Day: April 7, 2008

Sen. Vitter’s Bad Day – He Learns He May Be on DC Madam Witness List, Then Comes a Fender-Bender

Jon Ponder

Sen. David Vitter, the Louisiana Republican who positioned himself as a moralist while regularly consorting with prostitutes, learned today thatt he is on a prospective witness list in the trial of the DC Madam:
A car carrying U.S. Sen. David Vitter ran into a No Parking sign in the Gonzales Police Department parking lot Monday morning as the senator was attempting to evade members of the media.

Defense attorneys listed the Republican senator among potential witnesses Monday as jury selection began in the case against Deborah Palfrey. Vitter has acknowledged being involved with the escort service. But after issuing brief statements apologizing for what he called “a very serious sin,” he has ducked follow-up questions.

On the witness stand, the Louisiana Republican would not have that luxury.

This news was followed by word of a traffic incident involving the senator and his staff:

When a car carrying an aide to Sen. David Vitter nearly collided with a parked police cruiser outside the Hart Senate Office Building last month, Vitter spokesman Joel DiGrado complained to our Politico colleague Anne Schroeder Mullins that it really wasn’t a story.

“The Politico must be really desperate for a scoop if they want to write a story about the near-misadventures of a senator’s staffer, especially when the member wasn’t even in the car,” DiGrado said.

Fair enough.

From today’s Gonzales (La.) Weekly Citizen:

“A car carrying U.S. Sen. David Vitter ran into a No Parking sign in the Gonzales Police Department parking lot Monday morning as the senator was attempting to evade members of the media, including the Gonzales Weekly Citizen, following a Town Hall forum event at Gonzales City Hall.

“No one was injured in the incident, but the car — in which Vitter was a passenger — sped away from the scene with visible, but light damage following the wreck.

“The sign was encased in an orange safety cone and cemented into the driveway.

“Members of the media were attempting to question Vitter about news released Monday that he may be called to testify in the upcoming trial of a woman accused of running a high-end Washington, D.C. prostitution ring.”

Also on the witness lists are former senior State Depart. official Randall Tobias, and mlitary strategist Harlan Ullman, who is known for inventing “shock and awe” — and whom the women in Palfrey’s employ referred to as “Mr. Unpleasant.”

McCain to Have the Advantage in Petraeus Hearings

Trish

Look for a big ol’ love fest when Gen. David Petraeus testifies before Congress tomorrow. Sen. McCain will get to go before Sen. Obama or Clinton in “questioning” the general, based on seniority.

Hillary Clinton is more and more becoming the Ralph Nader of 2008

Don’t expect Clinton or Obama to speak until late afternoon — one of them will soon be the party standard-bearer, but Senate rules break for no one. “In the ideological duel that will unfold tomorrow, [Sen. John] McCain will have a distinct logistical advantage, Republicans are quick to note,” Jonathan Weisman writes in The Washington Post.

“As the ranking Republican on the Armed Services Committee, he will deliver the second statement and the second set of questions, and will have the right to interject at will. Allies said he is likely to toss out Clinton’s statement from the September hearing that it would take ‘a willing suspension of disbelief’ to accept Petraeus’s security assessment, and Clinton — lacking seniority — will only be able to watch.”

Expect McCain to intone preachy, yet gushing, monologues where he all but gets down on his knees to kiss the general’s butt.

This is why the Democrats need to have a candidate. McCain has a free and clear path. Meanwhile, Hillary Clinton is more and more becoming the Ralph Nader of 2008. If we lose again, she will join Ralph in the Ego for Ego’s Sake Hall of Fame.

Obama’s ‘No Lobby Money’ Claim is at Best a Half-Truth

Buck Banks

In trying to woo white, middle-class Rust-Belt voters in Pennsylvania, Barack Obama is sticking to a major point that he hopes plays well with unionized, anti-Washington types — he claims he doesn’t take contributions from lobbyists and that the K Street types won’t have a say in his White House. Only trouble is, it’s not 100 percent true.

In his column, Craig Crawford notes: “Obama is careful to claim in the ad that he does not take money from ‘Washington’ lobbyists. That’s because he does take money from state-based lobbyists.”

‘It’s a politically smart position for him to take. It sounds profound. But in fact neither PACs nor lobbyists give a lot to presidential campaigns.’

Politifact.com outed Obama last August for his lawyerly wording in his adverts that left him loopholes to leap through to avoid the lobbying thing:

And Obama still accepts tens of thousands of dollars from people who work for Washington firms that do substantial lobbying. Former Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle is an Obama contributor who isn’t a registered lobbyist, but works as a consultant for Alston & Bird, a lobbying firm in Washington.

The Center for Responsive Politics found that Obama accepted $55,019 from employees at lobbying firms, and much more from companies that are not classified as lobbying firms but have lobbying divisions.

So we give Obama’s statement a Half-True on the Truth-O-Meter. While Obama can accurately say that he does not accept money from federally registered lobbyists, he still accepts thousands from people in the influence industry.

The Columbia Journalism Review also has done some homework on Obama’s assertions and found them wanting in veracity:

To explain: Opensecrets.org, the Web site of the Center for Responsive Politics, is the most authoritative source on campaign finances. Basing its reports on data from the Federal Election Commission, the Center shows that Obama indeed doesn’t take much money from a sector the Center calls “lobbyists.” Through the end of December, Clinton received more than $800,000 and McCain around $400,000 from this group, which the Center says includes people who work for lobbying firms at the local, state, and federal level and their relatives who are not otherwise employed, as well as those who are officially registered as Washington lobbyists. Obama received contributions of about just $86,000 from this group. Obama’s Web site says he doesn’t take money from Washington lobbyists or political action committees,and the Center says that if his campaign finds that the money came from registered Washington lobbyists, it does get returned.

How meaningful is this? “It’s a politically smart position for him to take. It sounds profound,” says Massie Ritsch, communications director for the Center for Responsive Politics. “But in fact neither PACs nor lobbyists give a lot to presidential campaigns. He’s not leaving a whole lot of money on the table by eschewing PACs and lobbyists.” PAC money represents only about one percent of all the money in a presidential race because, Ritsch says, so many people donate that their contributions dwarf PAC money.

OK, so it’s not like saying you dodged sniper fire as you zigzagged across a Croatian runway like Hillary Clinton did, but it does beg the question of whether Obama is really fundamentally any different than any other presidential aspirant who will basically say anything if it serves his ends. I suppose it wouldn’t rub me the wrong way if Obama wasn’t positioning himself as a different kind of animal altogether.

Although he describes himself as an agent of change, taking rhetorical license on the lobbying issue sounds like more of the same old to me. And to think there for a minute I had the audacity to hope the rhetoric matched the reality.

Quote du Jour

Buck Banks

Hypocrisy is the most difficult and nerve-racking vice that any man can pursue; it needs an unceasing vigilance and a rare detachment of spirit. It cannot, like adultery or gluttony, be practiced at spare moments; it is a whole-time job.

— W. Somerset Maugham (1874-1965), English playwright, novelist and short story writer

What Really Went Wrong with Mark Penn

Trish

Mark Penn, from Time Magazine

Yes, I know they’re saying that Hillary Clinton’s chief strategist, Mark Penn, left the campaign because of his mishandling of talks about a Colombian trade agreement.

…Penn had met with the Colombian Ambassador to the United States — in his capacity as the head of public relations firm Burson-Marsteller — in order to help the Colombian government push for congressional approval of a free trade agreement with the United States.

The problem? Senator Clinton — the candidate for whom Penn was also working — opposes that trade agreement.

Later on Friday, Penn described the meeting as “an error in judgment.” On Saturday, the Colombian government cancelled its contract with Penn’s firm.

Colombia, the story goes, was so insulted by Penn’s characterization of their meetings that they fired him. With Clinton’s, that makes two firings in as many days. Bad weekend.

But there’s more to Penn’s banishment from the Clinton campaign than that. For the benefit of those not paying attention, let’s just say Clinton hasn’t been doing so well lately, and she seems to blame a lot of her trouble on Penn. She’s probably right.

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McCain’s VP – Condi’s ‘No’ Said to Mean ‘Yes,’ Romney Nixed by Uber-Right

Jon Ponder

Run, Condi, Run: Here’s a candidate all Democrats can rally around — Condoleeza Rice appears to have unofficially signaled that would she would agree to be John McCain’s running mate.
To win in the fall, just as the Democratic nominee must suddenly pivot to the right, McCain will have to move left in order to appeal to Independents in the vote-rich center.
Rice has said she doesn’t “do” politics. We know from the record that she also doesn’t “do” national security and or international diplomacy, at least not well — but, as we learned during the six years of the GOP ascendancy, Republicans don’t put much stock in competence.

Rice’s supporters say she would bring two things to the GOP ticket: Name recognition, which would mean the McCain campaign would not have to waste time in the fall introducing the VP pick (as Bush I did with Dan Quayle); and, as an African-American woman, she would trump the barrier-breaking of the Democratic nominee, whomever she or he turns out to be.

In the kabuki dance of D.C. rituals, Rice unofficially tossed her hat in the ring late last month when she spoke at a weekly meeting of lobbyist Grover Norquist’s conservative anti-government group, Americans for Tax Reform. In a Q&A after her presentation, Rice answered “no,” but apparently meant “yes,” when asked if she would consider the VP nomination, according to Steve Clemons at the Washington Note:

Others still argue that one does not talk serious foreign policy matters with the Wednesday Group Meeting without wanting to also telegraph that one might be interested in political futures. In other words, though saying she is not interested in the vice presidential slot on a McCain ticket, Condoleezza Rice might be convinced at some point to give up her near California dreams if “necessity” required it…

And by all accounts I have heard, her performance was stunningly good, very well received by one of the major bastions of American conservative power players, and that she “won them over,” according to one source.

Clemons also said Condi told the group she planned to go back to California and write a book about her time in Washington and work in the Bush administration. Let’s hope it’s a novel.

Condi’s bio is a bit problematic however. GOP operative Roger Stone was quick towarn Florida Gov. Charlie Crist last year that if he wanted to be on the GOP ticket, he’d better get hitched, but quick. Stone insinuated that Republican voters would be suspicious that a bronzed, perfectly coiffed, unmarried candidate in his late 40s was gay. The same might also apply to an never-married candidate in her early 50s.

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