A Tacky Response To Tragedy.

I just finished watching a live news conference concerning yesterday's tragic Metro train crash in Washington, hosted by D.C. Mayor Adrian Fenty. What an exercise in frustration!


Nearly half a dozen people spoke, from Fenty to Metro's General Manager, to the Chairman of Metro's Board of Directors and DC's Fire Chief. Between those four, there was very, very little new information released. We did learn that Metro has set aside $250,000 to help bury the dead, and we did learn the names of some of the people who died in the crash, but for the first half-hour, we mostly heard either old information - stuff we had heard in the hours after the crash - or we heard Fenty and others thanking each other for the hard work they had put in for the previous 24 hours. Essentially, these public servants were kissing each others asses for doing what they are being paid to do - their JOBS.


This is not a new complaint of mine. It's been a pet peeve of mine ever since I was a cub reporter covering deadly boring hearings on Capitol Hill... Hearings that largely consisted of Senators thanking their esteemed colleagues from South Carolina for having the courage and fortitude to hold hearings on whatever subject the hearing happened to be about.


But back to the rant at hand... The worst part of this news conference is that there WAS real news to be reported, but it came from the last speaker - Debbie Hersman, the National Transportation Safety Board member overseeing the investigation into the crash. She had real and new and compelling information, including that the striking train was operating under automatic control when the crash took place, and that the operator apparently DID try to use the emergency brake.


In the news business, this is what we call burying the lead. The NTSB board member should have gone first, not last. She had, by far, the most important information to present. However, if she had gone first, the TV stations carrying the 5:30 pm news conference in the middle of their newscasts might not have stuck around to hear Mayor Fenty and others kissing the backsides of their colleagues. So instead, the politicos kept us all waiting around so they could make their political points before mucking up the news conference with real NEWS.


So tacky and so sad.

John Edwards - Please Go Away!

It's been 10 months since the world learned that former Presidential Candidate John Edwards (D-NC) had cheated on his wife and possibly fathered a baby with another woman. During that time, Edwards has been, in addition to kissing the ground his wife walks on, doing charity work to aid the poor in places like Haiti and El Salvador, and he has studiously avoided the press, even as his wife published a book and toured the country and appeared on Oprah.

Now, Edwards has broken his silence and granted an interview to the Washington Post. You can read the complete article here. The story opens by stating that Edwards has no illusions about how America views him. Yet, in these two paragraphs, it sure sounds like Edwards is making an effort to rehabilitate his public image:

Yet as he spends his days in his family's mansion on the outskirts of Chapel Hill, N.C., Edwards can't help but fret about how Washington and the country are getting on in his absence. He worries about the concessions that may be made on health-care reform, which he was promoting more aggressively than anyone on the presidential campaign trail. He worries about who will speak out for the country's neediest at a time when most attention is focused on the suddenly imperiled middle class.

"What happens now? If you were to ask people during the campaign who's talking most about [poverty], it was me," he said in an interview a few days ago. "There's a desperate need in the world for a voice of leadership on this issue. . . . The president's got a lot to do, he's got a lot of people to be responsible for, so I'm not critical of him, but there does need to be an aggressive voice beside the president."

Well, guess what, Mr. Edwards? That voice should not be you. Why do you think you deserve a second act before the American public (third act, actually, if you count your run as a VP candidate)? I will concede - cheating on your spouse as a politician has almost become de rigueur (as well as tacky and cliche), but you also likely fathered a child with your mistress, and you cheated on a woman with stage 4 cancer.

You claim you are not on a PR campaign, yet you refuse to rule out a return to politics. Eliot Spitzer (former NY Governor and employer of call girls) is at least pragmatic enough to see the forest for the trees. He knows his life as a politician is his over. Do you really think people are going to listen to what you have to say? Are you waiting for your wife to die so the living reminder of your sins will be gone and you can make a comeback? I'm sorry to have to be a soup nazi, but no more public time for you!

I think its grand that you seem to truly feel a need to champion poverty as a cause, and I'm equally sure you can make a real difference. But please - do it someplace else - away from the cameras and the microphones. Don't write a book. Don't send an op-ed to the New York Times. Don't do any more interviews. Redeem yourself with your family, and make peace with your God. You're not going to be able to do either on the public stage.

Send Them All To Their Rooms Without Supper!

DC Mayor Adrian Fenty and the DC City Council are in a pissing match over the disposition of the city's allotment of Nationals baseball tickets. I won't bother going into the details, because it will only appear to give credence to this childish little argument. To make a long story short, Mayor Fenty has the tickets, and he won't share them. You can read the Post's account of the squabble here.

Now, in response, the city council is trying to drum up support for a vote to auction off the tickets, and use the proceeds to pay for city services. I suppose it's a noble cause, but what does it say about the Washington Nationals that the city, which spent hundreds of millions of dollars to bring the team to town, is willing to get rid of ALL of its tickets to go to the games? Given the amount of political capital that has been expended to bring the team to DC, you'd think the city's lawmakers would find some value in being able to show off the new ballpark and to provide tickets for charities and whatnot.

A similar story has developed in New York, where Mayor Michael Bloomberg is also selling off his city's tickets to see the Mets and the Yankkees in their new stadiums. However, THOSE tickets will fetch much more money, and the Mets and Yankees are both well-established brands. They don't need the city's support - the Nationals CLEARLY do.

Attendance is going to to be way down this year as the recession tightens its grip and the first-year newness of the stadium starts to wear off. Plus, the team clearly stinks again. If the city's own leaders aren't going to the games - or at least sending their constituents - isn't that sending a signal that no one else should feel the need to take in a game?

Councilmember Kwame Brown, who is pushing for the auction, believes the sale can generate a half-million dollars, but he wants to make sure the city does not violate its own scalping law, which prohibits tickets from being sold for MORE than face value.

The Nats lost 102 games last season, and are headed in the same direction this year. Does Brown really think that will be an issue?

Dubya Has Some Work To Do...

C-SPAN has released a new survey of 65 historians and presidential observers and ranked our Chief Executives from one to 42. (Yes, Obama is President # 44, but he isn't in this survey, and Grover Cleveland was numbers 22 AND 24, so he's only counted once)

Here are your top and bottom 10 Presidents:

You will note that our most recent president, George W. Bush, is ranked 36th.... About where you'd expect him to be, given his popularity ratings in his final years in office. But there's hope yet for Dubya. It remains to be seen whether time heals all wounds, but it does tend to take the edge off of hard feelings.

In a similar survey taken in 2000, Bill Clinton finished 21st... Nine years later, Slick Willie is up to 15th! Of course, for every uptick, there must be a downtick... Jimmy Carter, for example, has dropped from 22nd to 25th in the same time span.

Most of the top 10 you see above is unchanged from the 2000 survey, although Ronald Reagan did swap places with LBJ. Nothing like dying to improve your image.

And speaking of the dead, I still think no one (except maybe Elvis) has benefitted more from dying than John F. Kennedy. Yes, the guy was dynamic and good-looking and all, and yes, he did get us into the space program, which was the coolest thing ever. But he was also President for less than three years. You can't convince me he would have stayed in that spot if he had served two full terms!

You can see the complete list here, and see the comprehensive C-SPAN survey here!

Camelot Is, You Know - Over.

Caroline Kennedy made a big mistake on her way to Hillary Clinton's U.S. Senate seat. She opened her mouth:

John Edwards Can Go To Hell.

Former Democratic Presidential candidate John Edwards admitted in an interview prepared for ABC's Nightline that he DID have an affair with a woman a couple of years ago, and then spent months during his run for President lying about it. This pisses me off.

I have never been a fan of John Edwards, and always pictured him as kind of a weak Vice Presidential candidate teamed with a weak Presidential candidate four years ago. But neither his politics nor his proclivity for extra-marital dalliances are what pisses me off about John Edwards.

I'm upset because every time a guy like this goes out and blatantly lies to the American people about his own character, it hurts the institution of the Presidency a little bit more. After we hear about Bill Clinton and guys like John Edwards, is there really any reason at all to believe anything that comes out of John McCain's or Barack Obama's mouths? Why should we as Americans throw our votes to either of these guys? What have they done to earn our trust?

I've certainly heard more than enough pandering from all of the candidates who are seemingly willing to say just about anything to win my vote - and wait - it's only August!

McCain may be the greatest guy on planet Earth... and Barack Obama may walk on water. But every time a politician beats his chest about honesty and integrity and then comes out to be a liar just like all of the other power-hungry troglodytes, it brings everyone else down a peg.

One other thing specifically about John Edwards... I was pissed at him even before the affair came out. His wife has stage 4 terminal cancer, and she busted her ass campaigning for him - something which quite possibly shortened her life. The Edwards have a seven-year-old son who is going to lose his mother one of these days. She should have been home spending quality time time with that boy instead of being off trying to get her cheating, lying husband elected. Now, I imagine this latest scandal could further push her health over the edge. But I don't have too much sympathy for Elizabeth Edwards. She is still a politician's wife, and I would not be surprised at all to see her sitting by Johnny's side on Oprah or with Diane Sawyer to stand by her man.

That boy deserves better.

Aunt Jemima Must Be A Super Delegate

Some people say they won't vote for Barack Obama because with a name like that, he must be a muslim! Maybe he oughta change his name to "Hungry Jack!" God - the things people have to go through to get elected!