It was hard to imagine that the Phelps clan could sink any lower. Then it announced plans to protest the funerals of the Amish schoolgirls who were murdered this week. The group ended up agreeing not to protest in exchange for an hour of radio time Thursday on Mike Gallagher’s syndicated talk show. That deal may be akin to negotiating with terrorists, but it’s probably worth it to keep the Phelpses as far way from the funerals as possible.
Posted by Phillip Brownlee
It takes a big man to admit he’s done wrong. Perhaps that’s why Rep. Mark Foley, R-Fla., has opted for an easier way to deal with disgrace: excuses.
Foley wasted no time citing alcoholism as the reason he solicited sex from underage House pages; now he also claims to have been sexually abused as a child. By an unnamed clergyman. Before the day is out, I fully expect him to mention his years of captivity in a Turkish prison.
Please. We don’t need to hear why it was impossible to behave with integrity; things are tough all over.
Posted by Dave Knadler
The Bush administration has been accused of a lot of poor planning in Iraq, but nobody can say Congress has been remiss in party preparations: The military spending bill for this past year contained $20 million “for commemoration of success” in Iraq and Afghanistan.
As the New York Times reports, the original legislation empowered the president to designate “a day of celebration” for when the wars were finally won.
While the idea of a victory party now seems like almost psychopathic optimism, a paragraph written into spending legislation allows the $20 million to be rolled over into 2007.
Well, maybe. But I wouldn’t rent that tux just yet.
Posted by Dave Knadler
The case of Florida Rep. Mark Foley’s e-mail exploits isn’t the first time congressional pages have been a favorite pastime of the boys on Capitol Hill.
In 1983, Reps. Gerry Studds (in photo) and Daniel Crane admitted to sexual relationships with pages, too. Both were censured by the House ethics committee as a result of their activities, but each had different outcomes. Studds, a Democrat from Massachusetts, defended the homosexual affair by saying it was difficult to lead a “meaningful private life” and won re-election by his sympathetic constituency. Crane, a Republican from Illinois, was involved with a 17-year-old female page. He apologized to his wife, family and district, but it wasn’t enough to retain his seat.
The page program was started in 1829 by Daniel Webster and currently has 72 high school students divided between the House and Senate. The program is designed to serve as an introduction to a career in politics, but the educational program apparently includes extracurricular activities beyond running errands for senators and congressmen.
Posted by Angie Holladay
Rep. Jerry Moran, R-Hays, mostly votes like the good Republican that he is. But let the record show that last week he was one of 13 Republicans to vote against the bill granting legal status to warrantless wiretapping and one of only seven Republicans to vote against the bill allowing the use of military tribunals to try terror suspects. The rest of the Kansas delegation, including Rep. Dennis Moore, D-Lenexa, voted for the tribunals bill. (The wiretapping bill has yet to clear the Senate.) The Harris News Service was unable to get Moran or his office to explain his votes. But Chapman Rackaway, an assistant political science professor at Fort Hays State University, said the votes show that Moran is “not afraid to vote against his own party when he thinks it’s not in the interest of the folks back in his district.”
Posted by Rhonda Holman
North Korean leader Kim Jong Il may be crazier than a june bug, but he has a good sense of timing when it comes to sticking it to President Bush.
Pyongyang announced Tuesday that it’s going ahead with plans to test a nuclear weapon. It’s the latest and most serious in a litany of threats that has seemed to coincide with the United States’ increasingly untenable program in Iraq. Kim seems to be saying: “WMDs? I’ve got your WMDs right here.”
It couldn’t come at a worse time for the Bush administration, already on the defensive over Bob Woodward’s new book and now appearing to have let slide far more tangible threats than Saddam Hussein.
For North Korea, testing a nuke would be betting the farm — Kim’s final card in his standoff with the international community.
Well, except for actually using one.
Posted by Dave Knadler
BUBONIC PLAGUE OUTBREAK AT COWTOWN; Latest Setback for Beleaguered Attraction
JIM BARNETT JUMPS ON STAGE AT STONES CONCERT; Seen as Desperate Attempt by GOP Gubernatorial Candidate to Raise Profile
PASTORS FOX AND WRIGHT ADOPT RAP FORMAT; Will ‘Answering the Booty Call’ Revive Radio Progam?
Posted by Randy Scholfield
spoofs photo
