Fun With Dick & Jane

Dick and I had vastly different agendas today. He wanted to talk about Sarah Palin. He’d received an email from the MIA Father Peter who had written that the Oprah interview “was a disaster”. I saw the Oprah interview, and missed the disaster. I was disappointed that the interview was all fluff and no policy, but that was Oprah’s choice.

We then went on to the MA Senate race. Dick has decided to vote for Steve Pagluica who is in a 3 way race for the democrat nomination with Martha Coakley and Mike Capuano. His reasoning is that Pagluica is not an incumbent. He’s in a “throw the bums out” frame of mind.

We went on to the decision to try KSM in New York Federal Court, the attempt to quash the Congressional investigation into Fort Hood, and the current state of denial by this administration about the war on terror.

We talked about the errors in the government reporting on the stimulus bill. The government has reported millions of dollars creating hundreds of jobs in congressional districts that do not exist. It’s a joke. Interestingly, there is not one error on the side of under reporting either money or a job.

We talked about Geithner’s newly discovered overpayments to Wall Street firms while he served as the head of the Fed in NY, and the general state of the economy. The question is whether this can be sufficiently swept under the rug so that Geithner survives.

Joe (next door) wanted us to talk about the President’s waist deep bow to the emperor of Japan, the suicide Chicago’s school superintendent (who was a big part of the “let’s make money off the Olympics” team, moving GITMO to Illinois and the unconcession of Doug Hoffman in NY 23.

Enjoy!

Today’s show was fun – we started with Dick’s correct prediction that Paul Kirk would be named interim MA senator (after Deval Patrick manipulated the rules to allow the appointment). This was minutes after Kirk declared he supported the “public option” and hours before it was voted down. C’est la vie.

We want on to Health care and the Congress’ gag order on Humana to force them to stop telling their policy holders what would be the changes under Obama care. We went on to the democrats unwillingness to allow the public (or Congress) to read the bill for 72 hours before the vote.

Next up GITMO and the very discouraging news that President Obama refuses press access to the camps. This is a huge and troubling change from the Bush administration. The key question is: why?

We talked about ACORN, Patrick Gaspard, ties to the SEIU, and the press. Dick gloated that 2 weeks after the whole thing unraveled he found a story on ACORN in the NY Times owned Worcester Telegram. Page 1 you ask? Of course not.

We moved on to Iran, Wall Streets $7.7m in donations to democrats this year (the bulk to Chuck Schumer) the Olympics, Roman Polanski and finally Sarah Palin’s new book.

Enjoy!

The first segment today was all about Sarah Palin. We talked about her resignation, what we think it means and what will be next for Governor Palin. I believe she represents those of us fed up with Washington, “Government As Usual” and the “Politics of Personal Destruction” – aka the tea party-ers. I reiterated Ross Douthat’s thesis:

Palin’s popularity has as much to do with class as it does with ideology. In this sense, she really is the perfect foil for Barack Obama. Our president represents the meritocratic ideal — that anyone, from any background, can grow up to attend Columbia and Harvard Law School and become a great American success story. But Sarah Palin represents the democratic ideal — that anyone can grow up to be a great success story without graduating from Columbia and Harvard.

We then talked about State Treasurer Tim Cahill who has switched parties (democrat to independent) to run for Governor against Deval Patrick.

We also talked about things happening in Iran, Honduras and Russia, and the President’s rather disconnected handling of each situation.

There is more – take a listen!

We start today with MA Governor Deval Patrick, who Dick is not thrilled with; then move on to the stimulus bill and President Obama’s first press conference. I get in the mandatory disgust about pork, the medical provisions stuck in the so-called stimulus bill, and the wrestling of the census from the Commerce Department to the White House. Meanwhile we watch the market crash in reaction to the Geithner speech.

Dick then talks about a proposed fiat by the Massachusetts Speaker of the House who is introducing legislation to prohibit the elected leadership in Massachusetts to serve “in leadership” after indictment. (I kid you not)

That leads us to talk about how pols protect each other, regardless of party, and how we really need to throw the bums out. We end with Dick’s usual rant about Sarah Palin, who I am convinced he has a crush on.