A 16-member panel of movers and shakers, assisted by separately elected officials and a laundry list of selection criteria, have come up with two recommended finalists to be the interim King County Executive.  They are former Seattle Mayor Charles Royer and Kurt Triplett, the acting interim Executive and the immediate past chief of staff to the departed Executive Ron Sims.

Yup, that’s a whole lot of work for a seat-filler job for a half-year until the voters elect a successor to Sims, who just was sworn in as President Obama’s deputy secretary of housing. None of the numerous actual candidates went for the interim pick, knowing that it was a placeholder appointment for someone who wouldn’t file next month for the campaign. The whole elaborate appointment process has included nominations from the County Council and interviews and culling by the screening panel that described itself as bipartisan and “representing the economic, geographic and ethnic diversity of the county.” Their list of selection criteria was truly … lengthy. The two known Republican finalists and only woman finalist missed the final cut for this nonpartisan office.

The full council will pick the interim dude on Monday morning. Ain’t politics fun?