Imitation is the Sincerest Form of Flattery

So now Martin O'Malley's campaign is just ripping off the concept of ads from the Governor's campaign in an effort to launch new attack ads (conveniently not available on his website). The Ehrlich ads that are (for lack of a better term) "appropriated" are here, here, and here.

You'd think that for the millions (and I do mean millions) of dollars that O'Malley's campaign is paying Media Strategies & Research for their television ads that their money could buy something more than a cheap parody...

Better Late Than Never

Scott Rolle has gone on the air:

Just because you have not heard much about the AG's race recently (short of the last minute hail-mary regarding Gansler's eligiblity), do not underestimate the importance of this race. The Attorney General appoints countless Assistant Attorneys General who work at the Departmental and Agency level. These are the lawyers for the executive and legislative departments that decide on the legality of programs and actions administered by these agencies. Think that the current AAG's are particualrly friendly to Governor Ehrlich's Secretaries and Agency heads? Fat chance. And Doug Gansler's AAG's would behave in the same manner.

Rolle has an enormous mountain to climb in the next week, but please tell your friends, family, and everybody you know the importance of making the right choice in this race.

Coming on Down

Forget politics, here is today's big news:

Bob Barker is heading toward his last showcase, his final "Come on down."

The silver-haired daytime-TV icon is retiring in June, he told the Associated Press today.

"I will be 83 years old on December 12," he said, "and I've decided to retire while I'm still young."

He'll hang up his microphone after 35 years as the host of "The Price Is Right" and 50 years overall in television.

Though he has been considering retirement for "at least 10 years," Barker said he has so much fun doing the show that he hasn't been able to leave.

Talk about something you never ever expected to see, even if you knew it was physically impossible to avoid...of course, I can't imagine the poor sap who is going to have to replace him, especially after failed events like The New Price is Right. Is Rolf Bernischke available?

Feel Better About Yourself

If you want to get a chuckle, click here to read some of the things the DailyKos crowd has been saying about Michael Steele and his endorsement yesterday by Wayne Curry and members of the Prince George's County Council.

Ever wonder if they far left realizes that they only get lip service because they are absolutely incapable of coherent, rational expressions of opinion?

Truth in Advertising

Another humorous spot, like this one from July, from Mark Kennedy's Senate campaign in Minnesota:

Listen For Yourself

Click here to listen to O'Malley's non-answer when asked if he lied on his application to the bar regarding his DUI arrest 20 years ago. Click here to listen to O'Malley respond to WTWP's Mark Plotkin ask the question again.

You can decide for yourself. Come to your own conclusions about O'Malley's DUI charge. You can also come to your own conclusions about his non-answer to this question. Quite frankly, O'Malley's non-answer to this question is an admission that he did lie on the application. That's not necessarily fair to O'Malley. But the truth of the matter is that when you have nothing to hide, you answer the question and answer the question honestly. O'Malley is refusing to do that, which automatically leads me to a guilty conclusion.

Honestly, I hope that I am wrong about this. It would be a bad thing for this state if he did lie on the application, regardless how the election turns out.

More Nataf Follies

To follow up on yesterday's post about Dan Nataf's poll, there are other problems that need to be pointed out:

- EVERY question identified the candidate's party affiliation. This has also been a problem with some of the Sun's polls in the recent past.

- Question 12 also presents a bigger problem:

12. With which political party, if any, are you registered?
Unweighted Weighted
(1) Democratic 42 41
(2) Republican 38 47
(3) Independent 11 12
(4) None (NOT REGISTERED TO VOTE) 3 0
(5) Other (e.g., Green Party) 1 1
(0) No Answer 5 0

This goes back to the point yersterday of using random-digit dialing as a polling sample. The ENTIRE partisan breakdown is self-selected, not selected using any scientific polling methods. How can truly know if this number is accurate? We cannot, which defeats the entire purpose of doing the poll in the first place if you know that the information you get is statistical garbage.

What's sad is that part of the CLSI mission is to teach students statistical research methods, which really gives me pause as to what these students are actually being taught.

As my wife noted, "Nataf screwed this poll up nine ways to Sunday."

More Polling Problems

And it's not even a Sun poll this time. Both the Capital and the Sun have been shopping this Dan Nataf poll on the Governor's race in Anne Arundel County as well as the County Executive race. Of note in the poll is that the County Executive's race is basically tied with a quarter of the vote undecided.

If you can get beyond the bias of Nataf's organization, as I have previously noted, take a look at this blurb on page 26 of their press release on this poll:

The survey polled a random sample of 382 county residents who were at least 18 years old. Phone numbers were derived from a database of listed numbers as well as computer chosen, randomly assigned numbers. There is about a 5 percent statistical margin of error for the overall sample; the error rate is higher for subgroups such as "men"” or "“Independents."” The dataset was weighted by demographic variables such as party registration and gender to better represent the general population.

What this means is that, for lack of a better term, this poll is meaningless crap. The sample was not created using any professionally recognized way of creating polling data. The sample used random digit dialing, however used the phone book in order to create these numbers. They did not use lists of registered voters in created its number list. Who knows if the people who were polled are even registered to vote, much less deciding whether or not they are likely voters. The sample size is much too small to use in a competitive general election.

Nataf's crew has a history of this. Four years ago, their poll indicated that Janet Owens was going to be re-elected by 12 percent. Of course, the statistical data oversampled Democrats and (amazingly) used random-digit dialing instead of actual voter lists. I asked Nataf about this following the 2002 County Exec debate. He did not have an answer then as to why they did this, and I presume he is not particularly worried about it considering he is knowingly making the same basic mistakes four years later.

Nataf has the right to produce whetever poll he wants (doing it on the taxpayer dime is another story). But the local papers need to be responsible enough not to publicize meaningless drivel in lieu of actually useful statistical information.

Debate Combat

Tonight's Senate debate between Michael Steele, Ben Cardin, and Kevin Zeese was almost surrealistic in its contrasts with the recent gubernatorial debates. While the Ehrlich/O'Malley clashes were contested, but in a somewhat non-combative tone, it was go-time from the opening bell with these three combatants. A full hour of three-men talking over each other.

Some points with an assist from the Sun:

• Cardin once again seemed to forget that he was running against Michael Steele. At points, every other word out of Cardin's mouth seemed to be "George Bush."
  
  
• Steele finally said what a lot of Marylanders were thinking: "You were hand-picked by Congressman Steny Hoyer to get in this race...If you weren't, Kweisi Mfume should be sitting here." And this will likely play extremely well in the D.C. Suburbs.
  
  
• Ben Cardin the policy wonk got stumped: after pressing and pressing and pressing Steele on specifics about the war in Iraq, Cardin had it given right back to him regarding Metrorail and Metrobus plans in and around the DC area, particularly seeming to know nothing about the proposed Purple Line. Of course, when the Lt. Governor pressed Cardin for a response, he got snarky.
  
  
• The angry Ben Cardin was in the house tonight. He was visibly angry at Steele for most of the night, and got even angrier at Kevin Zeese, particularly when Zeese challenged him on his liberal bonafides.
  
  
• Speaking of Zeese, he was on tonight as well. Sure, he has a picture of himself with noted moonbat Cindy Sheehan on the front page of his site, but he does not present himself in look or demeanor as your typical Green Party candidate. He is articulate and while extremely left-wing was able to present himself as a contrast to Cardin.
  

All in all, this is what I get out of this:

• The Cardin camp is sweating bullets. Why else would they agree to this debate days before the Meet the Press National showdown on Sunday.
  
  
• The Cardin camp is really sweating bullets. Cardin's aggressiveness aimed at Zeese tells me that Cardin view Zeese as a spoiler and that they need to keep the far left in line, which also tells me that Steele's crossover appeal is pretty high in Cardin's internals.
  
  
• Don't believe the hype: one of the things the Democrats have been harping on is Steele's perceived lack of understanding of issues and lack of experience. This was clearly not a problem tonight, as the Lt. Governor was extremely comfortable and confident with the issues at hand.

Untelevised debate tomorrow at the Charles County NAACP. National debate (without Zeese) on Meet the Press Sunday. This race is going to get a lot uglier before we get to November 7th.

A Drive-by on Channel 11

I just saw an ad on Channel 11, a George Johnson ad that touted how he'll "hold the line on taxes" or some counterintuitive statement given his positions, coupled with a drive-by on John Leopold for being too tight with BGE.

I think it is safe to say that the General Election, particularly in light of this ad and Leopold's endorsements from the Sun, Post, and Capital, is now game on...

Literally Legislating From the Bench

Usually, Democrats get all a twitter when conservatives accuse activist judges of legislating from the bench. Well, in today's New Jersey case that forces benefits for married couples to be offered to same-sex couples came this little nugget of actual legislating from the bench. From the casefile (page 3):

To bring the State into compliance with Article I, Paragraph 1 so that plaintiffs can exercise their full constitutional rights, the Legislature must either amend the marriage statutes or enact an appropriate statutory structure within 180 days of the date of this decision.

Read on and discover that the 4-judge majority didn't go far enough for the other three judges...

Whether you agree with the meat and potatoes of this decision or not (and I really don't care one way or the other), you just cannot be happy with how the decision came about. A court of law decided how laws will be decided and implemented in New Jersey. An independent branch of government just ordered another branch of government to do something in an extraconstitutional fashion. That is the biggest problem with this case, a judges clearly reaching beyond the power of their office to decide on a major issue for the people. On top of it, the decision to require the legislature to act has little to with the merits of the case itself. The case dealt with benefits of same sex partners, not whether or not marriage as an institution was legal.

If there is any good news to this, Tom Kean's chances of being elected to the U.S. Senate probably went up in a big way.

Now, more than ever, is proof that we need to appoint honest, fair judges to our state and federal benches. We just cannot continue to survive as a society if judges are going to go off the reservation and make these decision beyond the scope of any accountability and actual legal constitutionality.

Food for Thought

You don't have to read between the tea leaves to understand how important turnout is going to be on Election Day. Why else would the new O'Malley commercial exclusively feature Anthony Brown? But I think it says a lot about O'Malley's station in the polls that he and his campaign have to go this route to fight the four white dudes problem...

Get Ready

Just in case your taste buds will not be completely satiated by November 7th, get ready for this...

COLUMBIA, S.C.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--FOX News and the South Carolina Republican Party have jointly announced that they will present the first 2008 presidential debate on May 15, 2007. The debate, which is expected to attract the top Republican contenders for President, will be shown live on FOX News Channel (FNC) and FOX News Radio from the University of South Carolina's Koger Center. The South Carolina Republican Party is expected to hold its Presidential Primary in early February 2008. There has never been a candidate to lose the South Carolina primary and successfully capture the Party's nomination for President.

That means that a bunch of people have to up and declare for President sometime in the next six months to not make this thing look silly. Of course candidates declare earlier and earlier these days. For example, for the 2000 race George W. Bush declared June 12, 1999, Steve Forbes March 16, Gary Bauer April 21, etc.

To show you how far we have "progressed", President Reagan declared November 13, 1979. Richard Nixon declared in the same year as the election (January 31, 1968). Hubert Humphrey declared in April of that year. Does that make campaigns better, or make them worse?

Slanted

I attended the District 31 session of the Debate today sponsored by Anne Arundel Community College's Center for the Study of Local Issues. As far as debates go, it was what it was. There were only five participants, as Joan Cadden and both Senate candidates decided they had other things to do. And the debate itself was rather calm and uneventful (except for the end, where one participant drove an answer completely off of the cliff on the last question).

What really irritated me was the "nonpartisanship" of the debate, which was loosely translated into "let's ask questions that favor Democrats." The questions related to planning, education infrastructure AND education funding (two separate questions), and electric rates. The questions clearly had a liberal slant to them, which is not surprising given that the CSLI is run by Dr. Dan Nataf, whose comments to the media have a noted liberal bent and was a Democratic candidate for the House of Delegates in 1994 (scroll down to District 33).

What is interesting about our district is the complete lack of forums. There were only two major debates/forums this year; tonight's debate and the Pasadena Business Association forum on October 5th. It is interesting that our end of the county has so few forums as compared to the rest of the county. There seems to be at least a forum a week in Districts 30 and 33, for example, and starting well before the Primary. Perhaps we as informed citizens need to try to organize more of these debates for the 2010 election..

Great Video Day

Good day for the RNC on the video front. First comes this classic from David Zucker (yes, that David Zucker who did this movie) about the Democrats and their tax schemes. (If there was a way to link to this without it automatically playing, I would. But since that is annoying, I'm avoiding that.)

The there is the anti-Harold Ford ad from Tennessee ("Canada can take care of North Korea. They're not busy."):

Great commentary on the Ford ad here (H/T Instapundit).

I really have no idea how we ever survived the political season without the internet...

Garbage Fascists

Even the left-wing of the U.S. have never advocating going as far as this:

A householder has told of his despair at being landed with a criminal record for putting a scrap of paper in a bin bag meant for bottles and cans.

Michael Reeves, 28, has become Britain's first recycling martyr after a court fined him £200 for disobeying rules about sorting his rubbish.

He had volunteered to take part in a recycling scheme launched by Swansea Council. But somehow a single piece of junk mail found its way into a bag designated for other rubbish. And when council workers found his name and address on it, they prosecuted.

Last night the case provoked widespread anger. Even environmentalists said that it could put people off recycling as millions of householders already struggle to make sense of bewildering rules governing how to dispose of their rubbish.

Mr Reeves told The Mail on Sunday: "I now have a criminal record and it will weigh me down like a millstone. I will have to explain myself every time I apply for a new job. And if I want to go to the United States I will have to apply for a special entry visa."

Mr Reeves, a sports writer, also spoke of his frustration at his time-consuming journey through five court hearings.

"Not satisfied with a false accusation of mixing up my rubbish, they tried to throw in an additional charge of leaving the bags out on the wrong day,' he said. "Looked at in one way it is a hilarious tale of barmy bureaucracy - but I found it no laughing matter."

It is amazing and incredibly that anybod would actually consider such a completely ridiculous idea. Even the environmental groups that support such a complicated and incredibly goofy scheme in the first place. It is even more incredible that government officials in any locality in the Western world would actually consider prosecuting any one individual on such a incredibly minute point, particularly since it seems like the evidence is somewhat flimsy on whether he even intentionally committed this "heinous violation" or not.

Do any public officials in Western Europe have any respect for individual liberty anymore?

Here's a Stupid idea

Courtesy of the World Council of Churches (H/T Instapundit):

The international community must create a new United Nations body with the mandate to track, evaluate and accept or reject new technologies and their products through an International Convention on the Evaluation of New Technologies (ICENT).

So, you want to let the UN, which can't even account for its own money, which is insidiously corrupt, and has a noted anti-US slant to decide what technologies we get to use? Given that nearly all of the ideas and technologies being developed are incubated in the west, particularly the US and Japan, how is that going to work. Besides, think about how many technologies such as genetically modified foods, could be helping the poor and the starving right now only NGO's like the UN would stay out of the way. Besides, he private sector has done a better job of expanding useful technology such as with the $100 laptops than any large bureaucracy has. I wouldn't trust the UN to organize a bake sale, much less decide what types of technologies can improve our lives.

Cardin Invents "Real People"?

Richard Mintner of PoliticsCentral says that one of Ben Cardin's new TV spots is populated with "supporters" who are paid campaign staff:

Benjamin Cardin, who is running for the U.S. Senate seat open in Maryland, apparently paid campaign staffers to pose as students, workers and other “real people” in a campaign advertisement.

In contrast with other commercials, it is considered unethical to fail to identify paid spokesmen or to have them pose as random members of the public in political advertisements.

Cardin’s campaign did not disclose the links between these “real people” and his campaign.

In Cardin’s ad, a number of Marylanders endorse Cardin. Ashley Peddicord, apparently a college student, says “Thanks to Ben, I can afford college.” In reality, Peddicord works for the campaign. Her campaign email is: Ashley@bencardin.com.

Kelton Anderson, posing as an ordinary working man, is in fact a high-ranking official with United Auto Workers union, which has endorsed Cardin. The UAW gave $9,258,308 during 2006 election season, virtually all of it to Democrats, according to the non-partisan Center for Responsive Politics.

And there’s Carl Tuvin, who tells the camera “And he’s fighting for better health care.” What he does not say is that he is a paid Democratic party organizer, who has long worked with Cardin.

Somehow if this is true, I'm not be terribly surprised. But it also goes back to the point I made last week; if the Cardin camp is that confident, why do they have to go to the extremes on things like voter turnout and inventing "real people"?

The blogger incident; the credit report scandal, Hoyer's racist remark, and now this. Is this a Senate campaign or the "Ben Cardin Comedy of Errors?"

Still Waiting

After one month, this situation has still not been rectified.

I hope that Republicans in District 31 do not have to deal with Tom Redmond's continued infatuation with the Democratic Party for the next four years...

Channeling Al Gore, and other debate thoughts

Just some thoughts from tonight's "first" debate:

• The debate was taped in the same studio they tape It's Academic in. Trust me, that is a tiny studio. I'm amazed that they could fit all of those egos (Mikulski, Jim Smith, Jim Robey et al.) in that diminutive peanut gallery.
  
  
• Whoever thought the debate should be taped should be fired. There was no need for this to take two-and-a-half days to air. Let's not do this again.
  
  
• Martin O'Malley, while still doing his Bill Clinton impersonation, decided to channel Al Gore from the 2000 debates, and we all know where that got him.
  
  
• The Governor did rather well considering it was two-on-one. Denise Koch was an absolutely dreadful choice as a moderator. Her body language was certainly tilted towards O'Malley. Go back and look at the tape; she was always open, engaging with O'Malley, while she was cold and distant from the Governor. Koch also went out of her way to cut off the Governor and try to change the subject while he was in the middle of a point, particularly in cases where he was about to whack O'Malley for saying something nonsensical.
  
  
• During a lot of the debate, O'Malley's hands were visibly shaking. Take that to mean whatever you want it to mean.
  
  
• The closing statements were absolutely surreal. O'Malley kinda talked in distant platitudes about doing x, y, and z with his ten point plan. The Governor looked directly into the camera, listed his accomplishments, and asked the people for their vote, something O'Malley did not do. That is important.

All in all, this debate was actually a little more intense than the second one. I didn't think O'Malley could be any more on the defensive than he was during the debate aired Saturday night, but I was proven wrong.

I hope that all of the undecideds saw these two debates. Nothing else could further differentiate the Governor as a leader from somebody who is anything but.

Surprise!

The Baltimore Sun actually stunned me this morning! Not by the fact that they endorsed Ben Cardin for US Senate. But by the fact that, unlike 2002, they managed to avoid employing racism as an argument against Michael Steele.

I'd like the welcome the Sun to the 21st Century!

The Two Martin O'Malley's

Naturally, we watched the Ehrlich/O'Malley debate tonight, which had all of the finesse of a steel cage match. The debate was a clear win for the Governor, as he stuck to the factual points and actually attempted to answer the questions. O'Malley was as petulant as he has been recently. As David Wissing notes:

Wow. What you have are two very aggressive candidates and two people who clearly do not like each other. Now I do have a dog in this fight, so you can take this whatever way you want, but I do try to be objective when I analyze these things and I have to says Governor Ehrlich came off pretty well when compared to O’Malley. O’Malley almost seemed angry during the entire debate, constantly interrupting Ehrlich time after time forcing Ehrlich to pause and smile at O’Malley’s behavior. Ehrlich was much more upbeat and positive with his answers while O’Malley kept reverting to stock Democratic talking points (Big Oil, Enron, Bush) and spent most of his time attacking Ehrlich.

The debate, however, got me thinking to old times. The old Martin O'Malley. The one who we saw before November 5, 2002. That Martin O'Malley was not the typical, run of the mill left-winger that you see these days. Back then, he was able to portray himself as a moderate and actually mean it. He ran in 1999 as a moderate choice between the more liberal Baltimore City Councilman Lawrence Bell and Carl Stokes. These were the days that O'Malley, while sometimes still a hot head, at least cared about things and actually took controversial stances to try and stand up to the Democratic establishment, such as when he took on Patricia Jessamy's unwillingness to prosecute police corruption in 2001.

I remember attending an event at Western Maryland College in April 2002 where O'Malley spoke. With the Townsend campaign going down in flames, there was talk that O'Malley might jump into the Democratic gubernatorial primary against her. Since he was a potential opponent for our side, I wanted to see in person what the hype was all about. And I will never forget the answer that Martin O'Malley circa 2002 gave to the following:

Student Question: What kind of programs do you supported for convicted drug users?

O'Malley: We already have a program; it's called jail.

That was an O'Malley that moderates and Republicans could, while not necessarily vote for, give a begrudging amount of respect for. As we all know, O'Malley did not run for Governor in 2002. The Democratic establishment talked him out of it. Probably told him that "it wasn't his time," promised him help for a future election, and strong-armed him out of the race. Had Martin O'Malley run in 2002, he would be Governor right now. And he knows it. And since that election, Martin O'Malley has never been the same.

The Martin O'Malley we know now is a completely different animal. Gone is the O'Malley that was willing to challenge the Democratic leadership, replaced by an obsequious O'Malley that is subservient to the Democratic talking points. A breathy O'Malley that waxes poetic about nothing on the biggest stage of his life, yet still finds the time to completely fail as a Mayor. The O'Malley that, much like the Pat Jessamy he criticized five years ago, takes responsibility for nothing and blames everything on everybody else. An O'Malley that had the courage to try new things as Mayor of Baltimore is gone, replaced by an O'Malley wants to bring to the Governor's office the same old staid left-wing policies that failed the state of Maryland in the Glendening administration. Now we get an O'Malley that is, if you watched his debate performance, nothing more than a poor man's Bill Clinton.

Instead of a guy who tells it like it is, O'Malley is now merely the voice that provides audio for the Sun's anti-Ehrlich editorials.

That is what makes O'Malley's insistence that there are "two Bob Ehrlich's" (which he repeated as naseum during tonight's debate) so comical. There are two Martin O'Malley's, something that both he and the Democratic establishment refuse to discuss. The old O'Malley, the one who challenged the Democratic establishment prior to 2002, and the O'Malley post 2002, molded into the shape and form that Maryland's Democratic, left-wing establishment always wanted. And I think that the voters of Maryland can see what today's O'Malley is, and a majority of them will not reward that kind of failure with a promotion.

In the Meantime....

Democrats can now have a scandal to call their own:

Senate Democratic leader Harry Reid collected a $1.1 million windfall on a Las Vegas land sale even though he hadn't personally owned the property for three years, property deeds show.

In the process, Reid did not disclose to Congress an earlier sale in which he transferred his land to a company created by a friend and took a financial stake in that company, according to records and interviews.

The Nevada Democrat's deal was engineered by Jay Brown, a longtime friend and former casino lawyer whose name surfaced in a major political bribery trial this summer and in other prior organized crime investigations. He's never been charged with wrongdoing -- except for a 1981 federal securities complaint that was settled out of court.

Wonder what the media and the left-wing bloggers are going to say about this. But this certainly does not help any Democratic calls that they are going to clean up Congress. Because clearly, the Democrats are no better (if not worse) in the scandal department than Republicans.

Hack Job

Isn't it amazing that the Kangaroo Court Committee Report would be publicly released today, 29-days before the election, with the O'Malley campaign floundering? I am still shocked, shocked! that at-will employees were released by the Ehrlich administration. I mean, employees who serve at the pleasure of the Governor being released because their service is not at the pleasure of the Governor.

Of course, I guess in the minds of Democratic legislative leadership, this makes all Republican appointees of Governor Ehrlich immune from removal as at-will employees. I mean, a future Democratic Governor would never remove them for partisan purposes!

They'll Let Anybody Drive

We spent the weekend in Ocean City, and we came home today through Delaware on Route 404. Somewhere in Talbot County, west of Denton, a Mix 106.5 station van came up in my rear view mirror As soon as the passing area opened up, the guy in the van nearly clipped the rear bumper of my car, passed two cars in quick succession, then proceeded to pass cars twice more in quick succession. This was all on the two lane section of Route 404 between Denton and Queen Anne, not exactly the widest, safest section of highway in Maryland.

I suppose that the Mix 106.5 people will let any station employee drive the station van...

Nervous Doubt?

Ben Cardin sure is interested in voter turnout for somebody whose campaign is co confident of his imminent victory.

U.S. Senate candidate Benjamin L. Cardin yesterday voiced a lack of confidence in Maryland's voting system and worried that the problems that plagued the primary election could discourage voters from turning out in November.

"I am not convinced that they know how to run this election so that voters will not be inconvenienced to a point where they don't participate," Cardin (D) said during an interview with Washington Post reporters and editors.

Of course, higher turnout elections tend to favor Democrats. The lower the turnout, the better the chance of a GOP win, particularly in a blue state like Maryland.

I think that Cardin is fundamentally right in the fact that this general election could turn out to be a fiasco is solely for the reason that voter turnout will be higher than the primary sheerly due to he mechanics of it being a general election. But to wrap his concerns around the fact that turnout might be depressed is a very interesting way to note it. Seems like nervous doubt to me...

Uh-Oh...

If Speaker Haster stays on, things could get really ugly in a hurry (H/T HotAir):

House Republican candidates will suffer massive losses if House Speaker Dennis Hastert remains speaker until Election Day, according to internal polling data from a prominent GOP pollster, FOX News has learned.

"The data suggests Americans have bailed on the speaker," a Republican source briefed on the polling data told FOX News. "And the difference could be between a 20-seat loss and 50-seat loss."

That's bad news for the country, because the though of Nancy Pelosi as Speaker is absolutely terrifying...

Too Much

If you think it takes too much for government employees to get fired, check out Reason's two-page diagram of how to fire a teacher in New York City.

Unfortunately, I think this says a lot about the modern education system, particularly in urban environments, when even the worst teachers are offered this kind of job security. John Stossel notes:

The regulations are so onerous that principals rarely even try to fire a teacher. Most just put the bad ones in pretend-work jobs, or sucker another school into taking them. (They call that the "dance of the lemons.") The city payrolls include hundreds of teachers who have been deemed incompetent, violent, or guilty of sexual misconduct. Since the schools are afraid to let them teach, they put them in so-called "rubber rooms" instead. There they read magazines, play cards, and chat, at a cost to New York taxpayers of $20 million a year.

The solution to this, of course, is to change the tenure laws and ensure that teachers are paid and retained based on their performance, not because of draconian hiring and firing rules. These rules should be established not to protect jobs, but in order to promote educational achievement by students; something that clearly does not enter the picture in New York City's practices.

This is Going to Get Worse Before it Gets Better

Let's start with the facts; Mark Foley is a mentally incompetent human being to be engaging in behavior that endangers children; even more so that, like so many others, he abused a position of respect and authority to do it.

The drumbeat for Speaker Hastert to step aside, which he should have done in May with the last criminal activity he interjected himself in.

GOP insiders are trying to push that this was a Democratic hit job, and while it is possible, which really justifies none of the fact that it seems that Foley did it and that GOP leadership knew about it.

Now, the Democrats are naturally turning their guns on the entire GOP. But they need to watch out. It seems like when sex scandals pop up, they tend to pop up in droves. Who is going to be the Dan Crane to Foley's Gerry Studds?

Republican leadership should have dealt with this in a responsible manner because it was the morally correct thing to do. Now, once again, the media gets to have a feeding frenzy on something not related to the issues.

I'll take their word (for now)

From the Sun:

"I don't know why they always bring up my name. I already had trouble with Palmeiro last year," Tejada said. "I am not stupid. I already have my money. I already have great numbers. I've already had a great career. Why should I do something stupid with Grimsley?"
- Miguel Tejada

"I never had a single meaningful conversation with Jason Grimsley in my life. ... This is a joke," - Jay Gibbons

"Grimsley and I had zero relationship when he was here. I haven't talked to Grimsley about anything related to steroids in my life."
- Brian Roberts

This is all insanity. There are three division titles still up for grabs on the last day of the season: who is trying to harm baseball by throwing this stuff into the wind days before the start of the playoffs. And how is throwing Roger Clemens under the bus, a guy who's workout regiment has been well documented for over a decade, really going to help matters?

I suppose that Grimsley was really desperate to keep this under wraps, and I guess the Feds are really desperate to nail somebody on a steroids charge.