The Hub of Politics

If one is going to gleefully take-on a seemingly hopeless cause - to tilt at windmills, as it were - could there possibly be a more noble, a more honorable, a more worthy cause than to challenge for the United States Senate seat in Massachusetts currently held by one Edward Moore Kennedy? Could there be a higher calling in this day and age than to challenge the senior Blowhard from the Commonwealth, the legend of Chappaquiddick - last seen busting a gasket on the floor of the most deliberately arrogant body over the impending confirmation of Samuel Alito to the SCOTUS? Is there possibly a more delicious prospect than that of seeing said windbag being sent packing, after 44-years on the public dole, into a long-overdue retirement?

I, for one, think not.

Which is why I am excited to hear that a very serious person, a former congressman and director of the Massachusetts Port Authority (MassPort) is very seriously considering accepting the role as a modern-day Don Quixote. Peter Blute, a former US Representative (1993-1997), is seriously considering a challenge to Ted Kennedy. And while taking on anyone in Massachusetts with the last name "Kennedy" almost certainly commits one to an uphill battle - particularly considering the $8M Teddy has in his campaign account - Mr. Blute's entry into the race will almost certainly make the race, at a minimum, competitive.

Congressman Blute demonstrated during his 4-years in the US House a relatively high propensity to vote the GOP position on the issues and would, if elected to the Senate, certainly vote well to the right of the incumbent.

I can see the bumper stickers now:

Give Teddy The Boot! Vote BLUTE!!

Hey, at least no one died on the Nauticus!

There is of course speculation that this has a great deal more to do with 2008 than 2006, when it is widely expected that our junior Blowhard, John Forbes Kerry (D-Paris), will don his own visage of Quixote and challenge for the White House again thereby leaving his Senate seat open. That is certainly part of the equation. Peter Blute, who spent much of the last few years as a popular morning drive-time talk-show host on WRKO, has been out of politics for some time (though not entirely out of the public eye) and a run against Kennedy carries little downside as few people seriously give anyone a chance in such a race.

Further, a Kennedy-Blute race would give the challenger the opportunity to knock the rust off his campaign legs, re-build his name recognition, and - perhaps most importantly - provide a great service to his Party and his Nation by keeping Teddy here in the Commonwealth. Finally, Blute's candidacy would certainly help energize a (rather small) Republican base here in Massachusetts and cannot but help the candidacy of Lt. Governor Kerry Healey in her long-shot bid to keep the Beacon Hill corner office in GOP hands for another 4-years.

And if he were ever to pull-off the upset ...

It boggles the mind.

Mr. Blute, I am only one small voice in the vast political wilderness that is the Commonwealth, but I would like to say as loudly as I am able - RUN! PETER! RUN!

A warning to the Human Resources department at the Boston Herald; it would appear that one of your reporters, a Ms. Kimberly Atkins, is using your paper to try to land a gig with your rival - the Boston Globe.

There is simply no other way to explain the ludicrously, outrageously biased piece of garbage that poses for a news story in today's Herald, authored by Ms. Atkins, with the title: Health plan delay costly.

Gov. Mitt Romney admitted for the first time yesterday that the state likely will lose more than $1 million a day in federal dollars for failing to implement a new health-care plan by July, but denied that his frequent out-of-state trips contributed to the delay.

A question, Ms. Atkins: Why in Heaven's name should this have anything to do with Gov. Romney's "frequent" out-of-state trips? Or perhaps you have forgotten that the Governor has already, long-ago in fact, submitted his own healthcare reform plan to the legislature - a solid, balanced plan, by the way - only to have it laughed out of the chamber by the Democrats who, in case your memory has completely failed, control roughly 87% of the seats in that branch of state government.

Instead, Romney blamed state lawmakers, who continue to haggle in hopes of finding a compromise between plans offered by the House and Senate for a health-care overhaul plan before the July 1 deadline, a requirement to continue receiving $385 million in federal assistance.

Oh, so now you're trying to paint this as a standard "finger-pointing" story. Gotcha.

"The Senate president and the speaker of the House know that I'm available at the drop of a hat" by phone, said Romney, just back from a four-day trip to the Olympics in Turin, Italy.

Precisely.

It was one of nearly a dozen out-of-state trips Romney has made in the past six weeks as he mulls a run for president in 2008. ...

The Herald reported yesterday that Romney has averaged nearly two out-of-state trips a week since returning from an 11-day family Christmas holiday at his Utah vacation home.

And this has to do with the legislature's failure to do, well, anything on this issue how, precisely?

Check your voice-mail, Ms. Atkins. I'm sure the Globe has left a message for you. Pity for you that they happen to be hemorrhaging circulation at the moment - probably because of crappy "reporting" like this, by the way.

You should fit right in.

Note: It's not every day that I have a diary entry at RedState promoted to the front page, so while this particular entry doesn't have much at all to do with the Commonwealth, I figured I'd post it here also. Enjoy!

Kofi Annan - who in case you forgot is the accidentally hilarious man who is the Secretary-General of the (Dis)United Nations - is asking George Bush - a man to whom during the run-up to the Iraq War Mr. Annan was, at best, counterproductive - to contribute to a UN force to be deployed into Sudan's vastly troubled Dafur region.

The United States has offered military planners for the Darfur operation, which will arrive on Monday. But it has made no offer of air coverage or other assistance for the venture, expected to be comprised mainly of African and Asian troops, who form the bulk of all UN forces.

Well, I suppose now that the UN has the whole Iranian-Mullahs-Getting-Nukes situation under control, why not branch-out and spread that sort of success throughout Africa as well?

At issue is a transfer of command from an underfunded African Union force of 7,000 monitors and troops in Darfur to UN peacekeepers, a move U.S. Ambassador John Bolton promoted in the Security Council last week by drafting a statement asking the world body to begin contingency planning.

John Bolton - now that name sounds familiar. Oh yes, wasn't he the guy who was sent by Bush to (as was claimed by the Loyal Opposition) destroy the UN or something like that? And gee, any guesses as to why the "African Union force of 7,000 monitors and troops" is "underfunded"? Hmmmmmmmmm...

Annan said Darfur's plight, which the United States has characterized as genocide, was too dire for rich nations to pay but not participate in the mission, which will increase the $5 billion spent on peacekeeping last year.

I can only hope the official White House response will be something like this:

Dear Kofi: Kiss it. Love, George.

"It is not going to be easy for the big and powerful countries with armies to delegate to third world countries. They will have to play a part if we are going to stop the carnage that we see in Darfur," Annan told reporters on Thursday.

Well Kofi, in the event you had not noticed, most ot the "big and powerful countries" of the world kinda-sorta have their hands full already trying to stop the spread of militant Islamofascism, while some of the rest are getting ready to surrender to it. As such, their plates are already rather full, no thanks to you. So they're looking to you to get this one solved on your own - assuming you can handle it. More on that score in a little bit.

Perhaps it's not a surprise that the only US official to be quoted in this Reuters piece is none-other than the orange-haired Senior Blowhard from Delaware - so let's hear what Joey has to say...

"NATO is already helping the AU with airlift support and training," Biden wrote in the Baltimore Sun. "We should increase NATO's presence by deploying a few thousand NATO troops to work side by side with AU forces."

Memo to Joe - NATO == US. Besides...

But the Sudan government would probably turn down any force under a NATO flag.

Fine by me. Let. Them. Rot.

No one doubts the quantity and quality of the human tragedy that has been the Sudan (in general) and Dafur (in particular) - in fact if memory serves, that dread neo-con George Bush has himself been saying for years that someone needs to do something about it. The Sudan presents Mr. Annan with the perfect opportunity to demonstrate that he can do something other than stand in the way of the national interests of the United States. He could build his very-own "Coalition of the Willing" and solve a problem festering in his own backyard.

He could, that is, were he capable in any sense of the word.

The problem is, when it comes to getting something done it's either done by us or not done at all.

Pity - for the people of Dafur, that is.

For anyone reading this who is thinking I'm about to discus The Great Global Cartoon Kerfuffle™, you are either going to be greatly disappointed or (more likely) even more greatly relieved.

No, I am indeed going to put a few words to electronic paper regarding the sad case of Berthena Dorinvil - or more accurately, her 6-year old, first-grade son who was suspended from Brockton's Downey Elementary School for sexual harassment.

"When you send your kids to school, as a parent you need to teach them what is proper, what is not proper," the 27-year-old homemaker (Brockton parent Leona McNair) said Tuesday. "You don't touch other kids' bodies."

Yes folks, this is precisely what it has come to in 2006 - first-graders can be accused of sexual harassment if they dare to "touch other kids' bodies". All I can say is that I'm certainly glad I lived in a, dare I say, less enlightened time.

But back to the case of Ms. Dorinvil's would-be pervert. If you've not heard by now, here's the long-and-short: little "Johnny" (for lack of a real name) was suspended from his Brockton elementary school for three days last week (and marched out of school by school police in disgrace) after officials said he put two fingers inside a girl's waistband, touching her skin, during a class. He was subsequently referred to the police (as if the police in Brockton have nothing else to do) and the Bristol County District Attorney (who, I can only hope, likely fell-over dead from laughter).

When we were kids, this behavior may have been called teasing. Now, it's a felony. I'm sure that, to someone, this is progress.

The case sparked debate among parents, educators, psychologists and lawmakers over whether a child that age is capable of sexual harassment.

"It can happen in the sense that a 6-year-old child is capable of saying to himself, 'She doesn't like it when I touch her, so I think I'll bother her,' " said Elizabeth Englander, a Bridgewater State College psychologist and author of "Understanding Violence."

Ya think, Professor? Where does one sign-up to take courses to be able to come up with that kind of astute observation?

In the Brockton case, Berthena Dorinvil, the boy's mother, said he does not know what sexual harassment is and in the wake of the Downey school's action, she wants him transferred to another school.

This would seem to make little "Johnny" a rather normal 6-year old boy. Cannot have any of them in this post-modern, hyper-feminist world, can we.

As an aside, if you want to read an anecdote about some real sexual harassment and an outrageously inappropriate (in the opposite direction) response by local officials, read Margery Egan's column in today's Herald.

Sadly however, it seems that the folks in Brockton think they handled the situation of the great elastic wasteband caper "by the book" - whatever that means. What I think is much simpler than that: everyone involved in this case on the school's side - the teacher and aide in the classroom, the school principal, the school superintendent, and the entire school administration - are all certifiably insane.

Cross-posted at RedState.

Perhaps there won't be much of a coronation for the most ineffective Attorney General in the Nation after all. From today's Boston Herald:

Attorney General Tom Reilly’s support among Democratic voters has nosedived, with his once-formidable lead over rival Deval Patrick collapsing to single digits, a new poll shows.

Reilly’s nearly 40-point lead from a year ago shrank to just 9 percentage points, according to the just-released Suffolk University/WHDH-TV poll.

As I pointed out last week, Reilly's attempts to out-flank former Clinton Administration DOJ official Deval Patrick (who happens to be black) by hand-picking as his running-mate State Rep. Marie St. Fleur (who happens to be a black woman) backfired when it was uncovered that Rep. St. Fleur has, so to speak, a problem paying her taxes.

Reilly’s bumbled handling of his gubernatorial running mate choice has helped lead to one in five Democrats believing Reilly is “out of his league.”

That the chief prosecutor of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts is seemingly incapable of sniffing-this out prior to going to the public with his choice with all the fanfare of a royal wedding sort-of feeds this perception. Who knew?

The poll shows Reilly besting Patrick 39-30, a statistical dead heat given the poll’s 4.9-point margin of error.

Reilly campaign spokesman Corey Welford dismissed the results, saying, “We never pay attention to polls.”

Apparently y'all don't pay attention to the police blotter, either.

“Tom continues to have great support from Democrats, independents and Republicans,” he said.

For the record, as hard as it is to find a republican in Massachusetts - particularly one who will admit to said affiliation - I know not a single, solitary member of the minority party who supports Reilly for Governor. Perhaps they are out there, but such a statement by Reilly's mouthpiece simply defies logic.

And while we can (and shall) all have a good laugh at the stumbling and bumbling of a man friend and foe alike have taken to referring to as "Unfortunately" (as in, "Unfortunately" Tom Reilly...), things are not all caviar and roses however for the lieutenant governor of the Commonwealth - Mitt Romney's chosen successor. In the same poll (400 registered Massachusetts voters conducted 2-4 February), Kerry Healey was found to trail both Patrick (32-39) and Reilly (32-47), indicating that while it looks like the Republican's base of support is roughly 32-percent, the Democrats' base support is between 39- and 47-percent - a clear advantage that will be difficult for an unseasoned campaigner such as Ms. Healey to overcome.

Given that this is, after all, Massachusetts these results are not surprising. Also, the Lt. Governor has only recently started campaigning - in fact, her official campaign kicked-off only yesterday. She is well financed (largely self-financed as she and her hubby are loaded), very bright, and will have the added advantage of being able to sit-back and watch the Democrats act on their every-fourth-year compulsion to eat their own - a process that has only begun and will get ever-more delicious as the September primary approaches.

However these poll results do illustrate, in striking detail, the very high hurdles Ms. Healey will have to negotiate if she is going to keep the Beacon Hill corner office this very blue state in red hands for another 4-years.

And don't think for a second that Mitt Romney's prospects as a presumptive nominee for President of the United States won't be impacted by just how successful is Ms. Healey in accomplishing this nearly impossible task.

OK folks, please prepare yourself for the following statement...

God bless Massachusetts Democrats!

Yep, you read that right. God bless these critters for they are the gift that keeps on giving, every day lately in fact.

Why in just the last couple of days we have the spectacle of John Forbes Kerry (D-Paris) - Presidential loser - phoning-in a filibuster of now-Justice Samuel Alito from the ski-slopes of Switzerland. Priceless.

Then, after only a little more than half of their own caucus demonstrated their willingness to drive-off Chappaquiddick Bridge with The Gigilo and his senior partner, Senator Splash himself takes to the Senate floor and, perhaps literally, busts a stitch or two in his denounciations against the Alito. I mean, one usually has to pay big money for that sort of campaign footage - now all we have to do is press "Play".

I don't have to provide links to any of these, do I? Thanks.

But wait, not to be outdone by their federal counterparts, we have this item in today's Boston Globe (not the Herald mind you, THE GLOBE) - the title of which says most everything you need to know:

Reilly's pick delinquent on taxes, loans

That would be a reference to Democrat candidate for Governor and current Massachusetts Attorney General Tom Reilly and his hand-picked (as of yesterday) choice for lieutenant governor and current Representative in the Massachusetts General Court (Legislature, that is) Marie St. Fleur.

State Representative Marie P. St. Fleur, Attorney General Thomas F. Reilly's choice to be his lieutenant governor running mate, has had three delinquent tax debts in the last four years, including an April 2005 federal tax lien of $12,711 against her and her husband, according to records examined yesterday by the Globe.

Oh but wait - there's more, in the very next paragraph we find out...

St. Fleur, in an interview last night, disclosed that she also owes $40,000 in delinquent federally backed student loans.

Had enough yet? Wait, it gets better - and remember folks, this is in THE GLOBE...

St. Fleur told the Globe last night that she had paid down the federal tax debt to about $8,000 by making $500 monthly payments since last spring. But later last night, Corey Welford, a Reilly campaign spokesman, corrected her, saying that she had in fact made only one $500 payment last May and that the balance is still more than $12,000.

Unsurprisingly perhaps, Rep. St. Fleur rarely misses an opportunity to vote for higher taxes - I mean what the heck? She obviously doesn't pay them, so why should she care? And besides, taxes are things other people pay, right John Forbes?

< guffaw >
< /guffaw >

"This is embarrassing to me; I knew this was going to come out," St. Fleur said, adding later: "I knew that when I stepped out like this that it might be the end of my career."

My heart bleeds, Marie. It truly does. Why, when most people are caught not paying their taxes it usually is rather embarrassing and usually does, in fact, end their careers. But fear not, Marie. You are after all a black woman, and a liberal Democrat, and you represent Boston in the legislature - and past history therefore seems to indicate that you have little if anything to fear from the voters with regard to your career.

But I have digressed...

(St. Fleur) said she believes most people will understand her problems, because they are so common: She and her husband have struggled to make ends meet on modest incomes while raising three children.
...
"She'll connect with ordinary people," (Reilly) said. "She'll understand their struggles."

Oh yes, every other person I know is at least 2-3 years behind on their federal taxes and owes $40k on student loans some 15-18 years after completing college - and somehow still manages to get elected to the legislature so they can push for, say perhaps in-state tuition for illegal aliens. Yes, I'm sure that is precisely what will connect with average voters in Massachusetts.

It goes on, but let's skip to the punch-line a little further down the page, shall we?

The public record of the federal tax liability is missing from the Suffolk County Registry of Deeds, where it should be readily available to anyone doing a database search. Secretary of State William F. Galvin, who oversees the Registry, said he is launching an inquiry to make sure no one acted to remove the record.

Shocking, no? I mean it's just shocking that the record of Ms. St. Fleur's tax liability would just happen to be, at the moment, missing from the Suffolk County (that would be Boston, by the way) Registry. ("Your winnings, sir." "Oh yes, thank you very much")

Tom Reilly, who could very well be the worst Attorney General in the country, is kinda like that guy from Lil' Abner - you know, the guy with the little black cloud that follows him everywhere he goes. I mean, this was supposed to be easy for him. Mitt Romney, superb hair and all, is fleeing the Commonwealth after one term leaving his Lt. Governor to defend a Republican governorship in a deep-blue state that has been in GOP hands since 1990. Add to that, Reilly's primary opponent is a little-known former Assistant Attorney General for Civil Rights under Bill Clinton whose platform reads only slightly to the right of Hugo Chavez's - which outside of the pinker precincts doesn't even go over well in Massachusetts.

Sad when a coronation goes badly, no?

Look, it may all work out for Tommy - I mean, he still might win the nomination, and while Kerry Healey is a very nice, very smart woman who has done a well-above average job in the 2-3 things a Massachusetts Lt. Governor needs to do, let's face it, she looks like a Stepford Wife. Sad to say, but it is going to matter when she turns sideways to the camera and you see, well, precisely nothing (yes folks, she is that thin). Add the fact that you have the possibility of (at best) a GOP primary challenge or (at worse) an independent candidacy from millionaire Christy Mihos (reg. req'd) that will almost certainly draw votes from Healey and things still look pretty bright for poor-old Tom "Btsfplk" Reilly.

But today, it's Morning in Massachusetts. The sun is out, the snow is melting, and the Democrat front-runner for the Beacon Hill corner office just shot himself in the foot - again.

They are indeed the gift that just keeps on giving.

Update [20060201 1428]: My colleague JB reminded me of some of Representative St. Fraud's earlier troubles, something about trying to sell her personal auto to her campaign. I'm looking for a link with all deliberate speed.

Update 2 [20060201 1842]: St. Fleur is out. Apparently, there were also some excise tax issues as well.

Please folks - keep in mind that Tom Reilly, Attorney General Tom Reilly if you need the reminder, is the chief prosecutor in the Commonwealth.

Sort of explains why his detractors refer to him as "Unfortunately" - as in, "Unfortunately Tom Reilly". It's starting to look like he couldn't find corn in the fields of Iowa.

Oh, and it looks as if Reilly's primary opponent (Deval Patrick) may have had some past problems paying his taxes on time as well ...

What is it with these tax-and-spend left wingers that they cannot seem to muster the gumption to pay their own taxes, eh?

Like I said, it just keeps on giving.

Cross-posted at RedState.