The victim was called a f*gg*t by the NYPD supporters...talk about adding insult to injury.  He handles it with class though and blew the hecklers kisses.

US Senate Seat

One soon to be vacant US Senate Seat.

Junior #@!&$! Senator, Illinois.

$50,000

Might accept no-show corporate board postitions for me and my wife instead of cash.

Call me anytime with questions.

I love talking on the #@!&$! phone.

Blags

Influential Democrat asks Obama to keep spy chiefs

Reyes said he had recommended to Obama's transition team that CIA Director Michael Hayden and Director of National Intelligence Michael McConnell be kept in place for at least six months.

"There's got to be some continuity, and the leadership of both the CIA and the DNI is going to be pivotal to keeping us safe and secure," Reyes said. "I made a recommendation that they stay on during the transition so that there would be a period of time that there would be overlap."

But as the chair of the DNC, her performance reeks.

As the spokesperson for the DNC, she's an abject failure.

The Bush administration has had some successes.  One of them was a talented line up of spin artists and fast talkers.  Condi Rice, every single White House press secretary, Donald Rumsfeld and a few others.  (That woman whose name I can't recall.  She came and left and returned briefly.)

They could make a lagoon of liquid manure sound like untapped gold mine.  They could say the most preposterous things with a straight face.  They did everything in their power to protect the Brand, whether it was the Office of the POTUS or the our Military Success in Iraq.

When you are the public face of some organization, your job is to promote the organization and defend the brand.  You have to project confidence, competence, sincerity, optimism.  You have to put the best face on any situation.  You have to present the most optimistic view on any scenario.  Concern is allowable, doubt is verboten.  You have to spin like a PR master.  If you want to play party politics, you do it behind closed doors not in public.

Brazile made me cringe more often than not.  She was not who I want to be the public face of the DNC.  "It scares me."  O.M.G.  She was talking not about something the Bush administration was proposing or about some Republican bill but her very own party!  She's been doing this job for years and been doing poor quality media appearances for years.  

I do not know why she is the public face of the DNC.  Find someone who can do the job competently and let them make the (paid) media appearances.  There must be qualified people who need a job.  We could use a Change.

Though, as the Mets never cease to show us, high payroll does not alway equal success...but it sure does make the offseason exciting!

Sources say that Obama's team is having trouble finding a potential CIA director who lacks politically incriminating links to controversial Bush Administration policies and yet commands the respect of the agency's rank and file.  Potential nominees include John Gannon, a Bush era Homeland Security official and Clinton-era intelligence officer and Jami Miscik, former chief of the CIA's directorate of analysis.  The New York Times reported that New York crisis management consultant Jack Devine, a former CIA chief of operations, is also a potential candidate.

AP (from yesterday):

CIA DIRECTOR

John Gannon, former deputy director for intelligence at the CIA during the Clinton administration

Jami Miscik, former head of CIA's analytical operations

Steve Kappes, CIA's current No. 2

Rep. Jane Harman, D-Calif., who now heads House Homeland Security subcommittee on intelligence.

John McLaughlin, former interim CIA chief

Kappes and Miscik in particular do not pass the smell test.  

For ex:

March 2002-Abu Zubaydah is captured in Pakistan. George Bush is briefed regularly by George Tenet on the details of Zubaydah's interrogation (see p. 22, State of War by James Risen). Cofer Black is in charge of the CIA's Counterterrorism Center and oversees the CIA's hunt for the terrorists. Zubaydah is interrogated in Thailand, where the sessions were filmed. He was waterboarded sometime in the May-June 2002 time frame. Enhanced interrogation methods were used and approval for them came from Jim Pavitt (see p. 21 of ABC News interview of former CIA case officer, John Kiriakou). Pavitt was the DDO (i.e., Deputy Director of Operations). Stephen Kappes, who currently serves as the Deputy Director of the CIA, was named Assistant Deputy Director of Operations in June 2002. Ron Suskind confirms Risen's report that the President and his National Security team were regularly briefed on the results of Zubaydah's torture sessions (see The One Percent Doctrine, pp. 111-115).

Rep. Joe Barton of Texas, the ranking Republican on the House Energy and Commerce Committee, didn't specify what sort of playoff he wants -- only that the BCS should go.

"In some years the sport's national championship winner was left unsettled, and at least one school was left out of the many millions of dollars in revenue that accompany the title," Barton said in a statement released ahead of the bill's introduction. "Despite repeated efforts to improve the system, the controversy rages on."

He said the bill -- being co-sponsored by Reps. Bobby Rush, an Illinois Democrat, and Michael McCaul, a Texas Republican -- "will prohibit the marketing, promotion, and advertising of a postseason game as a 'national championship' football game, unless it is the result of a playoff system. Violations of the prohibition will be treated as violations of the Federal Trade Commission Act as an unfair or deceptive act or practice."

Cop: You gotta keep moving.
Vagrant: But it's free...it's a free...
Cop: No. It ain't.

i would have thought the statute of limitations barred prosecution at this point, but she tells me she was informed that, because of the way it was handled, the statute hasn't run out, and it could be re-opened at any time, into perpetuity.

ANAHEIM -- Disneyland management has fired the four actors who played pirate Jack Sparrow because officials were worried about young female park-goers flashing the swashbuckling actors late at night, according to one former cast member.
"They lost control when they saw Jack Sparrow," said former pirate Brandon Pinto, who left the role after a dispute with management a year ago. "This is a sexy, rock-star pirate."

A senior Justice Department official said today that "99.8 percent" of the department's work with President-elect Barack Obama's transition team has gone smoothly. The 0.2 percent snag: The department has reservations about granting the team's request to review classified legal opinions related to secret CIA and National Security Agency programs.

...

he Justice official said the department was reluctant to provide the opinions to Obama's team without permission from the two intelligence agencies whose activities they address. At the roundtable, Mukasey said OLC opinions are issued at the request of other agencies with their "own equity or interest in the information."

"And so what we try to do is determine whether, and to what extent, we can clear that information and try to do it as quickly as we can so as to get it to the transition team so that they're aware of all the things that they need when they take over on the 21st," Mukasey said, according to a transcript provided by the department.

WSJ:

The story explains that the dispute between Obama's team and the DOJ over the records has caught the attention of Williams & Connolly's Greg Craig (pictured), who has been named as the incoming White House counsel. The story cites an unnamed justice official as saying the agencies first want to sign off on any information disclosed to their new boss before turning over sensitive records.

Are they delaying the inevitable?  Why would they hesitate to share this information?

link

Tim Tebow - Florida
Sam Bradford - Oklahoma
Colt McCoy - Texas