Hot Hot Hot

I could not make it out to Kim’s parents' house. The engine temp kept going up and up and up. I managed to keep my cool and usually I don’t do that when little shit goes wrong. There’s not much more to say about this until I get the car looked at. Besides a story like this is much funnier if flames start coming from under the hood and I end up abandoning the car and running away from it through a corn field.

That didn’t happen so end of story.

Here is why Russert is a good news man (I think everyone who has read this blog on Sundays knows I have a bias towards the Buffalo Kid…not his nickname)

Russert interviewed Sen. Chucky from NY. He asked the Schu a series of questions in order to see if the firing of US Atts broke the unwritten rule – it is naughty naughty for a president to fire one of these US attorneys for political reasons or to take such action that interrupts an ongoing investigation.

In the current set of firings I have come to understand that at least one of these firings raises serious questions. The US Att (Lam?) from SoCal was in the middle of investigating the Duke (not John Wayne, or Jon Wayne). If she was targeted for this reason, it becomes a big problem for Gonzalez, Harriet and anyone in the White House that supported this action.

Now we have all heard over and over that presidents clean house and shitcan all the Atts at the beginning of their term. There are those famous 93 US Atts that Klinton fired when he took office.

Russert remembered the editorial from the NY Times arguing that Klinton had tainted Justice and the US Attorney system by firing one particular US Att who was in the process of pursuing charges against Mr. Ways and Means himself, Dan Rostenkowski (oooh, Rostenkowski was in my spell check, his legacy is certain)

Schu blew it because he defended the Klinton actions by saying presidents clean house when they win elections. This is not a good defense because if the one golden rule of firing US Attorneys is you cannot try to affect change in an ongoing, highly politicized investigation it shouldn’t matter when the firings occur otherwise we are saying the tradition or right of a president to fire people is more important than ensuring that justice is served.

Now I remembered this firing in 1993 or whatever and I remembered defending the Klinton firings and this firing in particular to my conservative friends who were waiving the New York Times in my face (that was some embarrassing shit by the way). My defense was, “Do you think with the list of scandalous behavior and some serious criminality that goes along with our Rep that he will walk because one U.S. Attorney was fired? And do you think that Klinton really gives a shit about saving Rostenkowski? The best thing that can happen for the Dems is to get him the fuck as far away from Washington as possible. The longer the stink and stain from Rostenkowski’s actions lingers the more likely it will be that the Dem’s will lose the House for a short time in 1994. That would be a disaster for Klinton.”

Now I was wrong about a lot of things in my defense (I actually found it in one of my day books from the early 90’s…I am researching my own arguments, truly pathetic).

1. Klinton gave a shit about Congressional Democrats – WRONG!!!

2. It was in Klinton’s interest to have the Dems retain the Congress – REALLY FUCKING WRONG…Congressional Republicans were Klinton’s best friends (at least until they wanted to impeach him)…but even this helps the Klinton legacy among my friends like bigSoda, Chris B and others who defend and long for the Klinton days. By the way, this president makes Klinton look like less of a snake and more like a Rhodes (spelling?) Scholar who was actually smarter than Kris Kristopherson (not in my spell check). Anybody who praises the freedom from regulation and growth and innovation of business of the Klinton/Gore years and they do not mention what the Blue Dog Republicans did – either they do not remember an important part of the story or they deliberately want to forget it. Any connection between growth and the lack of Federal regulation HAS TO BE CONNECTED TO THE CHANGE OF CONGRESS IN 1994! The drive for deregulation, and managing debt while lowering taxes (the latter especially was co-opted by Klinton) was a big part of the substance of what the new Republicans claimed to bring when they won. I’m sure many of my more liberal friends will only care to remember was the cultural conservatism of those who were part of the Contract with America…but that is misleading and you cannot understand the Klinton years without understanding what he learned from the 1994 midterms.

Sorry for the diversion – I was wrong about other things regarding my defense of Klinton against my conservative friends at the time…but that doesn’t matter much now or ever.

Here’s the importance thing – the difference between Klinton firing the attorney investigating Rostenkowski and what may have happened with U.S. Attorney Lam is important and it is this:

Rostenkowski’s fate was sealed and there was nothing in this firing that would save Dollar Dan or help the Democrats.

Duke is as good as convicted and you might want to say ‘Well the same thing holds here ed’….

To which I ask, what if in the course of investigating Duke Cunningham other names came up? What if Randy named names? Not our Randy because he would just call everyone else a dirty shitbag. I have no proof of what Duke said and I am not claiming to have any knowledge of this investigation. My knowledge of practical/insider Capitol Hill stuff could not fill a thimble that already had some melted marshmallow drippings in it. But if Lam is fired to prevent her from following up on leads provided by Cunningham’s testimony I think we can all see how very different that is from the Rostenkowski. There were limits to any further involvement on the Hill – and nothing like the potential connection between bribes, possibly the army and other members that could go down if the Duke’s testimony points at others, especially other Republican members or those closer to the White House.

If my speculation about the Cunningham investigation is even close to being correct then there is something here.

Russert knows this possibility but he let Schu make his defective defense of the Senate Dems investigation of the firings and moved on. It is not his (Russert’s) job to teach or make this sort of wild speculation. It is his job to ask good questions, get responses and let the audience draw its own conclusions. I wish he would’ve asked a question that led in the direction I suggested, but that would not be responsible.


Totally unrelated to anything else – I heard a great interview with Badger star, Alando Tucker this morning. Anybody who knows anything about local basketball talent knows that Tucker went to LockportHS and anybody who knows pointless edP trivia knows that I am from that blight on civilization. I don’t really care about being from the same high school as this guy – but he played in a lot of the same parks I played growing up. He talked about street ball in Lockport and especially Joliet and I grinned the biggest fucking grin as he talked about this thing that was such a big part of my life growing up. They asked him about calling fouls in pickup games.

Tucker’s response: “Fouls? *laughter…You don’t call fouls. You get up and try to take it at the same guy again. If you score you win, if he knocks you down again, he wins. It’s as simple as that.”

Maybe that’s part of why I am such a prick.