Day: January 3, 2011

Verbatim

Buck Banks

You do a whole lot more soul searching on the way down, I think, than on the way up. The irony is, as a human being, I probably have more to offer than I ever had in my whole life, just based on prospective, wisdom that comes with pain. But I probably have a smaller canvas on which to paint than I’ve had at any point in a long time. It is what it is.

— South Carolina Gov. Mark Sanford (R), in an interview with the Charleston Post & Courier, on leaving politics.

As Schwarzenegger Exits, Rep. Darrell Issa, the Cry-Baby Pol He Shoved Aside to Become Governor, Sets Sights on Impeaching the President

Jon Ponder

Speaker-Elect John Boehner may be the Republican most associated with sobbing on camera right now, but in California, the pol most famous for a girlie-man crying jag is Rep. Darrell Issa of San Diego County.

“I want seven hearings a week, times 40 weeks,” Issa told Politico. For anyone old enough to remember the Clinton wars in Congress in the 1990s, that certainly sounds like a return to the Chairman Burton era — 280 hearings in search of a bogus infraction that can be trumped up into a high crime or misdemeanor.

Issa is also remembered in California as the Republican pol who funded the recall of Gov. Gray Davis, a Democrat, only to find himself shoved aside in the race to replace Davis by Arnold Schwarzenegger. Schwarzenegger complete his term as governor today.

In 2003, Issa, an accused car thief turned wealthy car-alarm entrepreneur, donated $1.7 million to a cabal of fringe GOP operatives intent on bringing down Davis in order to damage the California Democratic Party. In August of that year, with recall petitions certified, lawsuits settled and the recall officially underway, Issa, then virtually a political unknown, made an indelible first impression on California voters when he broke down in tears at a news conference with national and local news cameras rolling.

Issa’s motivation in funding the recall of the governor had been simple. He wanted the job for himself. But at the news conference, where by all rights he should have been announcing he was in the governor’s race, he was forced to announce he was dropping out instead.

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