That's the joke.

But in the tragicomedy of Utah's fledgling private school voucher program, Attorney General Mark Shurtleff is the punch line.

Dozens of attorneys scoured two mangled pieces of voucher legislation over the past few months and came up with two completely different legal interpretations.

Last week, the Utah Supreme Court weighed in and dispatched the rest - including Shurtleff. It took just hours for four justices to conclude that the two voucher laws are linked, and a voter referendum this November will determine the future of both.

The attorney general shrugged off the paddling.

"We're grateful there was clarification," says Paul Murphy, Shurtleff's spokesman. "We're trying to follow the law, whether people rule for us or not."

But that too easily glosses over the past month of bluster and bullying. Shurtleff led the charge to issue vouchers, browbeating the state school board and its attorneys in the process, using his own faulty legal opinion as a club.

Makes you wonder if his interpretation was really all about the law, as he repeatedly claimed, or all about politics.

Shurtleff has been verbally wrestling with the school board for weeks. Last month, he ordered them to implement the voucher program - "immediately!" - and worry about legal questions later. Then last week, he demoted two state attorneys assigned to advise the board because they didn't agree with his analysis. "Utahns deserve an attorney general who will ensure justice and vigorously defend the rule of law whether it is popular or not," he wrote in a column for The Tribune.

The attorney general may not have been popular with voucher critics, but his muscle-bound opinion delighted conservative voucher supporters and state lawmakers. He was BMAC, Big Man at the Capitol. While maintaining the pretense of intellectual independence, Shurtleff got used.

In the most unsettling scenario, he became an unwitting tool of House Speaker Greg Curtis and St. George Rep. Steve Urquhart, the original voucher bill's sponsor. Both have a lot riding on this private school subsidy getting doled out; they don't want the public to cut it off before it begins. Feigning concern about voter confusion, they brushed off calls for a special session to allow lawmakers to fix the mess. Instead, the speaker and his heavy suggested turning the referendum into a nonbinding public opinion poll.

More likely, Shurtleff knew exactly what he was doing and willingly aligned himself with the same Republican power brokers who can facilitate his aspirations for higher office.

Either way, his credibility on the issue is shot.

The attorney general still coyly declines to say if he supports or opposes vouchers.

At this point, who cares?

walsh@sltrib.com