25 August 2005

What Will Stick to the Wall Tonight?

What to spout about?

I'm a bit late on the bandwagon with the crooks that run Air America, but justice is catching up with them quickly. Cap'n Ed has Able Danger in hand, I'm a bit behind on the details, but I'm sure I'll be going off on Jamie Gorelick and Louis Freeh soon enough.

Not much happening with the local hockey outfit; season's still over a month away. The Reds have some time off from the EPL for Champions League qualifiers.

I suppose I can lob an easy harpoon my US Representative for being a crybaby and hypocrite. Remember when she spazzed upon learning Mark Kennedy would attend a public forum hosted by the St. Paul Hmong community? Kennedy (not McCollum) had actually gone to the refugee camps in Thailand, and his perspectives were of interest to the forum organizers. Betty flipped out, screaming that Kennedy, who represents Minnesota's 6th, was in her back yard, the 4th, ostensibly to campaign for Mark Dayton's US Senate seat. Betty contends that anytime Mark pops his head out of his house, he's campaigning.

See, Betty wants that Senate job too, so if Mark crosses some line on a map he's just not playing fair like nice boys and girls. That hardened outlook didn't get in the way of Betty soiling a perfectly good Mustang in Minneapolis' PRIDE Parade this past June 26th. Somehow, when Betty, who's running for Senate (see correction in 'comments' below), makes a public appearance in warmed-over Martin Sabo's 5th district, THAT'S perfectly fine and dandy.

Oh . . . that's right; Sabo is a Democrat stoodge, too. I guess there's no conflict there . . .

6 comments:

Anonymous said...

I guess I must have missed Betty's announcement for the Senate.

Anonymous said...

Oh, Betty wants to the in the U.S. Senate all right. She took a pass, however, on a Senate race in 2006. The problem this go-around is that, unlike 2000, the DFL intelligensia did not want to hand her the nomination on a silver platter. I suspect that they no realize, as do many in the 4th CD, that she is a doorknob. No party wants a doorknob (think John Marty in the 1994 campaign for governor or Roger Moe in 2002) as its candidate in a major Senate race.

OctaneBoy said...

I should correct myself: Betty is not running for US Senate in 2006. I think I got it mucked up with a Colleen Rowley tirade I'm working toward.

Either way, Betty puts party ahead of constituency by howling about Kennedy appearing in her district on legitimate business, while she parades, literally, in a district other than her own.

lloydletta said...

Wasn't the problem that Kennedy was going to spend taxpayer money on his appearance in McCollum's district?

The question is whether McCollum's appearance at Pride came out of her district office money - or from her campaign. I don't know the answer to that one.

lloydletta said...

Yup, from your previous article:

Rep. Mark Kennedy, the Republicans' presumptive frontrunner, backed out of a forum with Hmong leaders in St. Paul this week after Democrats complained Monday that it would be a congressionally funded campaign event. Rep. Betty McCollum, a Democrat who represents St. Paul, threatened to complain to the House ethics committee, citing House rules that limit the use of congressional funds and staff time to support "duties to the district from which elected."

EY: So the question is whether Betty used her congressional funds to pay for her Pride appearance.

OctaneBoy said...

And even further down the KSTP.com story:

Kennedy spokeswoman Anne Mason said the congressman was invited to participate at a Hmong forum, and the release used a poor choice of words when it said that Kennedy was to "hold" the forum.

"'Participate' would have been a much better word to use, rather than 'hold,"' Mason said.

McCollum's chief of staff, Bill Harper, agreed there would be no problem in Kennedy being invited and speaking to a group in her district.


I'm not sure why Kennedy would have bagged out given the only real issue was poor word choice in a written statement.