin Richert: 377-6437, Twitter: @KevinRichert