In the Washington Post, Karl E. Meyer and Shareen Blair Brysac made the provocative suggestion that the New York governor choose Bill Clinton to fill the U.S. Senate seat to be vacated if Hillary Clinton becomes secretary of state: “In a stroke, the appointment would provide Sen. Clinton’s indefatigable husband with a fitting day job, serve the interests of a state beset by a meltdown in its most vital economic sector and offer a refreshing reverse twist on a tradition whereby deceased male senators, representatives or governors are succeeded by their widows.”
Alan Colmes (who will give up his sidekick gig on Fox News with Sean Hannity at the end of the year) wonders on his blog whether conservatives will attack President George Bush for his 14 latest pardons. He explains that conservatives “never stop talking about the Clinton pardons. I wonder if any of these will bother them. I mean, it’s not like these crooks were as bad as Marc Rich (in photo). All they did was drug offenses, tax evasion, wildlife violations, bank embezzlement, hazardous waste, food stamps, and the theft of government property.” Colmes gets to the real suspense, too: “whether Bush might decide to issue pre-emptive pardons before he leaves office to government employees who authorized or engaged in harsh interrogations of suspected terrorists in the wake of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks.”
“If a foreign enemy attacks the United States during the Harvard-Yale game any time over the next four years, we’re screwed,” conservative columnist David Brooks wrote, joking about all the graduates of those two schools who will be key members of Barack Obama’s administration. But Brooks added that “as much as I want to resent these overeducated Achievatrons . . . , I find myself tremendously impressed by the Obama transition,” calling the team Obama has announced so far “more impressive than any other in recent memory.” Said Brooks: “He’s off to a start that nearly justifies the hype.”
“U.N. officials said they desperately need $7 billion to help people cope with disasters, but they’re having a hard time getting people to send rescue money. Here’s what the U.N. should do: Invest in bad mortgages, run a bank into the ground, give yourself a bonus, get some spa treatments and, in no time, the government will send you $750 billion.” – Jay Leno
“I heard today that the federal government was raising, like, $40 billion to bail out Citigroup. . . . Honestly, when you think about it, who doesn’t really feel sorry for credit card companies?” – David Letterman
“According to some statistics the government released yesterday, Mexican immigration to the United States has dropped 42 percent over the last two years. And you have to hand it to President Bush. He knew that the way to stop people from sneaking into the country, it’s not to build a fence or a wall, it’s to make this country very undesirable. Most illegal immigrants come here to make money, but now we don’t have any money anymore. That’s No. 43 for you, always thinking ahead.” – Jimmy Kimmel
“You know the White House turkey? Turned down the pardon. Said all his money’s in the market. Nothing left to live for.” — Leno
Kansas was inexplicably counted among things U.S. schoolchildren are taught to think of as bad in the “Ten Random, Politically Incorrect Thoughts” written by Victor Davis Hanson, a classicist and historian at the Hoover Institution. In his rambling thought No. 10, Hanson wrote that “the following things and people for some reason must be bad, or at least must in public company be said to be bad (in no particular order): Wal-Mart, cowboys, the Vietnam War, oil companies, coal plants, nuclear power, George Bush, chemicals, leather, guns, states like Utah and Kansas, Sarah Palin, vans and SUVs.”
In the Washington Post, Karl E. Meyer and Shareen Blair Brysac made the provocative suggestion that the New York governor choose Bill Clinton to fill the U.S. Senate seat to be vacated if Hillary Clinton becomes secretary of state: “In a stroke, the appointment would provide Sen. Clinton’s indefatigable husband with a fitting day job, serve the interests of a state beset by a meltdown in its most vital economic sector and offer a refreshing reverse twist on a tradition whereby deceased male senators, representatives or governors are succeeded by their widows.”
