Polinaut: June 13, 2006 Archive

Can liberal bloggers and Democrats get along?

Posted at 7:49 AM on June 13, 2006 by Bob Collins (1 Comments)

Philadelphia.com, the online version of the Philadelphia Inquirer, has a column, "Can liberal bloggers and Democrats get along?"

The Democratic players back in Washington think these bloggers have way too much attitude; they recall what happened when one of their own, strategist Steve Elmendorf, told a reporter that Democratic candidates should not become "captive of the activist left." For that, Moulitsas called Elmendorf a "sleazebag," threatened to wreck his business, and triggered a flamewar against the guy. This is why, today, the D.C. insiders will only voice their concerns about the bloggers in exchange for anonymity.

Washington. Twelve square miles surrounded by reality.

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Bush in Baghdad

Posted at 9:42 AM on June 13, 2006 by Bob Collins (2 Comments)

Surprise. President Bush turned up in Baghdad today. I'm watching the pool reports via the National Journal's Hotline.

That pushes Karl Rove to page two, I guess.

I'm looking for a bounce here in the stock market, fellas, it's been a tough couple of week's for Bob's retirement plan. Let's take a look:

Down .05%

Gaaaa! I'm gonna die working.

On the reading fron, Jack Kelly at Real Clear Poliics pens an interesting column, "How we got to where we are in Iraq."

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Laptops stolen from auditor

Posted at 2:14 PM on June 13, 2006 by Bob Collins

Don't know if there's political fallout from this or not but the Star Tribune is reporting that laptops stolen from Pat Anderson's department could have personal data of some employees of local governments the auditor oversees.

More requests

Posted at 4:12 PM on June 13, 2006 by Bob Collins

Just goes to show you how times change. When I was a kid I was a disc jockey, working the big markets of Southbridge and Fitchburg, Massachustts, playing all the hits and taking your requests. OK, so I occasionally had to provide live, breathless coverage of the opening of some stationery store who bought ad time from the ad manager (man, WKRP was dead on in its portrayal).

Now, things have changed. Now I get requests like, "can you find so-and-so's speech to the XXX convention."

The latest is a request for Gil Gutknecht. So here it is, complete with his little auctioneer thing at the beginning.

It ain't exactly "Stairway to Heaven."

Running mates

Posted at 4:32 PM on June 13, 2006 by Bob Collins (2 Comments)

A bunch of blogs have been speculating on lt. gov candidates so I guess I can wade into this stuff too. First, I have absolutely no insight into the campaigns; in fact I don't even think there's a campaign out there still talking to me.

Kerri Miller, ace host of Midmorning and well-connected Capitol insider, walked by a few minutes ago and quickly opined on the rumors.

"Is Judi Dutcher going to be Mike Hatch's running mate?" I asked as I put a pen and a pad of paper in front of her. "It's for my son," I added pleadingly.

"Didn't your son just graduate from high school?" she smartly answered.

"It's for my mother," I said.

"Why would Judi Dutcher give up a well-paying gig at the Minnesota Community Foundation?" she said, casting one eye at me and the other at her bodyguard as if to say, "take him out."

"What about Hutchinson?" I asked, knowing she would immediately determine that I wasn't asking if Peter Hutchinson would make a fine running mate for Mike Hatch.

"I'm hearing Maureen Reed's name," she said.

Now I am too.

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Pay raises for Congress

Posted at 5:29 PM on June 13, 2006 by Bob Collins (2 Comments)

The U.S. Congress today, in effect, voted itself a pay raise. Well, sort of. The rule now is they get the raise automatically unless they vote not to accept it. They turned aside an attempt to do just that today. That gives them another $3,300 for a total of $168,500 annual salary.

Naturally, the House makes it very tough for the average Joe to find the legislation and roll call vote. I went to the House site and couldn't find anything in English that said "pay raise." So I checked the vote on AP and found it was 249-167. I went back to the House site and did the old CTL-F on 249-167 and found this:

Providing for consideration of the bill (H.R. 5576) making appropriations for the Departments of Transportation, Treasury, and Housing and Urban Development, the Judiciary, District of Columbia, and independent agencies for the fiscal year ending September 30, 2007, and for other purposes

Right, of course. Congressional pay raise. It's all right there in the description under "for other purposes." What's the matter with me?

So let's go down the list district by district.

District 1: Gil Gutknecht --

District 2: John Kline -
.
District 3: Jim Ramstad -

District 4: Betty McCollum -

District 5: Martin Sabo -

District 6: Mark Kennedy -

District 7: Collin Peterson -

District 8: Jim Oberstar -

Two Republicans voted to take the money. Two voted no. Two Democrats voted to take the money. Two Democrats voted no.

Who says the era of bipartisanship is over?

Challengers: you're on your own to crank out the press releases on this one. The Republicans and DFL parties won't be touching it.

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Empty nests and a carton of Luckies

Posted at 11:28 PM on June 13, 2006 by Bob Collins (4 Comments)

I was doing my final run-through of Planet Politics tonight before heading off to bed. My wife retired early -- well, early for me -- and my youngest son -- the high school graduate (did I tell you "with honors?") -- is out with his older brother and before leaving told his mother and I that he'll be home, "around 1.. I'm 18 now."

My wife started the you-sound-like-my-parents-now dissertation on the fact that he still lives in our house and, well, you know the rest if you were ever 18. Finally I said to him, "Pat" -- his name's Pat, you see -- "go have fun, and make good decisions." On the way out the door my wife called out -- as she always does -- "I love you," to which the fading response, barely audible was "you too," which -- for the record -- is the first time my wife recalls hearing what essentially passes for "I love you too," in 18-year-old speak, from this particular 18 year old. "He tells you everyday," I always say to her, "he just doesn't use the three words you want to hear."

Where was I? Oh, yes, so here I sit hoping that the reticent lad survives an evening of $1 movies and God knows what else with his older brother and survives. I mean literally....survives. Honestly, I don't know how birds do it.

Where was I? Oh, yes, as I'm making the final patrol across Planet Politics, I stumble across a Garrison Keillor column on Slate, the citation of which will set some of you to chortling, even though the column had nothing to do with politics, but was instead about how overly protective and serious we are these days. And how we don't do anything anymore just so we can say, "wheeeeeeeeeeee."

He mentioned that when he gets -- if he gets -- a terminal diagnosis sometime, he's heading to the store to buy Lucky Strikes. He said it a day after my wife informed me that on her 75th birthday, she intends to buy a carton of cigarettes and spend the day smoking. She gave it up when pregnant with my oldest son, more than 20 years ago. Twenty years. How did that all go by so fast?

Where was I? Oh yes, that set me to wondering what I'd do if I found out I only have a month to live. I like politics OK and all, but I'm pretty sure I wouldn't spend a second paying attention to it anymore; and not because I wouldn't care about the future, but because, let's face it, nothing really changes except the venom of politics.

We're a few days removed from both party conventions and I can feel it already. A serious pall begins to descend over Planet Politics, and the hair-trigger "what did you mean by that?" mentality of simple conversation has started to appear. This is serious business, as if life itself were at stake. But, if it really were, we probably wouldn't give a rip about it.

We'd probably be out back smoking a carton of Luckies.

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