Polinaut: June 16, 2006 Archive

Oh, and have you heard? Lindbergh made it.

Posted at 9:59 AM on June 16, 2006 by Bob Collins

A shocking revelation from the New York Times today. Apparently the '06 elections are going to be decided in the suburbs.

Apparently he wasn't Stephen Colbert

Posted at 1:00 PM on June 16, 2006 by Bob Collins

Let me just say for the record that I've rarely found humorists from Minnesota to be very funny. Al Franken is on the short list. But even aside from the jokes I don't get -- and the politics that I don't much care about one way or the other -- I have a soft spot in my heart for anyone who'll sit in a room full of journalists and tell them the last thing they want to hear. (Are you listening, John McCain?)

Check out today's City Hall Scoop. Unfortunately -- and I wasn't there so I have to take the word of those who were -- of all the things he could have told the press that it needed to hear, a complaint about a story -- or stories -- they wrote about him isn't one of them.

Of course these media dinners are always weird affairs anyway since what draws reporters and media folks to them is the fact that they give themselves a bunch of awards. I think the MPR Web site won one, but I can't recall what the category was. I didn't go to the dinner.

No comment

Posted at 1:39 PM on June 16, 2006 by Bob Collins

Rep. John Kline has given the word -- through his press people -- on requests to talk about the congressional pay raise he voted himself the other day. "No."

"OK," our guy said. "There was a press release out of the Kline office the other day about the rep's trip to Baghdad. Want to talk about that?"

"No."

But to make us feel better, they said they said "no" to Sam Donaldson too.

So far, only James Oberstar has agreed to talk about the pay raises -- or apparently, anything else. The ATC folks did the interview this morning. I'll find out what he said when you do, I think.

Pahk the yacht in Pahtucket, Milos

Posted at 1:58 PM on June 16, 2006 by Bob Collins

Minnesota is known as a place for clean and participatory politics -- our occasional frustration with it notwithstanding -- and that's a good thing. But still, there's nothing like a good scandal every now and again just so we can double-check to make sure our moral-outrage-o-meter is calibrated. We don't get stuff like they get in Boston, though.

Table scraps

Posted at 6:24 PM on June 16, 2006 by Bob Collins

A couple of things before the week-end (and I don't anticipate posting over the weekend).

First, here's Rep. James Oberstar defending the congressional pay raise (RealAudio) He basically said to have quality people serve, you have to have decent pay, "otherwise you'll have millionaires serve in the House and Senate."

You at least have to give the guy credit for answering the question, which is more than most of the Minnesota delegation who voted for the thing did. But I think there's plenty of room for discussion in the answer.

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The audio of the Independence Party news conference yesterday was stuck in my audio morass and I've just finally gotten a chance to get it encoded. Here it is.

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Enjoy your weekend.