As the Spitzer Turns, Part 7

Fred Dicker at the NY Post:

THE man supposedly leading a key state probe of Gov. Spitzer and the Dirty Tricks Scandal has abruptly taken a 21/2-week vacation in South America – after secretly receiving a $15,000 pay raise, The Post has learned. Recently hired Public Integrity Commission Executive Director Herbert Teitelbaum’s extended vacation in Argentina has left stunned commission employees questioning his commitment to a probe aimed at determining if Spitzer and his aides broke the law by using the State Police in an effort to politically damage Senate Majority Leader Joseph Bruno (R-Rensselaer.)

“People can’t believe Teitelbaum just took off in the middle of the investigation,” said a source close to the commission.

“This is the biggest scandal in a generation, and he leaves in the middle of the investigation, before the governor has undergone questioning?”

 A raise from who? Who authorized it? On whose direction was this raise given?  During a fiscal crisis here in NY? This raise and the timing of this vacation would appear to have all the earmarks of a political cover-up/payoff, particularly given the connections:

Teitelbaum, a longtime Manhattan lawyer with close ties to Spitzer’s aides, was named in mid-July by another Spitzer appointee, commission Chairman John Feerick, as the $140,000-a-year head of the Ethics Commission.

As time goes on the evidence against Spitzer continues to mount.

And, Argentina?  Please tell me there’s no connection to Crazy Uncle Hugo in all of this.

Here’s a few posts from BitsBlog that caught my eye and my immediate memory, as I scanned over the posts from the last year.

Harry Reid,man of the land…. deal.
Barbara Boxer back in CAIR’s good graces
Joe Biden: Barack Obama offers nothing
Molly Ivans, RIP age 62
Judging what they are by what they did and did not do
Chavez and Clinton: Birds of a feather
Erb a libertarian? Who knew?
Haditha, John Murtha lied
Mrs. Sheehan has left the party
Charles Nelson Reilly, RIP, age 76
Thompson to annouce over 4th of July
Democrats claim again Plame was covert. In other news, large light scheduled to appear in east.
So why isn’t Moore talking about this?
A reminder of the facts; why we want to war in Iraq.
But what are the real conditions of socialist Healthcare systems?
Terror in Glasgow
Breaking: Car on fire drives into Glasgow airport terminal
Our …..Educational system: leaning left as a replacement for the truth.
Ingmar Bergman: RIP (age 89)
Pennsylvania man survived second lightning strike.
Tom Snyder RIP aged 71
Oops… maybe we CAN win, after all…
Coach Bill Walsh, RIP
Oops… maybe we CAN win, after all… (Part II)
As the Spit[zer] Turns
Vegansexuals: Darwin in action.
Richard Jewel dies at age 44
Iraq and American history
New Bumper Sticker
Just how racist is John Edwards?
John Berthoud, RIP
Jefferson corrtuption case continues forward.
France returns to earth
The invisible hand of George Soros
Barbara Boxer back in CAIR’s good graces
Kucinich questioning anyone’s sanity….
Robert Goulet, RIP age 73
What do union members think of Unions?
Second thoughts on the Democrat “Debate”: The left really doesn’t know what to do about Hillary Clinton
Clinton News Network whoredom confirmed
Here comes “don’t ask, don’t tell ” again…  Just in time for the election.
How dumb to you have to be to a democrat?
When even the leftists recognize there’s something a bit off….
Mike Huckabee: Flaming Liberal
Mrs. Clinton wants to tax health
Yeah, yeah, I know, hostage situation… Yeah, yeah…
Evel Knievel RIP, age 69
Let me make this Kristol klear (updated and bumped)
Huck: If he only had a brain

Daniel W. Drezner asks,  “Should celebrities set the global agenda?”

Rosie O’Donnell, winner of Barbra Streisand IQ Award for Celebrity Vacuity, via New York Post,

“I just want to say something: 655,000 Iraqi civilians are dead. Who are the terrorists? . . . If you were in Iraq and the other country, the United States, the richest in the world, invaded your country and killed 655,000 of your citizens, what would you call us” 

All too often celebrities are morons,  See above quote.   Those who not outright morons are too obsessed with their own feelings to give any time to rational thought.

Hat Tips:  Memeorandum, Lucianne..

Found this by way of The Jawa Report

Yes, I can imagine they do love Jews… In a white wine sauce with shallots, mushrooms, and garlic. 

But are they Halal?

Oh, OK  I’ll get serious.

Does anyone take Iran seriously when they pull stuff like this? I mean, aside from the Cindy Sheehans of the world…

Maybe it something in the water in Arkansas.  I dunno, but Mike Huckabee and Mrs. Clinton share something in common besides their both from Arkansas.  While Mrs. Clinton is shrill liar.  Huckabee is just a calm and smooth liar.

John Stephenson, Right Wing News posts this video.  From where did Huck obtain his figure on the number of illegal immigrants from Pakistan.  Huckabee either does not know, or will not say.

James Joyner, under a banner Fred Thompson: Not Interested in Running for President, writes today:

There’s a minor blogstorm developing around a report from Bill Theobald in USA Today about Fred Thompson’s answer to a question as to how badly he wanted to be president.

Mark Memmott and Jill Lawrence of the paper’s OnPolitics blog summarize the story thusly in a post titled “Thompson: Doesn’t like campaign process, ‘will not be devastated’ if he loses”:

In a dispatch today from Burlington, Bill quotes the former Tennessee senator as saying he doesn’t like modern campaigning, isn’t that interested in running for president and “will not be devastated” if he doesn’t win.

More of the “Lazy Fred” meme. Color me unsurprised.

I suppose it’s been several generations that the press has not seen the kind of politician that we used to have in this country near its founding, where every waking moment of a candidate’s life was taken up with government. So it is their reaction to such a pol is one of fear.

Back in the day, we had citizen soldiers, and citizen politicians.

The soldiers were called up when needed, offering themselves to the service of the country. They didn’t make a career generally speaking, out of being soldiers.

Politicians of the day were pretty much the same way. They served a few years in their various legislative bodies, and went home. their lives didn’t end when their governmental power did.

As James says:

…I came away from the report with the right impression: Thompson thinks he’d be a good president, would work hard if elected, but he’s not going to be devastated if he doesn’t win.

Like, his saying this is supposed to bother me? I’ll tell you the truth… what bothers me more is Hillary Clinton, whose every single breath is consumed in attaining power. Who does the country have more to fear from? The latter, I think.

Seems clear to me that Fred will do something because it needs doing, not because he wants to make government, the end-all and be-all and everyone’s solution to everyone’s problem. There is a major difference between Mrs. Inevitable and an attitude of “Here I am elect me if you want me, and if you think I’d do well.”

That as I see it is the difference between Fred Thompson and Hillary Clinton. Of those two positions, I find Fred Thompson’s infinitely more attractive.

Others blogging:

Right Wing Nut House, Flopping Aces, Wake up America, Stop The ACLU, The Carpetbagger Report, NewsBusters.org, Blue Crab Boulevard, The Sundries Shack, Memeorandum has more.

(Edit:(Bit) Darn typos, anyway)

Addendum: (David L)

A major difference between Fred and Mrs. Clinton is that Fred defends himself without getting shrill, invoking the need for some grand conspiracy and with facts.  Listen to Fred make his case.  Also, unlike Mrs. Clinton, Fred takes and answers questions.

Hat Tip: Allah Pundit, Hot Air.

I no more than get the WordPress software update completed, yesterday… I swear… no more than 10 minutes, and the next update comes in, and it’s an urgent one. Some kind of security bug has been discovered on the version I updated to.

So, I’m updating again today. Impact should be fairly minor, since this is a fairly minor update, as I gather it, in terms of the changes involved, but the procedure is still as long from my point of view. You’ll notice that the ‘down for maint’ screen will be up for a short while today.

That bit of pain aside, yesterday was trying for another reason. You’ll notice that the category listings along the right column is looking a little strange in the numbers. That’s because I got crossed up yesterday between tags and categories, and as a result, the categories were all but fully erased.

Now, usually, I’d have thought to go to the backed up database, but there was a conversion process on the database incidental to the upgrade, and I’d not gotten a decent backup yet.  So, I was forced to rebuild, manually, the category listing.  That done, I’m now forced to re-categorize all 9000 or so posts. It seems nobody’s thought in the WordPress community to make software to mass issue category listings.  It’d be a lot easier if I could, for example, search out all posts with “Fred Thompson” in them, and based on that add the attribute of the Fred Thompson category.  I suppose it’s possible to do that in the database itself, but I freely admit to not being a DBA. I’m blegging the WP folks for a plugin. We’ll see, I suppose.

The category listing will It’ll be a little weird, only semi-functional, for a while.

I’ll pass along a progress report when I can.

Update:(Bit)

I’ve managed to get v2.32 up and running without fault. 

You shouldn’t notice any difference. Usual disclaimers apply. I still need to get the categories square, and I’m working on that.  Each update only costs a few minutes of line time, but takes me several hours worth of prep, because of the backups and such.

See, usually, I do site backups nightly, as a background process on Gopher, by PII/166. Gohper’s a little slow, but for what he does he’s OK. (Matter of fact I prefer a slow machine in such roles… it takes less internet bandwidth.)  I’ve got that backup process fairly well automated, these days.  Takes about an hour and a half, but since it’s background, nobody cares. The upgrade process, on the other hand, gets done on my big/fast desktop, Panther, who is a 2.7GHz unit, with 2 gigs RAM on. The whole process, even though it’s scripted, pretty much locks Panther down for 2 hours at least, usually more.  Also gobbles a good 70% of the internet bandwidth at the firewall.

Yecch.

Captain Ed, Captain’s Quarters, weighs in one left’s hysteria over the New York Times’ hiring of Bill Kristol:

I have to admit that I find the controversy refreshing. It’s good to see the progressives admit that a half of Bill Kristol outweighs the five liberal commentators at the Gray Lady

Kristol will get one column a week.  The Times  resident liberals get two.

 ABC News, Political Radar,  is reporting, “[B.J.] Clinton Won’t Attend NSC Meetings in a [Mrs. Clinton’s] White House:”

ABC News’ Jonathan Greenberger reports: If she makes it to the White House, Sen. Hillary Clinton said today her husband will take on the same responsibilities as traditional presidential spouses, with no access to National Security Council meetings.

“I think he would play the role that spouses have always played for presidents,” said Clinton, in an exclusive interview with ABC News’ George Stephanopoulos. “He will not have a formal, official role, but just as presidents rely on wives, husbands, fathers, friends of long years, he will be my close confidante and adviser as I was with him.”

During the Clinton administration, Mrs. Clinton never accepted the role as just another traditional spouse.    There is no way that Mr. Clinton is ever going to accept the same role that she rejected.

Further, there is no way Mrs Clinton can afford to have B.J. free lancing on his own creating havoc with her policies.   As a candidate, Mrs. Clinton can not control B.J.  Neither will she be able to do so as President.

More over, is Mrs. Clinton now contending that she was just another spouse during the administration of her husband?  If so, then what the green earth is the basis for her claiming experience from her husband’s administration?  If not, why the reversal of policy?  Is Mrs. Clinton’s conceding that the Clinton administration was a failure and she needs to reverse direction?

Or is Mrs. Clinton just parsing words like a Clinton?

More, Memeorandum.

1. Did Marc Ambinder, Atlantic, really mean to write “If Huckabee only had a brain?”

INDIANOLA, IOWA — A string of foreign policy gaffes has made it clear to the national political press corps that Mike Huckabee is manifestly unqualified to be president. Those questions dogged Huckabee at a press conference in Iowa today, and Mitt Romney’s campaign is taking steps to ensure that his gaffes are indelible.

But what if none of this matters?

Qualifications don’t matter to the MSM, provided tha canidate is but a secular liberal.  And Mike Huckabee is no religious consevative.  Alas as Ambinder alluded that Huckabee is too naive to be president, even Ambinder’s basic point is dead wrong.  Mike Huckabee can only be said to have a heart if having a heart means reckless and foolish spending other peoples’ money.

Hat Tip: Memeorandum.

Recently the Puffington Post published this item:

The Huffington Post has learned that, in a move bound to create controversy, the New York Times is set to announce that Bill Kristol will become a weekly columnist in 2008. Kristol, a prominent neo-conservative who recently departed Time magazine in what was reported as a “mutual” decision, has close ties to the White House and is a well-known proponent of the war in Iraq. Kristol also is a regular contributor to Fox News’ Special Report with Brit Hume.

Judging by the reaction in the Leftosphere, you’d have thought that Pinch Sulzberger just announced higher subscription rates for women, children and subscribers of color.

Stink Progress, blogged:

For years, Bill Kristol has been at the forefront of a vitriolic right-wing crusade against the New York Times. Sadly, the Times has chosen to reward him for it.

Carpetbagger Report, bogged:

Recently cast off from Time magazine, presumably for writing shallow, predictable tripe, the Weekly Standard’s William Kristol is getting a promotion of sorts.

A contary view, Matthew Yglesias, Atlantic, happens to like the idea:

Thus I think we have to consider it good news that he’s apparently been hired by The New York Times.

This picture is the only picture I can find of Bill Kristol in the blog’s archves and these marks the third time its been posted. So I’d say that this blog is not terribly obsessed with Bill Kristol, one way or the other.

The fact is that the New York Times isn’t much of a paper seven days a week. Having Bill Kristol on the op=ed page once a week isn’t going to change much.

More, Memeorandum.

Addendum I: (Bit)

Amongst all the screaming, I’m seeing claims that this is proof of a right-wing cabal at the NY Times.

Laughable.

Out here in the real world what it looks like is a paper that has been stung by 2 decades of charges (And proof) of it’s continual left-leaning, and trying to right the ship.

Addendum II: (David L)

Not righting the ship, as in obtaining an even keel, but mere tokenism, more for show than substance.

Addendum III (Bit) True… Image is everything to such people… of greater import than reality.

Addendum IV and Bump: (David L)

Josh Marshall, Talking Points Memo, is generous enough to allow that the New York Times can tolerate one conservative, so long as he is a neutered version of a conservative:

But the weirdest thing about the choice is that Sulzberger and Co. have failed to grasp the taxonomy of the neoconservative literary cartel. David Brooks is the house-broken William Kristol, the cadre tasked with operating just behind enemy lines, or at least in the no-man’s-land where only a kinder gentler version of the faith can be propounded. And they already have him.

So why you’d want both Kristol and Brooks on staff is a question that simply has no logical answer unless they got some sort of two for one deal or other kind of group discount

Alas if Bill Kristol actually could ravish the Times.

From Jawa:

As the Surge continues to work as planned desperate lunatic fringe lefties get more and more idiotic.

From CNN:

A group in Brattleboro is petitioning to put an item on a town meeting agenda in March that would make Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney subject to arrest and indictment if they visit the southeastern Vermont community.”This petition is as radical as the Declaration of Independence, and it draws on that tradition in claiming a universal jurisdiction when governments fail to do what they’re supposed to do,” said Kurt Daims, 54, a retired machinist leading the drive.

What we have here, dear reader, is treason, from a group of people who still have not squared themselves with the concept that President Bush and the war in Iraq are more popular than they are… even in the People’s Republic of Vermont.

Also Blogging Michelle Malkin, Hot Air, and Jammie Wearing Fool 

More on Memeorandum

Addendum:  (David L)

Non-concur.  I am not a lawyer.   However the allegations seem closer to Sedition than Treason.   Should some poor fool actually attempt to affect an arrest that could consistute an overt act.  May God have mercy on his soul.

Scott Ott is formidable when he decides to get serious in his writing, as he does here.

The assassination of Benazir Bhutto has put on notice the leaders of every European nation.

Your secularism, your democracy will not stand. The growing Muslim populations in your own lands that you have done so much to tolerate, protect and celebrate, will soon rise up against you. Sharia law shall become your law. The Caliph shall rule you.

It remains only for you to choose submission or assassination.

There is far more, of course, and I have to tell you that in all honesty, this is likely the strongest column I have ever seen him release. the thing is, it.  However, that it is of a piece with the column that I posted the other night, at which liberally quoted John Gibson of Fox news.  It is also of a piece with columns that I have seen from Mark Steyn recently.

I will tell you here and now that the nuclear threat from a radicalized Pakistan, certainly is dangerous to the interests of the world, because they can certainly cause the world financial problems by nuking its oil fields in the Middle East.  But far more dangerous than this is the cultural changes that are occurring in the name of ‘openess’. We are embracing our own removal.

Think; Our culture… western culture… the brightest example of freedom the world has ever known…is being overrun, people. We need someone in the White House who will recognize and deal with the responsibility they ahve to Western Culture as a whole. That means dealing with this invasion as such. Else, we will finally be overcome without a shot being fired, more or less, as is happening to Europe right now.

What chance do our rights have once that happens?

None. Enjoy Sharia.

BBCT: LGF

Chuck Simmins over at the North Shore Journal advises us tha a new milestone has been reached… The 20,000th anti-Iraq terrorist has been killed.

Funny how we’re not hearing much about it, huh?

Addendum: I see Memeorandum has it up now.

I finally got ticked enough at the nag screens I installed a month ago, to go ahead and upgrade WordPress to 2.3.1.

Seems to work, but as always, report to feedback any problems.

I’m seeing some screwups with the advertisers… (It’ll show a database error on your end, at the head of each post) I’m working on that.

Also of note:

I’ve done some work for you guys checking in on your PDA’s cell phones and the like. I’m running a CSS stripper which basically makes for a simpler screen. I’ve had some code that recognizes and reacts to PDA’s and Cells, but it wasn’t quite as clean as I’d have liked. Should work better for most of you, now.

Update: (Bit) Problem solved. The “posts By Author” plugin was the issue. Gotta see if I can’t find a replacement for that.  For the meanwhile, the last five posts by each author won’t be listed at the bottom of each post as they have been.