Michael Goodwin’s Op-Ed in today’s Daily News “Keep Albany a two-party town”, presents a perfect way to end the legislative session with some mindless summer fun. Yes, the session must truly be over, and things must be slowing down, for only two parties makes for a very slow night indeed in that Babylon north of the Bear Mountain Bridge.

The article regurgitated the flatulent gasbag conventional wisdom that we are better off with divided government than one-party control. Michael Bouldin at “The Daily Gotham” and Phil Anderson at “The Albany Project” gave terse responses most notable for their dismissive brevity.

Doubtless, the article’s contents are not really worth much more, but the fact is that the viewpoint expressed within is widely held, and not just amongst the bagmen of the Albany chattering classes and their admiring chroniclers, who most resemble piano players in a brothel (although every once in a while they get a sudden urge to take a side gig in a local Salvation Army band until the latest scandal blows over). Most importantly, polls indicate it is a viewpoint with some salience among the general populace.

“The excitement underpinning Senator Barack Obama’s campaign rests considerably on his evocative vows to depart from self-interested politics. Unfortunately, Mr. Obama has come up short of that standard with his decision to reject public spending limitations and opt instead for unlimited private financing in the general election.”
-New York Times Editorial 6/20/08

WRONG!

Michael Kinsley’s famous rule that “the scandal isn’t what’s illegal, it’s what’s legal“, now has “Gatemouth’s converse“: “the ideal imperfectly replicated in a reform may be preferable to the status quo (or status quo ante), but it is not to be mistaken for the ideal itself.”

Take public financing of presidential campaigns, a reform enacted in the aftermath of the Watergate scandal. The idea was to eliminate many evils: the nefarious influence of special interest pay for play money; the nefarious influence of big donors with disproportionate influence; dirty tricks, often untraceable to their source; etc., etc.

Will Barack Obama please have the Democratic Party Rules Committee restore the four piddling delegates it took away from Hillary in Michigan?

I know winning these delegates was an important victory for him, because after all, without them it would have taken an additional three and one half minutes to clinch the party’s nomination. Nonetheless, I implore him to forgo this ill-gotten gain so that those Hillary supporters who refuse to wake up and smell the coffee (I myself am fully caffeinated, and these days I take my coffee like my new candidate, not too light, and not too sweet) will have one less inconsequential complaint to whine about.

No, I am not elated with the results of the nomination process, but, on the other hand, I didn’t find voting for Hillary in the primary to be the equivalent of a trip to Belle Harbor either. Still, as someone who pulled her lever, however reluctantly, I feel the pain of all those whose preferred candidate didn’t win. Actually, I envy them; my preferred candidate didn’t even run.

“The Democratic party will indeed suffer the consequences of its actions. Republican women who crossed over for Hillary will go back to their own party, while others will either stay home or write in their votes for Hillary. Still others will leave the party that has no respect for the women who constitute two thirds of it's (sic) base.

In recent times, the Republicans have stood for their beliefs. Although many of us progressives fight vehemently against their platform, at least we know who the enemy is. This time the Democrats have shown their true colors and it's high time for a party that respects the needs and rights of over half the population. Maybe Senator Clinton should start a National Women's Party. She certainly has the base she would need to make it happen. At least that party will state its mission clearly through it's title. The Democrats certainly did not live up to their name.”

NOW-NYS’ President Marcia Pappas, posting on “Woman’s Outlook NOW”- June 7, 2008

The home page on the website of NOW-NYS opens with this quote: “The Radical Right is holding women hostage. Now there is something you can do about it”

“I always joke that my intellectual formation was through Jewish scholars and writers, even though I didn’t know it at the time. Whether it was theologians or Philip Roth who helped shape my sensibility, or some of the more popular writers like Leon Uris.” –Barack Obama

I’m trying not to picture Senator Obama in the throes of passion with a piece of raw liver moaning “Yes we can”. But I did not come here today to wax Roth, but rather to discuss the major cause precedent to the Senator’s literary midrash excerpted above, Obama’s association with the Reverend Jeremiah Wright’s Trinity United Church of Christ, an association he has just terminated.

Of course, it is not only Jews who find that association troubling, but we do tend to be canaries in the coal mine on matters involving Gentile preachers who spew statements which might arguably be interpreted as being filled with hate. Of course, there are those who take a different view:

The Cold Twenty Thousand

A Novel By James “Gatemouth” Ellroy

Chapter One

Roger Stone

“They sent him to New York to kill a Jew Prosecutor named Eliot Spitzer. He was sure he could do it.

The Senate Republican Campaign Committee flew him. They supplied first class fare. They tapped their slush fund. They greased him. They fed him twenty cold a month.

Nobody said it:

Kill that Jew. Do it good. Take our hit fee.”

***********************************************************

"This was a military-style ambush from start to finish . . .a coup d'etat with David Paterson waiting in the wings, and perhaps Joe Bruno queuing up behind him."

District Attorney James “Gatemouth” Garrison

I am normally one to dismiss each and every conspiracy theory out of hand. Did Dubya steal the election from Kerry? No, Bush tried to steal it, but somehow managed to win it instead (no, not fair and square, but when is it ever thus?).

For the demise of Eliot “Ness” Spitzer (is the Costner connection a coincidence? —I think not) to be the coup de grace of a coup d’etat would require the participation of a ruthless blackbag man skilled at covert wet operations.

“Republican political operative Roger Stone, Eliot Spitzer's longtime antagonist, predicted his political demise more than three months in advance.
‘Eliot Spitzer will not serve out his term as governor of the state of New York,' Stone said Dec. 6 on Michael Smerconish's radio talk show. He gave no details.

Once again, a link will be sufficient.

[Ed. note: Gatemouth, it is not our job to drive traffic to Room Eight. I'll be polite about it, but if you post here, you'll either post the full piece, in which case you will be subject to editorial discretion, or not at all. Thank you.]

I trust Bouldin to leave this piece unmolested about as much as a sensible person would trust Bernie Kerik to run the Police Department, so let's all save a lot of fuss an bother, and just go read it on "Room 8":

http://www.r8ny.com/blog/gatemouth/harrison_fraud_episode_iii_of_the_joe...

Attorney Reg #: 2621670
Judge: No Current name:
NOACH DEAR
Status:
Currently registered Year admitted:
1994 Dept:
2

Continuing Legal Education
(as reported on registration forms)
Registration
Period Credit Hours
Completed Signature Date Carryover
Credits Exemption
Signature Date Waiver/Extension
Signature Date
1.
2000-2001 11/11/2000
2.
2002-2003 10/14/2002
3.
2004-2005 11/14/2004
4.
2006-2007 10/17/2006

(You'll have to bear with me here; this came out right on Room 8 --- I leave it as is in the hopes someone here can fix it)