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Recent Appearances...

-Lurid Crime Tales-

Hunter Biden Hires Bill Clinton's Impeachment Attorney to Combat GOP House Probes

2022-12-25

[Breitbart] Hunter Biden hired former President Bill Clinton’s impeachment attorney Abbe Lowell this week to combat the House Oversight Committee’s investigation into the Biden family business.

Abbe Lowell, who engages with clients engulfed in political scandals, is one of the establishment’s top attorneys. He has represented many high-profile clients, including Sen. Robert Menendez (D-NJ), former Sen. John Edwards, lobbyist Jack Abramoff, Bill Clinton, and Jared Kushner. Lowell is a Brox native and a 1977 Columbia Law School graduate. In 1982, he ran for the Maryland House of Delegates on the Democrat ticket.

Lowell will now join Hunter’s legal defense with Kevin Morris, the lead attorney, Chris Clark, and Joshua A. Levy. Lowell will defend Hunter from the congressional probe, while Clark and Levy’s work has focused on preventing Hunter from being charged by the DOJ for tax and gun violations.

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Home Front: WoT

Conservatives have a Mandela problem

2013-12-08

Not anymore.

Subheading: Republicans were wrong about South Africa's great liberator. Now they have to say something nice about him

I'll bite: He's dead Jim.

Nice enough? No? Read on.

Article by a leftist named Alex Halperin.

For right-wing pundits, talking about Nelson Mandela is a minefield.
Nice. Mandela could tell you something about minefields. He didn't? You mean you didn't do your homework? Or did the right wing fever swamp eat it?
Throughout the Reagan administration, American conservatives regarded South Africa's apartheid government as a bulwark against communism, especially compared to the rest of sub-Saharan Africa. A generation of conservative operatives, including the disgraced Jack Abramoff and the very influential Grover Norquist writes in National Review, "Like many other anti-Communists and Cold Warriors, I feared that releasing Nelson Mandela from jail, especially amid the collapse of South Africa's apartheid government, would create a Cuba on the Cape of Good Hope at best and an African Cambodia at worst."
And it turned out worse than Cuba.
Indeed, the right was hardly vocal in opposition to Apartheid. On Twitter, The Nation's Lee Fang pointed to an 1986 column by William F. Buckley arguing that the U.S. should "Continue our moral pressure by all means. But stop trying to fine-tune South African policy from the White House; pull back on the one-man, one-vote business; and c) forget blanket sanctions." This is like Paul Ryan's plan to fight poverty through "spiritual redemption."
He was wrong then and he is wrong now. I was on the anti apartheid side at the time. It was the right thing to do. But the result sucked and it will get even worse. You can lay that at Mandela's feet.
In the eyes of many conservatives, Nelson Mandela was a terrorist--
He was a terrorist, and now he is an ex-terrorist.
indeed some are still saying so today--so they might be understandably tongue-tied when he ascended to the pantheon of great men. Yesterday pundits compared him to, among others, Abraham Lincoln, George Washington (from Charles Krauthammer!), Gandhi and Martin Luther King Jr. A rough comparison, might be if history in the Middle East had turned out differently and conservatives had to say something nice about Yasser Arafat. I am certain Brezhnev would say something nice about the good head Arafat gave him.
When was the last time you talked to a conservative,let alone many of them, Alex? Those "conservatives" are like the "house negro" label you hanged on Herman Cain. I no more subscribe to the notion that Mandela was a human rights hero, than I would Bull Conner was a police hero in Alabama.
Some of the more gracious commentary acknowledges being wrong about Mandela. Murdock goes on to write:

Far, far, far from any of that, Nelson Mandela turned out to be one of the 20th Century's great moral leaders... He also was a statesman of considerable weight. If not as significant on the global stage as FDR, Winston Churchill, and Ronald Reagan, he approaches Margaret Thatcher as a national leader with major international reach.
Holy Sh*t! What a gross lie!
But even well after Mandela had been freed and elected president, he was hardly universally beloved among American conservatives. As my colleague Joan Walsh points out, he infuriated the right in 2003 when he criticized the Iraq war. The exact quote, The Other McCain points out, was "All Bush wants is Iraqi oil. There is no doubt that the U.S. is behaving badly. Why are they not seeking to confiscate weapons of mass destruction from their ally Israel? This is just an excuse to get Iraq's oil." So, Mandela being correct on the Iraq war remains a sore spot. Some conservatives felt the need to point this out upon his death.
Mandela was wrong. You failed to address any of the things the US did do in Iraq that had everything to do with the mission and nothing to do with your narrow perceptions.
If we had just wanted the oil we would have made a deal with Saddam, it would have been easier. Then we would have invaded Alberta...
On Fox News, Bill O'Reilly's head almost exploded since Mandela's story doesn't conform exactly to politics as he usually understands them:

He was a communist, this man. He was a communist, all right? But he was a great man! What he did for his people was stunning!... He was a great man! But he was a communist!
O'Reilly is half right. Replace "great man" with "murdering basdard", and he'll be exactly right.
O'Reilly's guest Rick Santorum pulled us back down to the expected level of discourse when he said Mandela stood up to a "great injustice," and then compared the legally sanctioned and brutally enforced segregation of millions of people to the "ever-increasing size of government that is taking over and controlling people's lives, and Obamacare is at the front and center of that."

Venturing further into the fever-swamp, it's possible to find the worst kind of garbage. On his Facebook page, Ted Cruz posted a strongly worded memorial to the great man and some took issue.

Mmmm... I found something I disagree with Cruz on.

Sad to see you feel this way Ted. He was a terrorist. I guess you have only seen the Hollywood movies

Let's not forget that Mandela called Castro's Communist revolution "a source of inspiration to all freedom-loving people."
A lot of individuals who said they were conservatives said nice things about Mandela. I was stunned too.
Meanwhile Michelle Malkin's site Twitchy, brought it all back to groundlessly mocking President Obama, firmer ground for most of her comrades.

Link

Home Front: Politix

New Era of Open Government

2012-10-19

Eric Holder, attorney general under President Barack Obama, has prosecuted more government officials for alleged leaks under the World War I-era Espionage Act than all his predecessors combined, including law-and-order Republicans John Mitchell, Edwin Meese and John Ashcroft.

The indictments of six individuals under that spy law have drawn criticism from those who say the president's crackdown chills dissent, curtails a free press and betrays Obama's initial promise to "usher in a new era of open government."

The Obama administration has prosecuted more leakers of classified information to the news media than Republican predecessors.

Thomas Drake, a whistle-blower and former analyst at the National Security Agency, talks about the personal and professional toll resulting from an allegation that he gave a reporter classified information about inefficiencies and cost over-runs in an NSA surveillance program. Drake, who was prosecuted in 2010 by Obama's Justice Department under the Espionage Act and maintains he never shared classified information, spoke this week to Bloomberg's David Ellis.

In 2009, former FBI linguist Shamai Leibovitz was indicted for handing over transcripts of government wiretaps of the Israeli embassy in Washington to a blogger. He pleaded guilty and was sentenced to 20 months in prison.

"There's a problem with prosecutions that don't distinguish between bad people -- people who spy for other governments, people who sell secrets for money -- and people who are accused of having conversations and discussions," said Abbe Lowell, attorney for Stephen J. Kim, an intelligence analyst charged under the Act.

Lowell, the Washington defense lawyer who has counted as his clients the likes of Jack Abramoff, the former Washington lobbyist, and political figures including former presidential candidate John Edwards, said the Obama administration is using the Espionage Act "like a club" against government employees accused of leaks.

Despite Transparency Promise, U.S. Denies More Than 300,000 Information Requests in One Year.

The prosecutions, which Obama and the Justice Department have defended on national security grounds, mean that government officials who speak to the media can face financial and professional ruin as they spend years fighting for their reputations, and, in some cases, their freedom.

Link

-Lurid Crime Tales-

Magliocchetti Case Involving Late Dem Draws Less Coverage Than Abramoff Scandal

2010-08-07

The financial scandal that dogged Rep. John Murtha until his death in February has reached a climatic point following the arrest Thursday of a former aide to the Pennsylvania Democrat. But as the case sparks comparisons to the infamous Jack Abramoff scandal, the story has yet to generate as much attention.

Paul Magliocchetti, the owner of a now-closed lobbying firm that represented defense clients, was arrested Thursday on charges of making hundreds of thousands of dollars in illegal campaign contributions.

The charges against Magliocchetti, brought in federal court in Alexandria, Va., included making false statements to the Federal Election Commission.

But the coverage of Magliocchetti has drawn scant media coverage. By comparison, the Abramoff scandal, which involved Republican lawmakers, captured national attention.

Tim Graham, director of media analysis for the Media Research Center, noted that the Washington Post ran a front page story Friday on the Magliocchetti, but he slammed the broadcast news stations and newsweeklies for not offering as much prominent coverage.

"They're not going to do anything that would put a Democratic member of Congress on the cover of a magazine," he said. "They run in a pack and the pack isn't mindless. They have a narrative they want and they're going to stick to it."

Abramoff was sentenced in 2006 to nearly six years for a fraudulent Florida casino deal and got a four-year sentence in 2008 for conspiring to defraud the U.S., corrupting public officials and defrauding his clients in a separate case.

Even Abamoff's release from prison in June has generated more media coverage. Abramoff landed a job at Tov Pizza, a kosher pizzeria in Baltimore soon after his release.

Graham said "it's very easy for a partisan media" to largely ignore the Magliocchetti case.

"Too difficult. Congressman dead. No one cares," he said. But he added "there's elements that could make a compelling television news story but they just don't want to do it."

As part of his plea deal, Abramoff cooperated in a long-running Justice Department investigation that led to the convictions of former Rep. Bob Ney, R-Ohio, former Deputy Interior Secretary J. Steven Griles and several top Capitol Hill aides.

Link

Home Front: Politix

"~~Billy Mays~~ J. D. Hayworth here! Want free government money? Here's how:..."

2010-06-22

Jim Geraghty, National Review's "Morning Jolt"

Oh, J. D. Hayworth. What are we going to do with you?

Phil Klein: I understand why many Arizona Republicans would want to dump John McCain for a more conservative Senator, but I've never understood those who argue that J. D. Hayworth is the conservative who should replace McCain. Hayworth, after all, was a top recipent of donations linked to corrupt lobbyist Jack Abramoff, and was a reliable vote for President Bush's big government agenda. The weakness of Hayworth's claim to be a small government conservative was brought into sharper focus with the release of this 2007 infomercial that Hayworth recorded for the National Grants Conference, which offers seminars on how to people can get free money from government through grants.'...

The Arizona Republic quotes a Hayworth spokesman as saying he only did one commercial, but I think one misstep is all it takes to do the damage. Put aside the claims that these seminars are a scam, charging folks $999 to $1,200 for publicly available information and greatly exaggerating the availability of the federal grants. The Hayworth campaign tells NRO the former congressman has no regrets. Really, J. D.? Really? Not one iota of contemplation that maybe a former United States congressman should not be appearing in ads telling people that the federal government is just full of money and that they should be asking for more of it, at least not if he ever plan on running for office again on a platform of controlling spending and fiscal conservatism?!?

Beyond that, the ad is so tacky it makes those Real Housewives' series look classy. You're a U.S. congressman, you're supposed to be above these sorts of things. After you leave Congress, you're supposed to make your money the old-fashioned, honest way: writing a book no one will read, teaching a class that is only for the most diehard of political geeks, trading on your connections with a fat-cat, Gucci-wearing lobbying firm, and in the case of former Ohio congressman Jim Traficant, making license plates. If we have congressman popping up in infomercials, next thing you know we'll have the President of the United States appearing in commercials for late-night shows.

Link

-Lurid Crime Tales-

Panel sends Countrywide subpoena

2009-10-25

Republicans and Democrats on the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee agreed Friday night on language for a wide-reaching subpoena of Countrywide Financial's VIP lending program as part of an investigation into allegations of influence peddling by the company at all levels of government, committee aides said.

The subpoena, which was sent out Friday night, will ask the lender to fork over documents relating to its "Friends of Angelo" program -- named for CEO Angelo Mozilo, who allegedly offered favorable mortgage rates to persons of influence.

Republicans and Democrats agreed to request documents relating to a wide range of government employees -- including members of the executive branch, House members and staffers, officers of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac and employees of state and local governments. Senators will not be included in the House's investigation.

Senator Chris Dodd is safe, then.

The subpoena specifies that the ethics committee will receive and redact all documents that identify members of the House.

So is Representative Barney Franks, it appears.

Other records that will be delivered include the number of enrollees between 1996 and 2008, any taped telephone conversations regarding the program and emails between Countrywide officials, according to the subpoena obtained by POLITICO.

The goal of the investigation, Democratic and Republican committee aides say, is to understand the inner workings of the program and uncover if and how it was used to gain influence among lawmakers and regulators.

Ranking Member Darrell Issa (R-Calif.), who has been pushing Democrats hard to issue a subpoena, has compared the program to General Motors offering automobiles at a deep discount and homebuilders constructing a house for material cost alone.

The House subpoena opens a new can of worms for lawmakers: 435 members of Congress and their staffers, along with Freddie and Fannie officials and a slew of local and state officials, a group that has not been a focus of previous Congressional efforts on Countrywide, could be under the microscope.

One senior Republican said this could prove as tough an issue for lawmakers as the Jack Abramoff lobbying scandal of the Bush years. The lawmaker added that while Abramoff's misdeeds were largely centered around Republicans, this investigation could ensnare members of both parties.

Documents from the subpoena are set to be delivered by Nov. 6 but a committee aide expects the full set of records to take upwards of a month to arrive.

Link

Home Front: Politix

Watchdog comes back to bite Democrats

2009-10-14

Senior Democrats are taking shots at the House's new ethics watchdog, which has come back to bite some caucus members a year after Democratic leaders created it.

Majority Whip James Clyburn (D-S.C.) acknowledged a growing number of concerns about the Office of Congressional Ethics's (OCE) record and predicted a coming public clash over its activities. "A lot of people have been raising concerns [about the OCE], and I support them," Clyburn said. "At some point in the not-so-distant future, these concerns will have to be addressed."

Its proponents argue that it is needed to fix a broken, self-policing, members-only ethics committee, which rarely initiated investigations unless compelled to do so by a formal complaint from another member or via intense public scrutiny.

Clyburn's terse comments are surprisingly strong from a member of the Democratic leadership. The OCE, an independent ethics board made up mostly of former members of Congress, was the brainchild of Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.), who pushed for an added layer of ethics oversight after Democrats won the majority in 2006. She succeeded in ramming legislation creating the OCE through the House despite serious opposition within her party.

As a Democratic leader, Clyburn voted in favor of the OCE, but then-Rep. Rahm Emanuel (D-Ill.) and Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (D-Md.) appeared to buttonhole the most members. Resentment over Pelosi's drive to create the extra layer of ethics scrutiny has lingered ever since.

"It was a mistake," Rep. Emanuel Cleaver (D-Mo.) said flatly. "Congress has a long and rich history of overreacting to a crisis." Cleaver, a Congressional Black Caucus (CBC) member who voted against creating the OCE, was referring to the Jack Abramoff lobbying scandal. Democrats used the controversy to impugn the GOP for creating a culture of corruption when it controlled Congress and the White House. "The truth of the matter is -- everything Jack Abramoff did was against the law and many people involved in that scandal have gone to jail," Cleaver continued.

Cleaver is most concerned about the ability of the OCE to launch an investigation based on media reports or an anonymous complaint. The ethics committee can initiate investigations from media reports as well, but a member must file a formal public complaint to require the ethics committee to launch a probe.

A significant number of members on both sides of the aisle were wary of handing any power to monitor members' activities over to a group of non-lawmakers, and the OCE's record so far has confirmed their worst fears, they argue.

The OCE is charged with reviewing suspected ethics rules violations and complaints and making recommendations to the full ethics committee for further investigation and action. Its proponents argue that it is needed to fix a broken, self-policing, members-only ethics committee, which rarely initiated investigations unless compelled to do so by a formal complaint from another member or via intense public scrutiny.

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-Lurid Crime Tales-

Lobbyist corruption trial looks at Istook's office

2009-09-14

An attorney in the federal corruption case of a lobbyist says former U.S. Rep. Ernest Istook collected money from lobbyists and then asked them what projects they wanted in a major spending bill.

Queerly enough for this Name That Party mystery, former Representative Istook was apparently a Republican.

Andrew T. Wise, attorney for lobbyist Kevin Ring, says the former Oklahoma congressman held 22 fundraisers in the first three months after becoming the chairman of a subcommittee that had control of highway spending. Wise says Ring helped raise money for Istook and that now-imprisoned former lobbyist Jack Abramoff made the first donation to Istook's political action committee. But Wise says the actions weren't illegal.

In a statement to The Oklahoman, Istook says he based his decisions on merit and on requests from members of Congress, not on contributions.

Link

Home Front: Politix

Pelosi's Pork Problem

2009-06-05

Picture a freight train roaring down the tracks. Picture House Speaker Nancy Pelosi positioning her party on the rails. Picture a growing stream of nervous souls diving for the weeds. Picture all this, and you've got a sense of the Democrats' earmark-corruption problem.

This particular choo-choo has the name John Murtha emblazoned on the side, and with each chug is proving that those who ignore history are doomed to repeat it. Republicans got tossed in 2006 in part for failing to police the earmarks at the center of the Jack Abramoff and other corruption scandals. Mrs. Pelosi is today leaving her members exposed to an earmark mess that might make Abramoff look junior varsity.

Federal investigators are deep into a criminal investigation of PMA Group, a now-defunct lobby shop founded by a former aide to Mr. Murtha, Pennsylvania's 18-term star appropriator. The suspicion is that some members of Congress may have peddled lucrative earmarks to PMA clients in exchange for campaign contributions. To get a sense of this probe's scope, consider that last year alone more than 100 members secured earmarks for PMA clients.

Mr. Murtha, who in the past two years alone directed $78 million to PMA companies, has so far not been accused of wrongdoing and has proclaimed his innocence. The feds, for their part, are picking up speed. Federal agents have raided PMA, as well as a defense contractor to which Mr. Murtha had directed earmarks, Kuchera Defense Systems. By last week, Mr. Murtha's fellow defense appropriator and PMA-earmarker, Indiana Rep. Peter Visclosky, had disclosed he'd received subpoenas in connection with PMA, while the Navy said it had suspended Kuchera from doing business with it because of "alleged fraud."

The result is growing dissent among Democrats, on full display this week. On one side is Mrs. Pelosi, who has demanded her party protect Mr. Murtha, a man hugely responsible for her ascent. One the other side are younger, first- and second-term Democrats who won their seats off GOP scandals and who have no interest in sacrificing them at the back-scratching altar.

Republican Rep. Jeff Flake this week gave notice he was introducing his ninth resolution calling for an ethics committee investigation into PMA. This scourge of earmarks worries that, since the 1990s, some lawmakers have been "refining" earmarking, moving beyond "bring home the bacon" pork for districts and instead viewing earmarks as "fund-raising tools" -- a way to deliver money to companies that produce campaign cash. "We've crossed a line," he tells me. "And we in Congress need to understand that this is why Justice is interested."

His resolutions are forcing members to take sides, and with each vote he's peeled off a few more of Mrs. Pelosi's caucus. His first resolution, in February, got support from 17 Democrats. These were folks like California's Jerry McNerney, who spent his 2006 campaign lashing his GOP rival to Abramoff. And New Hampshire's Paul Hodes, who in the same year criticized his opponent for failing to return campaign donations from former House Majority Leader Tom DeLay.

By last month's Flake resolution, 29 Democrats had jumped on board. Welcome Mike Quigley, newly elected in Illinois after a campaign focused on Rod Blagojevich. Welcome, too, New York's Scott Murphy, who in March squeaked out a special-election victory after attacking his opponent on ethics. Some Democrats have fretted that even lining up with Mr. Flake won't provide adequate cover from a possible Murtha train wreck. In April, Mr. Hodes and Arizona Rep. Gabrielle Giffords debuted a bill to ban lawmakers from taking contributions from companies on whose behalf they've requested earmarks.

Mrs. Pelosi has relentlessly fought to tamp down this uprising. In April, she recruited the former top Democrat on the ethics committee, Howard Berman, to lecture members in a closed-door meeting as to why they should continue to oppose Mr. Flake. In May, as the House prepared for another vote, Mrs. Pelosi's assistant, Rep. Chris Van Hollen, sent an email to staffers warning "Don't Be a Flake" and making clear defections would not be viewed charitably.

But the news of the Visclosky subpoena, and the possibility of another Flake vote, this week threatened a mass revolt. Majority Leader Steny Hoyer pre-empted Mr. Flake with his own resolution calling on the ethics committee merely to disclose whether it is already looking at PMA. Democrats then watered this down further by referring the resolution to committee, where it can be buried. Many of the GOP's biggest earmarkers, in particular Alaska's Don Young and Florida's Bill Young, went along with this charade, proving Republicans have yet to exorcise their own earmark demons.

As political cover goes this is pretty scant, and Democrats are in control. If and when this train derails, the exposure could be huge. For Mr. Flake, it's all a bit mindboggling. "This is a well-trodden path of denial that we Republicans already walked down. Democrats are now walking down that path. Philosophically, it's nuts."

Link

Home Front: Politix

Corruption probe heats up on Capitol Hill

2009-05-30

A federal grand jury has subpoenaed a Democratic congressman in a corruption probe, the first concrete indication that a long-simmering Justice Department investigation of a top lobbying firm also has the potential to seriously damage congressional careers.

On Friday, Rep. Pete Visclosky, R-Ind., acknowledged the grand jury has demanded documents from his office, certain employees and his campaign committees. The probe focuses on the PMA Group, a now-defunct lobbying firm that specialized in securing federal contracts for defense firms from Visclosky, Rep. John Murtha, D-Pa., and others on the House Appropriations defense subcommittee that Murtha chairs.

In his hometown of Johnstown, Pa., Murtha brushed aside questions Friday about one Pennsylvania defense contractor for whom he obtained $14.7 million in the last two years in congressionally directed funds called "earmarks." The Navy suspended the contractor a month ago for alleged fraud.

Murtha grew defensive when asked about the suspension at a news conference he held at a defense trade show. "What's that got to do with me?" he asked. "What do you think, I'm supposed to oversee these companies? That's not my job. That's the Defense Department's job."

Asked whether he had a lawyer, Murtha responded, "What kind of question is that?" and then ended the brief news conference by turning around and walking out of the room, accompanied by aides.

Murtha has collected more than $2 million in campaign contributions from PMA's lobbyists and the companies the firm has represented since 1989, while Visclosky has collected more than $1 million, according to Federal Election Commission records.

The latest inquiry represents only the latest round of legal troubles for Congress involving earmarks, federal money lawmakers direct to their home states. In recent years, two former Republican congressmen have gone to prison over influence-peddling charges connected with the practice. Once-prominent Washington lobbyist Jack Abramoff, also in prison, once dubbed the earmarking committees "the favor factory."

PMA was founded by Paul Magliocchetti, who became a lobbyist in 1989 after leaving his Capitol Hill job as a staffer on Murtha's subcommittee. A former Visclosky chief of staff also joined PMA.

Though Murtha has long been a target of critics of so-called pay-to-play politics, Visclosky has studiously maintained a low profile. Though he hails from northwestern Indiana, an area notorious for local corruption, Visclosky has cultivated an image of being above the fray.

Even as the fallout from PMA Group has threatened to taint him, Visclosky has tried to set himself apart from other recipients of PMA's largesse, notably Murtha and Rep. Jim Moran, a Virginia Democrat, who has received nearly a million dollars in campaign donations from employees of PMA and their clients.

Link

-Lurid Crime Tales-

Iowahawk: Dead Hobo Reporting Glitch Claims Another White House Appointee

2009-02-06

No inline snark this time, since Iowahawk stories are composed entirely of snark in the first place.
U.S. Energy Secretary Stephen Chu announced his resignation this morning amid new reports that Alameda County workers had unearthed more than a dozen additional dead hobo bodies at his former home in Berkeley, California. The Nobel Prize-winning physicist had been the subject of a week-long controversy after he amended his White House application form to declare "3 or 4" hobo corpses in his crawl space, but after this morning's discovery, Chu said he felt he could no longer serve as an effective spokesman for Administration energy policy.

"Getting America on the road to energy independence requires a secretary who is focused full time on developing comprehensive strategies for alternative fuels, rather than a political distraction over a handful of decomposing drifters," said Chu. "I'm afraid I am no longer that person."

Chu said he would return to Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, where he will resume his scientific work investigating particle dynamics and local homeless shelters. President Obama said he would accept the resignation with regret, and expressed hope that a new Secretary could be named within the week.

"It was an honest mistake on Dr. Chu's part," said the President. "The section of the screening questionnaire about dead hobos has been confusing for a lot of nominees. In his defense it only specifies 'basement/crawl space/storage shed,' so I can somewhat understand why he didn't mention the ones discovered by the backhoe yesterday. That said, it's important that we move forward with revitalized American energy leadership. I'd like to thank Dr. Chu for his service and delicious home-made beef jerky, and wish him well in his future endeavors."

Sources inside the administration say the President is favoring University of Texas petroleum geologist / registered sex offender G. Harland Tellis as Chu's replacement. Tellis is expected to face stiff opposition from netroots blog sites like the Huffington Post, who have thrown their support behind British pop singer Gary Glitter.

The Chu hobo kerfuffle was the latest in a week-long series of Obama administration personnel imbroglis that have led to 36 resignations since Tuesday. Former HHS Secretary Tom Daschle and Chief Performance Officer Nancy Killefer saw their tenures cut short over tax issues, which continue to dog Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner. Geithner is also dogged over dogs, after his failure to report over $14,000 in income from his backyard pitbull fight business. A federal grand jury probe over an alleged 12-state outlaw motorcycle gang methamphetamine network forced Commerce Secretary designate Bill Richardson to resign before Mr. Obama's inauguration. Labor Secretary Hilda Solis faces continued scrutiny over late taxes, lobbying, and involvement in a Tijuana car theft ring, while National Security advisor Samantha Power has received GOP criticism over her 2006 volunteer work as a sniper for the Taliban. Her boss, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, has yet to deliver a promised 'full explanation' after police discovered 11 Laotian prostitutes caged in the garage of her Chappaqua NY home. Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack faces increasing questions over his one-time membership in an all-white golf and satanic baby snatching club. Last week Mr. Obama was forced to amend an earlier executive order banning lobbyist from administration jobs after news reports identified over a dozen members of his team who previously, or currently, lobbied on behalf of Raytheon, General Dynamics, the UAW, Church of Scientology, the Crips, ACORN, SPECTRE, Friends of Ebola, North Korea, Coalition for a Human-Free Planet, and MSNBC. The revised executive order, which requires Executive Branch employees to limit lobbying to lunch breaks, is expected to be revised again before the week.

Deputy administration press spokesman Bob Hitler Jr. brushed off press gallery question this afternoon following the Chu announcement, and said that early stumbles are part of every presidential transition.

"I think the American public understands that whenever there's a transfer of power, there are always going to be a couple of trips and stumbles, followed by an ethics imbroglio or two, and maybe a little glitchy pecadillo or occasional kerfuffly snafu," said Hitler. "If anything, these resignations just go to show how committed President Obama is to bringing ethics back to Washington. After the days of Scooter Libby and Jack Abramoff, I think the American public can take pride in the fact that almost 80% of the White House staff have full legal permission to pass within 300 feet of Chicago public playgrounds."

Whether the skein of ethics problems will dent the President's popularity is yet to be seen. Newsweek's longtime political analyst Jonathan Alter said he would award Mr. Obama another record 75th straight "up arrow" in his weekly Convential Wisdom column, but warned that he must act quickly before he loses control of the agenda.

"I blame Rahm Emanuel for this mess, and Obama needs to tell him to fix it now. The President has to get the public's attention focused on his new improved $180 quadrillion stimulus package and his weekend Vanity Fair cover shoot with Annie Leibowitz," said Alter, collapsing into tears while clinging to his Bearack the Bear plush inauguration collectible.

White House chief of staff Emanuel, who awaits arraignment in a Hopkinsville KY jail following his early Wednesday arrest for truck stop prostitution, was not available for comment.

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Home Front: Politix

A New Circus Comes to Town

2009-01-11

They're going to need more than three rings.
by P.J. O'Rourke
Is it too soon to talk about the failed Obama presidency just because Obama isn't president yet? That depends upon how quickly Barack Obama is able to apply the lessons he's learned from Management Secrets of the Illinois Governors. So far he's not doing very well. He has allowed America's current number one jackleg, crackpot, smut-mouth, slime-licking politician to give the Obama Senate seat to a lovable old African-American doofus whom no one has the heart to execrate. Roland Burris will be the kind of ornament to this year's Senate that the broken plastic Rudolph with its antlers missing was to last year's Christmas tree.

Speaking of "witch," am I the only person who experienced an unexpected surge of warm fellow-feeling for Mahmoud Ahmadinejad when Hillary was named secretary of state? I wouldn't wish dealing with her on my worst enemy, who'd be Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.

Then Obama took Bill Richardson--one of his earliest important supporters and among the smartest, most experienced, and, certainly, most affable of Washington insiders--and put Bill at the Department of Commerce. I will read from the roster at the Secretary of Commerce Hall of Fame, its inductees dating back to the Harding administration:

Norman Mineta
Mickey Kantor
Ron Brown
Robert Mosbacher
Howard Malcolm Baldrige Jr.
Philip Morris Klutznick
Maurice Stans
Henry Wallace
Harry Hopkins
Herbert Hoover

Even a Blagojevich knows that Washington isn't Chicago. In Washington you don't place a loyal and able political ally in some obscure public office to garner campaign contribution boodle from local highway contractors. And--oops, that seems to have been the problem with the Bill Richardson nomination.

Come on, Obama, what kind of Democrat are you? I thought Democrats were supposed to be good at this stuff. It's us Republicans who stink at political corruption. One clumsy little elephant misstep and it's GOPterdämmerung with villainy that lives on in popular legend for generations--McCarthyism, Watergate, Iran-Contra, Enron, Jack Abramoff. But when Democrats get their hand (or other body part) caught in the till, folk heroes ensue--Boston's James Curley being reelected while jailed, Washington's Marion Barry being jailed while elected, Quixotic Bill Clinton unfazed by the Rush Limbaugh windmill and riding off into the sunset with fair Dulcinea Lewinsky unceremoniously dumped from the saddle. And, of course, there's Obama's Toddling Town, the Windy City of Richard and Richie Daley with its "corruption that works."

So what's the big deal about Bill Richardson and the highway contractors? You want those highway contractors making their Democratic presidential contributions during the primary campaigns of 2012 when the "failed Obama presidency" is being challenged at the polls by Hillary Clinton?

Speaking of "witch," am I the only person who experienced an unexpected surge of warm fellow-feeling for Mahmoud Ahmadinejad when Hillary was named secretary of state? I wouldn't wish dealing with her on my worst enemy, who'd be Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.

I think about the next four years of Hillary's dutiful efforts at global peacemaking, and I hear a chorus of voices echoing around the world--from Israelis and Palestinians, Iraqis and al Qaeda, Taliban and NATO troops, Pakistanis and Indians, Sri Lankans and Tamil Tigers, Georgians and South Ossetians, Colombian soldiers and FARC guerrillas, Hutus and Tutsis, Congolese rebels and other Congolese rebels--all saying, "Thanks, but we'd rather be killed by each other than nagged to death by you."

Mr. future ex-President Obama, if I may address you personally, let's discuss your laundry list of hope and change. In your opinion how often is change really a good thing? Changing a tire. "You'd better change your ways." Change of life. "Spare change, Man?" Any change in a wart or mole.

If change came in a box, what kind of box would it come in? You've read your Bulfinch's. After Pandora opens her container (made of recycled material so that death and disease leave a small carbon footprint) and all the evils that plague mankind have been loosed on the world, what's left inside? Do you think it's a good sign when nothing remains but hope? What would your girls have liked best for Christmas? A kennel with a puppy? Or a carton full of empty promises?

In the language of politics there is only one translation for the phrase "hope and change," to wit, "big, fat government." Mr. Obama, if you're going to give us big, fat government, you need to be a big, fat politician. You need to be a Tip O'Neill, a Teddy Kennedy, a Richard Daley, a Bill Clinton at the very least. And you don't seem to be a big, fat anything--literally or otherwise. You seem to be . . . smart and organized. Like Jimmy Carter!

So we may speak without compunction of the failed Obama presidency. What a blessing that it's a failure. Things are bad enough the way they are. There's already a huge ongoing government intervention in the economy. Bringing the government in to run Wall Street is like saying, "Dad burned dinner, let's get the dog to cook." Now the government's going to take over the auto industry. I can predict the result--a light-weight, compact, sustainable vehicle using alternative energy. When I was a kid we called it a Schwinn. And next in line for political therapy is health care. Voting will cure what ails you. Go to the doctor when you've got cancer, and he'll say, "Don't worry. Everything will be fine. I'm going to treat your disease by going inside this small, curtained booth and putting an 'X' next to a very special name."

If we want this sort of thing and lots more of it, we'll need somebody better--that is to say worse--than Barack Obama. Is Obama the man who can make the wolf of partisan spoils dwell with the lamb of public interest, and the leopard of increased political power lie down with the kid of individual liberty; and the calf of personal responsibility and the young lion of social engineering and the fatling of free enterprise together; and a lawyer from Hyde Park will lead them? (And will Nancy Pelosi eat straw like Dennis Kucinich?)

No. Barack Obama doesn't have the outsized personality and flair for bunkum that is necessary to lead even America's sheep-like electorate into such ravenous company. Thank God.

Barack Obama is not a P.T. Barnum of the Washington Big Top. The real P.T. Barnum had a side-show attraction where a lamb, a wolf, a leopard, and a lion had been trained to stay with each other in one cage. Asked if this was difficult Barnum said, "No. But every now and then we have to get a new lamb."

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