Month: May 2008
Charlie Crist Sex Tape Surfaces at Magical Time
A ladies’ man?If you’re like most Floridians, when you hear the words, “Charlie Crist” and “sex tape,” you immediately expect to see a little hombre en hombre action. You’d be wrong, at least for now.
As Politics1 points out, however, the timing of the supposed PG (as opposed to the racier PG-13) rated video is highly suspect. Charlie just wrapped up a weekend with John McCain and his other vice presidential contestants at Cindy’s ranch in Arizona.
I can picture the conversation:
McCain: I’d really like to pick you, Charlie, since you’ve raised a buttload of dinero for me, and there’s a teeny, tiny chance you could deliver me Florida, but I’m worried because you’re so gay.
Charlie: I’ve stayed in the closet this long, John. I sure ain’t coming out now.
McCain: But people talk…
Charlie: Hmmmm. Let me call Roger Stone and my current beard, Carole Rome.
McCain: O.K., get back to me on it.
Here’s the Politics1 version:
Politics1 Exclusive. How interested is Florida Governor Charlie Crist in being John McCain’s VP running mate? So much so that veteran GOP dirty trickster Roger Stone — who coordinated a few dirty stunts in support of Crist during the 2006 gubernatorial campaign — is quietly peddling a so-called “Charlie Crist sex tape.” That’s what Stone called it during a telephone conversation.
Stone claims the tape, which he is saving for the national shows, “shows Charlie fooling around in a hotel elevator with his girlfriend. They’re making out.”…The video was seemingly staged to kill the rumors that Crist is gay. Stone claims the tape — which he discussed recently with Politics1, but didn’t show to us (“I’m saving it for the national shows”) — “shows Charlie fooling around in a hotel elevator with his girlfriend…They’re making out.” Adds Stone: “It was captured on a security camera in the elevator” last month. And Stone just conveniently happens to have a copy of the hotel’s elevator surveillance tape, just when Crist’s name is in play for the VP spot. Hmm. As for Crist’s purported girlfriend — presuming it is the same one he took as his date to the White House Correspondents Dinner in DC a few weeks ago — she’s still married (and not to Crist). Disclaimer: Always be skeptical of anything from Stone.
If Carole is not technically divorced from Todd Rome, the CEO of Bluestar Jets, she soon will be. The couple separated last summer and he is already engaged himself. The Romes were reported to have split because of Carole’s profligate spending, until as the New York Post put it, Todd “realized ‘he could no longer afford his wife’s spending habits…and put a cap on her bank account.'”
Why does thinking about Charlie and Carole make me flash on a picture of Karen and Jack from Will and Grace?
Libertarians Nominate Bob Barr, Thrice-Married Author of Defense of Marriage Act
At their convention on Sunday, Libertarians nominated former Georgia Rep. Bob Barr as their presidential nominee for 2008. Today, Rep. Ron Paul may be the most famous former Libertarian Party candidate, but Barr — who rose to national notoriety as one of the loudest-mouths of the Clinton impeachment prosecutors in the House — is hands down the best known candidate ever nominated by the party.
“As a Republican candidate for the House in 1994, he rose to national attention when reports alleged that he had licked whipped cream off the breasts of two women at a charity event.”
— Milbank
And this appears to be the point. Buoyed by the relative success of the Ron Paul campaign, the LP has nominated Barr to draw attention to its cause: minimal government and personal liberty. From Barr’s candidacy, they may well get the publicity they seek, but at what cost?
Barr’s record before his conversion in the Bush era is anything but libertarian. In particular, he has been a relentless advocate of using the government to enforce a fundamentalist rightwing morals agenda, even though his own personal behavior has been anything but upright. as WaPo’s Dana Milbank pointed out earlier this month:
As a Republican candidate for the House in 1994, he rose to national attention when reports alleged that he had licked whipped cream off the breasts of two women at a charity event.
As a congressman from Georgia, the thrice-married Barr returned attention to the whipped-cream episode when, speaking in support of the Defense of Marriage Act [DOMA], he argued that “the flames of self-centered morality are licking at the very foundations of our society.”
As one of the managers of Bill Clinton’s impeachment, Barr gained enough prominence to attempt a run for the Senate in 2002. But that effort fell apart at about the time Barr accidentally fired a .38-caliber pistol through a glass door at a fundraising reception.
As an elder statesmen, Barr returned to the public eye when, appearing in the film “Borat,” he made a pinched expression after being told that the cheese he had just sampled came from a woman’s breast milk.
Milbank soft-pedals Barr’s involvement in DOMA. He didn’t just speak out in favor of it, he was one of the authors of the egregious law that Republicans successfully floated as an effort to create a wedge between Pres. Clinton and his legions of gay supporters in the 1996 presidential campaign.
The passage of DOMA was one of the sorriest episodes of the Clinton years. It was marshaled through the House by then-Speaker Newt Gingrich — who was engaged in an extra-marital affair at the time, and championed in the Senate by then-Majority Leader Bob Dole, who left his first wife for a stewardess — and finally signed into law by Pres. Clinton, who was also concurrently boinking “that woman,” Monica Lewinsky.
In general, no one outside the gay community was bothered over-much by all his mendacity and sexual hypocrisy. But what should raise everyone’s hackles is the fact that Barr says he is running for president, in part, to right the wrongs of the Bush administration.
In 1997, two years before the actual impeachment of Pres. Clinton, Barr introduced HR304, a resolution calling for an Inquiry of Impeachment — a move prompted, he said, after an appearance on Oct. 15, 1997, before the House Judiciary Committee by Attorney General Janet Reno, when “[it] became patently obvious that the Department of Justice was not going to move on any of these allegations [against the Clinton administration] in any serious way.”
For this early effort, Barr was given a leading spot in the real impeachment in 1998, which led to the weakening of the Democratic Party — which was the true purpose of the impeachment — which, in turn, paved the way for the election of George Bush, whose attorneys general have persistently turned a blind eye toward Bush’s malfeasance and that the widespread criminality within his administration.
Liberals can only hope that Ron Paul’s supporters and others will vote for Barr in November in sufficient numbers to take the election away from John McCain in a close race, the way Ralph Nader handed the election to Bush in Florida in the 2000 campaign.
Surprise! Hillary is 44
Thanks to Mandy, who left a comment on one of our posts mentioning Hillaryis44.
The reference is to Clinton becoming the 44th president. As you know, H.W. was 41, Bill was 42, W is 43, and according to these folks, Hillary already is 44. Wishful thinking, but I would expect no less from a site dripping in pink, and showing a photo of the candidate taken, most likely, the only time she will have ever been 44.
The worst feature of the site, beyond its relentless tearing down of Barack Obama (it features a page entitled, “Why Not Obama?” that is, ironically, blank) is the audio. A very tired sounding Hillary drones on and on about why she should be president while you’re trying to read. If there’s a way to make her stop, I couldn’t find it.
The point of the site seems to be that these particular Clinton supporters are taking no prisoners. If their girl doesn’t get in, that’s it, game over. They do not now, and will not ever, support any alternate Democratic candidates. Way to make a positive change, fanatics!
Check it out, but my advice is put in some ear protection first.
Update: Alert reader RONDOXBAR sent us this link to some research posted at Daily Kos about Hillaryis44. It appears as if it’s a very small number of users who posted a very lot of the stuff. Also, as I noticed in my short visit (see note above about tired Hillary squawking in the background) but didn’t mention, some pages appeared to be hacked. Some of the comments at DK attest to this.
Rove Shows His Hand — and His Guilt — in Siegelman Case
Rove sputters on This WeekIt was obvious after watching Karl Rove on This Week with George Stephanopoulos why he refuses to testify in public before the House Judiciary Committee. It has questions for him about his role in the likely false imprisonment of former Gov. Don Siegelman (D-Ala.). Most people believe those who were involved and have come forward to say that Rove was behind the attempts to frame the governor so he could be replaced by a Republican.
Rove has said he will answer questions only in writing or behind closed doors, with no members of the press or electorate allowed.
When asked to explain himself in the light of day, as he was on This Week, Rove stumbled badly. His attempts to parse and twist words, so effective from behind the scenes in the Bush White House, don’t play as well when the heat’s on him.
Commenter: “By answering the imaginary question, Rove in no way answers the real one”
Stephanopoulos: You were subpoenaed this week by the House Judiciary Committee to give testimony on any involvement you may have had with the prosecution of the former Alabama Gov Don Seigleman. He’s claiming there was selective prosecution. He’s out on bail now, even though he was convicted. He says your fingerprints were all over it.
Here’s what the House report said. It said, ‘In May, 2007, a Republican attorney from Northern Alabama named Jill Simpson wrote an affidavit stating that in November, 2002 she heard a prominent Alabama Republican operative named Bill Canary say that Karl Rove had contacted the Justice Department about bringing a prosecution of Don S. The question for Mr. Rove is whether he directly or indirectly discussed the possibility of prosecuting Don Siegelman with either the Justice Department or Alabama Republicans.’ Did you?
Rove: Let me say three things. First of all, I think it’s interesting, everybody who was supposedly on that telephone call that Ms. Simpson talks about says that the call never took place.
Stephanopoulos: Although she’s produced a cell phone record, according to the committee.
Bush Third Term Fundraiser: More Protesters Than Donors Expected So Organizers Scale Back
George Bush has said that after he leaves office, his first order of business will be to give a series of speeches in order “to replenish the ol’ coffers. I don’t know what my dad gets — it’s more than 50-75 [thousand dollars a speech].. Clinton’s making a lot of money.”
Bush’s Arizona fundraising effort for McCain is being moved to private residences in the Phoenix area.
If the embarassing outcome of a fundraiser Bush is headlining for John McCain this week is an indicator, he’d do well to come up with an ol’ Plan B:
A Tuesday fundraiser headlined by President Bush for U.S. Sen. John McCain’s presidential campaign is being moved out of the Phoenix Convention Center.
Sources familiar with the situation said the Bush-McCain event was not selling enough tickets to fill the Convention Center space, and that there were concerns about more anti-war protesters showing up outside the venue than attending the fundraiser inside.
Another source said there were concerns about the media covering the event.
Bush’s Arizona fundraising effort for McCain is being moved to private residences in the Phoenix area. A White House official said the event was being moved because the McCain campaign prefers private fundraisers and it is Bush administration policy to have events in public venues open to the media. The White House official said to reconcile that the Tuesday event will be held at a private venue and not the Convention Center…
Tickets to the event were to range from $1,000 to $25,000 for VIP treatment.
The likelihood that George Bush will ever officially be held accountable for his malfeasance and incompetence is practically nil. It’s more likely that, like Nixon, it will be his fate to grow old in disgrace. If so, this humiliating slap in the face — not being able to muster a crowd of Republicans in McCain’s home state — may be a foretaste of what Bush can expect after he leaves office.
An Invitation to Hillary Clinton: Retire in Florida
Palm Beach, Florida has issued an invitation to Hillary Clinton, via columnist Frank Cerabino.
There isn’t a more outspoken, Democratic concentration of older white women in America than right here in condoland, and let’s face it, everybody likes to be around loved ones at the end
For Hillary, there’s no better place to wrap things up than right here in Palm Beach County.
To quote the line of the Eugene Levy character, Dr. Pearl, in the movie, Waiting for Guffman, “You have to go where the love is.”
And the love for Hillary, right now, is in South Florida.
There isn’t a more outspoken, Democratic concentration of older white women in America than right here in condoland, and let’s face it, everybody likes to be around loved ones at the end.
…If that’s the case, she should think of South Florida as her own political hospice. We’ll do this right and make her feel no pain right until the end.
She can live these final weeks in a place that will delude her into thinking that she’s the most popular candidate, even if the numbers say otherwise.
…She can ride out the final few days of the campaign as a hero, playing mah-jongg with the girls, taking in a show, maybe, with Bill, at the clubhouse.
“I don’t care what the pundits are saying,” she could tell the national media as she boards the bus for an afternoon charter to play the slots at an Indian casino. “All I know is what I see.”
And she’ll see nothing but cheering crowds. And she’ll get nothing but calls to fight on.
Poll: Obama Leads McCain By 7 Points in California
From the new Los Angeles Times poll:
The big names in California politics are all Democrats. There is no Republican other than Schwarzenegger with statewide appeal who could help deliver California to McCain in November. If the governor can’t do it, it is exceedingly unlikely that it can be done.
Overall, [Barack] Obama led [John] McCain 47 percent to 40 percent among registered voters, while [Hillary] Clinton led McCain 43 percent to 40 percent.
McCain has insisted that he will compete to win California in the fall. But California has gone to the Democrat in each of the last four presidential elections. Most of the state’s political professionals consider it to be reliably Democratic — and too expensive to prompt a full-throated effort by a Republican candidate who could amass electoral votes more cheaply elsewhere.
Clinton remains popular in California, but her supporters here are ready to support Obama:
Gregory Sanders, a Democrat from West Hollywood, said he “avidly” supported Clinton in the primary but would now back Obama.
“I accept that she lost the nomination,” he said in a follow-up interview, adding that he still has “reservations” about Obama because of the controversial comments made by his former pastor, the Rev. Jeremiah Wright.
Another bad omen for McCain in the poll is the fact that Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger’s job approval is sinking again — from 60 percent in January to 43 percent now. (It was in the low 30s at the end of the governor’s disastrous first term.) Unlike his earlier troubles with voters, when he was loathed by Democrats and independents, this time the governor appears to be losing support among members of his own party:
Republicans, too, were negative, with 73 percent saying the state was on the wrong track and [only] 52 percent approving of Schwarzenegger’s tenure. The governor has clashed repeatedly with fellow Republicans on a range of policy issues.
The big names in California politics are all Democrats — the senators, Dianne Feinstein and Barbara Boxer, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and former Gov. Jerry Brown. There is no Republican other than Schwarzenegger with statewide appeal who could help deliver California to McCain in November. If the governor can’t do it, it is exceedingly unlikely that it can be done.
Still, let’s hope the gap between Obama and McCain widens into double digits and stays there. In 2004, John Kerry beat Bush by 10 percentage points, 54 percent to 44 percent. Obama should be able do at least that well.
McCain’s Ambien Use is Cause for Alarm
John McCain’s on Ambien. So much for being ready for that 3 a.m. call.
Ambien is the sleep aid that was at the center of a class action lawsuit after users noticed bizarre side effects, like getting up in the middle of the night and cooking huge meals, then leaving the burners at full blast and going back to bed. I remember reading one man’s account. He said he heard sounds from the kitchen and found his wife tearing open a package of hamburger buns, “like a grizzly bear.”
But there are less humorous risks as well.
“The key is to use Ambien-like medications in moderation and don’t mix them with other sedatives or alcohol,” an expert said. “Avoid use if you have to consider escalation from Defcon 4 to Defcon 3.”
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration has uncovered more than a dozen reports of sleep-driving, all linked to the drug. Partly in response to such reports, the FDA urged sleep drug manufacturers on March 14, 2007 to strengthen their package labeling to include warnings of sleep walking, “sleep driving” and other behaviors.
…”Ambien should only be taken when you have a window of seven to eight hours for sleep,” [Director of the Strong Sleep Disorders Center at the University of Rochester Medical Center Dr. Donald W.] Greenblatt said. “Your staff should know that you’ve taken the medication, and that you should not be involved in any decision-making during that time.”
Official sources go beyond that recommendation.
Ambien can cause side effects that may impair your thinking or reactions. You may still feel sleepy the morning after taking the medication. Until you know how this medication will affect you during waking hours, be careful if you drive, operate machinery, pilot an airplane, or do anything that requires you to be awake and alert…Ambien may be habit-forming and should be used only by the person it was prescribed for. Ambien should never be shared with another person, especially someone who has a history of drug abuse or addiction. Keep the medication in a secure place where others cannot get to it.
Hear that, Johnny? That means you should be keeping it locked away from your wife, Cindy, whose past addiction to Vicoden and Percocet is self-disclosed legend.
But there’s one more little problem.
[Medical director of the St. Joseph Sleep Disorders Center in Orange, Calif. Dr. Peter A.] Fotinakes added that sleeping pills and other sedatives have been proven to be more potent in the elderly.
Um, has anyone noticed McCain is elderly? Let’s connect the dots.
“The key is to use Ambien-like sleeping medications in moderation and don’t mix them with other sedative drugs or alcohol,” Fotinakes said. “Most importantly, avoid use in the event you have to consider escalation from Defcon 4 to Defcon 3.”
Har-dee-har-har, Dr. Fotinakes. I bet your patients think you’re a regular stand-up comedian. The point is, McCain is one of the millions upon millions of Americans who feel they need prescriptions to get through the day, or in this case, the night. He also has a stake in making a drug that might well turn out to be very, very bad look acceptable.
I prefer my presidents to be ‘script-free, unless it’s stuff for blood pressure (which McCain is also on) or antibiotics. I don’t want them to need help from pills in falling asleep, battling anxiety, or fighting depression. And I damn sure don’t want them on something that makes them incapable of doing their job — making decisions — for more than one-third of every day.
