2005

Who Thought Calling This Guy was a Good Idea?

Who let’s this idiot collect one more dollar of public money?

Some of the more amusing statements include that descriptions of his background were near defamatory. Strangely, the information contained in this Time Magazine piece is never actually refuted other than a declaration that it wasn’t true.

In more fun, Think Progress isolates a bizarre bit from Brown

BUYER: So I?d like to know why did the president?s federal emergency assistance declaration of August 27th not include the parishes of Orleans, Jefferson and Plaquemines?

BROWN: ?[I]f a governor does not request a particular county or a particular parish, that?s not included in the request.

BUYER: All right.

Orleans Parish is New Orleans. I was listening to my colleague, Mr. Jefferson?s, questions about when they talked about, you know, they asked for this assistance for three days and then president responded the very next day, not the day that it was made ? the request ? but the governor of Louisiana actually excluded New Orleans from the president?s federal emergency assistance declaration?

BROWN: Again, Congressman, we looked at the request.The governors make the request by?

BUYER: Let me ask this. Since you went through the exercise in Pam, was that not shocking to you that the governor would excluded New Orleans from the declaration?

BROWN: Yes.

BUYER: When that request came in excluding these three parishes, did you question it?

BROWN: We questioned it. But I made the decision that we were going to go ahead and move assets in regardless because

And as anyone who followed this would know Blanco asked for a fairly broad declaration from the President that included the New Orleans Metropolitan area

Under the provisions of Section 501 (a) of the Robert T. Stafford Disaster Relief and Emergency Assistance Act, 42 U.S.C. ?? 5121-5206 (Stafford Act), and implemented by 44 CFR ? 206.35, I request that you declare an emergency for the State of Louisiana due to Hurricane Katrina for the time period beginning August 26, 2005, and continuing. The affected areas are all the southeastern parishes including the New Orleans Metropolitan area and the mid state Interstate I-49 corridor and northern parishes along the I-20 corridor that are accepting the thousands of citizens evacuating from the areas expecting to be flooded as a result of Hurricane Katrina.

The uncharitable view is that he lied. My guess is he really was so stupid as to not even go back with his current free time and figure out what happened. He’s not even competent to cover his own butt.

Why Buyer didn’t understand that Blanco did cover the New Orleans Metro area is bizarre as well, but at least he wasn’t there.

The President’s declaration doesn’t seem to include the New Orleans Metro area, but I’m not certain what that means in the context.

Obama: Bad Ratings in One Location!

I had wondered where this bit in Washington Whispers had come from:

Is Washington already bored with new Senate star Barack Obama ? In his two Sunday talk show appearances this month, the programs finished dead last in the all important Washington market. “He’s Sunday poison,” says a TV exec. But Obama’s office says national TV viewing figures show that his appearances helped This Week and Face the Nation gain a second-place finish to NBC’s Meet the Press. And his September 11 This Week appearance turned out to have had the show’s second-best audience, next to a February interview of California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger. “The national numbers speak for themselves,” says Obama spokesman Robert Gibbs. “This is proof that the so-called skinny kid with the funny name from Chicago’s South Side can go toe to toe with the bodybuilding governor of the Golden State, and that was when Arnold was popular!”

Besides being typical Washington centric BS from inside the beltway, it turns out there are some fingerprints all over it:

In fact, there’s actually only one network who pushes D.C. market numbers to the exclusion of all others: that would be Fox’s D.C. spokesman Paul Schur, who most Mondays quickly sends around the overnight ratings for the local market (where Fox does very well) and ignores the larger national ratings (where Fox does pretty poorly).

Given that background, dollars to donuts, that “Washington Whispers” column came out of lunch the two Pauls had together at Chef Geoff’s last Wednesday. So then we’re left with this thought: Pushing an item about how a Democratic Senator is “Sunday poison” isn’t really the job of a network spokesperson.

Why is Fox doing the job of Bill Frist’s press secretary? There’s a thin line between network sour grapes and politically-motivated backstabbing.

There’s another oddity in the whole thing–why would anyone expect one Senator to carry the ratings? It seems to me the whole thing points out that Obama is attracting an audience in places that matter most–where voters are.

Suing Bloggers

Somehow this slipped through the cracks, but Carl is being sued for defamation.

Details here

Someone threatening to sue a blogger is nothing new, someone actually bothering with doing it is.

Most of the suit is bogus. Bill Welch’s privacy is largely a non-issue given his brother is a public official. That his brother voted on his hiring is bizarre in itself and pretty much opens all the rest to public scrutiny. Further, reporting on public records isn’t a violation of privacy.

The only issue that appears legally debatable is whether Carl’s letter to Chris Welch’s boss crosses the line. One would have to see the whole letter, but there is broad latitude depending on how the letter was written if it was seeking information as a member of the press.

Finally, and perhaps Carl can point it out, where is the word liar used by Carl towards either Welch brother? Given it’s in a quote, I’d think it would be verbatim, but then again the bogus privacy argument tends to make me think this wasn’t the work of a genius.

All bloggers should remember being sued is pretty easy. You migh have the law on your side, but it’s an expensive thing to make sure stays on your side–and make sure you have personal liability insurance. To those who threaten to sue me, yes I do and plenty of it. I have since before I started the blog. Bring it on.

GOP Republican Gubernatorial Nomination Cattle Call Comment Period

It’s back. I figure it’s time to start up–last time was too early, but now we have regular news to run this as a weekly feature.

So drop your comments down below or in e-mail and I’ll be placing the competitors in my own personal opinionated order–I do take your comments into consideration though.

Obviously Brady is doing better than I expected, but what other surprises are there?

Was Syverson at Either of These?

First, for those not familiar with it, GOPILLINOIS is a site run by Dave Diersen, a Republican activist from Wheaton. The site collects some of the more important articles related to state politics–especially Republican politics in Illinois. Rich Miller has pointed it out before. It was originally done in an e-mail, but he now posts each day on the web site and it’s a great resource. Dave is way to the other end of political spectrum from me, but it’s an invaluable resource. I don’t link to it enough–though there is a permalink on the left. He does some commentary as well and has linked to ArchPundit from time to time which I appreciate.

The above is to assuage my guilt over not linking enough and then making fun of one of the events he’s been promoting.

Judge Roy Moore made a visit to Illinois with stops in Wheaton and Rockford

From Dierson’s Summary:

About 350 heard an outstanding address by former Alabama Supreme Court Chief Justice Roy Moore at the Wheaton Evangelical Free Church in Wheaton Saturday evening, September 24. Sadly, it appeared that the neither the Chicago Tribune, Chicago Sun-Times, Daily Herald, Wheaton Sun, nor the Wheaton Leader assigned any of their reporters to cover this major news event. Speakers included Sandy Rios and Senator Peter Roskam and attendees included Senator Bill Brady, Eileen Byrne, Paul Caprio, State Representative Randy Hultgren, Peter Labarbera, David McSweeney, Frank Penn, Scott Thomas, Dr. Eric Wallace, and Jon Zahm.

I have to agree with Dierson that it’s odd no one covered that several important candidates and political operatives were in attendance at a talk by Roy Moore. Roskam spoke with Moore–does he approve of Moore? And where does he break with Moore?

Moore is the guy who flaunted orders from superior courts to remove his 10 Commandments monument on state grounds. It wasn’t just that he disagreed with a Superior Court, he flouted the ruling and was eventually tossed from the Court from an ethics complaint initiated by Bill Pryor, a very conservative Attorney General who Bush then nominated to the Court of Appeals.

There are some real serious questions people need to have answers about from those who are seeking office at the rally and whether they support Roy Moore’s challenge to the inegrity of the US Judicial System. Unfortunately, no one asked them that day.

To the Republican who think Moore’s great: Didn’t we learn anything from Alan Keyes?

CORRECTED: Called Dave John and misspelled the last name.

You Mean Normal People Don’t Care About Politics?

Who knew if you read the blogs? Eric Krol let’s everyone know what the average person actually cares about.
Yeah, one of my pet issues is the utter misunderstanding of many activists when it comes to the average person’s interest in their pet causes. Generally, they don’t give a damn. What do they care about? The weather.

TV isn?t getting off any easier ? I stopped counting the would-be jurors who ?watch TV news only to get the weather.?

The lack of knowledge about recent political events astounded me, not because I labor under any delusion that most of the public awaits every political story with bated breath, but because among a large pool of average people, the ignorance was almost universal. Jury selection also probably just reaffirms Chapter 1 in the political consultants? standard play book: you can win simply by running a flurry of negative TV ads, taking few solid positions and making even fewer promises. Few are paying attention, apparently.

Another day, I’ll defend rational ignorance–at least to a degree, but when political advocates, supporters and junkies get into a discussion of the minutia of a policy or of strategy describing how some specific item will turn an election, they miss that for the most part, most voters know nothing of the event. They have lives, most of us don’t.

Krol’s column is excellent and makes several great observations including the willingness of most people to serve on a jury out of civic responsibility–something most cynical observers of the political world view as little more than a nuisance to our pontificating.

Hat tip Rich again

Please Put the Cronies Where They Can Do No (Serious) Harm

Rich Miller and IlliniPundit asked all sorts of good questions concerning the Director of the Illinois Emergency Management Agency.

What’s telling is that after Katrina with many emergency management issues being discussed, Burke wasn’t front and center, Michael Chamness was the key contact. Aaron Chambers interviewed him for an article on evacuations.

Who was Chamness? A Ryan loyalist who has testified in the license for bribes scandal. Before that, he was a newspaper reporter–sorry guys, I love a lot of you, but I don’t want you in charge of my evacuation (just as you shouldn’t want me in charge of yours).

I’ll give a pass to Ryan on this simply because many didn’t take it so seriously before 9-11. Now there is no excuse.