Day: March 13, 2008

Spitzers Too Rich to Miss $80,000

Trish

If, like me, you wondered how someone could spend $80,000 on anything and not miss it, let alone have their partner notice, we have an answer.

Hillary Clinton just lost a superdelegate

The scion of a wealthy Manhattan real estate developer, Spitzer is a millionaire who could easily live off his share of his father’s real estate business.

He reported $1.9 million in income to the IRS in 2006.

Not including last year, his earnings have been $14.9 million since 1998, and that total only hints at his family’s wealth. His father, Bernard Spitzer, is said to be worth at least $500 million.

Spitzer’s tax returns show that a majority of his income comes from rents collected on apartments and shops owned by the family. As governor, he earned $179,000 a year.

His wife, Silda Wall Spitzer, gave up a lucrative career in corporate law in 1994.

One person might miss Spitzer’s various assets. Hillary Clinton just lost a superdelegate.

New York Gov. Eliot Spitzer and Lt. Gov. David Paterson are both in the Hillary Rodham Clinton camp. Spitzer was a superdelegate because he was governor, Paterson because he’s an at-large member of the Democratic National Committee. Now, Spitzer is out, so Clinton will lose a vote. Paterson occupies two “slots.” He could resign as a DNC member. But since it’s an at-large slot, his replacement could come from any state, and for either candidate. There are already two vacancies in at-large seats. There is no indication that Howard Dean plans to fill them.

But then, there is also no indication Howard Dean plans to do anything about anything.

Poll: Success for Bush – Iraq Is Out of Sight, Out of Mind

Jon Ponder

The stated objective of the Bush administration’s “surge” of troops into Iraq was to suppress the violence. Its unstated purpose was to get the occupation off the radar of the news networks in order to tamp down the war as a campaign issue against Republicans in this cycle. If it bleeds, it leads. Conversely, no blood, no coverage.
The Iraq occupation received just 1% of news coverage in the third week of February
In that sense, the surge can be counted as one of Bush’s rare successes. According to a new poll from Pew Research Center for the People and the Press, coverage of the Iraq occupation by television news was reduced to barely a blip last month:

[ Pew] found that the number of news stories devoted to the war has sharply declined this year, along with professed public interest. “Coverage of the war has been virtually absent,” said Pew survey research director Scott Keeter, totaling about 1 percent of the news hole between Feb. 17 and 23.

With no coverage, the public perception of the situation in Iraq has improved:

Twenty-eight percent of the public is aware that nearly 4,000 U.S. personnel have died in Iraq over the past five years, while nearly half thinks the death tally is 3,000 or fewer and 23 percent think it is higher, according to an opinion survey released yesterday.

The survey … found that public awareness of developments in the Iraq war has dropped precipitously since last summer, as the news media have paid less attention to the conflict. In earlier surveys, about half of those asked about the death tally responded correctly.

What was the news people cared about? Figures from Pew are hardly surprising: “During the last week in January, 36 percent of those surveyed said they were most closely following campaign news, while 14 percent expressed the most interest in the stock market and 12 percent in the death of actor Heath Ledger. In contrast, 6 percent said they were most closely following coverage of Iraq.”

MSNBC Cancels ‘Tucker’ – Finally!

Jon Ponder

Among the most annoying affectations of Tucker Carlson, the conservative host of MSNBC’s afternoon gabfest, “Tucker,” is his habit of feigning confusion by crinkling his nose, scrunching his brow and saying “I’m confused,” before launching into a discourse about something a Democrat has done — about which he is not really the least bit confused.

I wonder if he crinkled his nose like that and said, “I’m confused,” when MNBC told him his show was canceled:

“It was a good show. I’m proud of it,” Tucker Carlson tells TVNewser about his now-canceled MSNBC daily program, which began in 2005.

Carlson says the show — with his conservative perspective — is not a fit for the MSNBC prime time ‘brand’. “Which of (the programs) is not like the other? That was always the feeling I got, watching the lineup…

“You can only really be who you are. I couldn’t pretend to be something else, not that anyone asked me to be somebody else. I was kind of out there, by myself.”

Since word of the cancellation, he says, “They’ve been really nice to me…I like working for NBC. They want me to stay, and I’m going to stay, so I can’t complain.”

And:

“Sometimes when you fail,” he adds, “you feel embarrassed. I really don’t feel like we failed.”

Carlson, who is a descendant of the founder of the Swansons frozen food empire, will remain with MSNBC as senior campaign correspondent.