BernieHund: The Political Watchdog

The good news first!  It appears that the Democrats are almost ready to crown Barack Obama as the party’s nominee.  As much as I have enjoyed the season, it’s getting stale.  Hillary Clinton is still claiming victory after victory and Barack Obama has now moved ahead in all categories, popular vote, pledged delegate count, and those ever elusive Super Delegates. 

We are down to the part of the drama where someone reaches out from behind the curtain and drags Hillary into the background.  She has fought a hard battle, but we are all getting a little fatigued.  Maybe this weekend, as she rests at her home in New York she will put together an exit strategy.  So far she has infused her campaign with $11.425 Million to no great avail.  Maybe Bill should close the pocketbook and the checkbook and tell her its time to go back to the Senate.

John McCain is wandering around in the desert, his wife Cindy refusing to release her past income tax filings.  I did notice that Joe Lieberman is still paying McCain’s wing man.  Lieberman has lost face with just about everyone except McCain.  Maybe he is auditioning for VP…. again.

Aside from the nearing end of the primary tunnel, the Republicans have taken hit after hit this week.  Senator David Vitter was the only of the named scoundrels to escape.  The Senate decided that they could do nothing to condemn the senator for his part in the Deborah Palfry D.C. Madam mess since he wasn’t in the Senate while he was cavorting with the ladies of the evening.

Of course, we must not forget that Ms. Palfry took her life last week, seeing no way to go on.  But, this week Senator Vitter, one of her clients was allowed to continue his life as usual. 

And, just when we thought the sexual scandals of D.C. were about over for a while, Representative Vito Fossella of New York decided to get drunk and then drive to see his illegitimate daughter in Virginia.  Drunk driving is bad enough, but I have to question the man’s judgment overall.  Not mentioning the DUI offense, one has to wonder what kind of a father gets drunk before going to see his daughter.  Luckily, Laura Fay, the mother of Rep. Fossella’s “out baby”, was willing to get him out of jail.  Unfortunately, it was not a “get out of jail free” card.  Fossella still had to face his wife and three legitmate children at home in New York.

The White House of Cards is beginning to crumble… seven years too late…. but still it is imploding.  We saw Scott Bloch, a Bush appointee to the Office of Special Counsel have his office raided by the FBI.  As if that were not bad enough, it was leaked during the raid and investigation that of particular interest were some “Bush people” suspected of having violated the Hatch Act.  Named among those were Lurita Doan and Condoleezza Rice.  It was on a week or so ago that Ms. Doan, the “I don’t recall” Congressional witness who headed up the General Accounting Office, resigned under pressure from her office.  Maybe that was a “heads up” to her.  Perhaps, someone had seen the handwriting on the wall… Scott Bloch had done everything possible to insure that we wouldn’t see the writing in the emails.  And, of course, Condoleezza Rice had a file in the OSC, opened amid questions of Hatch Act violations.  Mr. Bloch had closed her file, saying there was no evidence of wrongdoing.  (Do we trust that?)

The VA, Jim Peake and Ira Katz, were clobbered by the House for the cover up of veteran suicides.  At least, someone is beginning to pay attention to the vets… probably too little, too late, but we will continue to hope our veterans get the proper positive attention they deserve.  It won’t be from Peake or Katz…. hint, hint.

Oh… and Baby Bush is getting married tomorrow. 

All in all, the bulk of the week’s news surrounded not so much what Washington has been doing to help the country, but how they are policing their own.  I suppose based on that we should not wonder that the country is in trouble.  The foxes are fighting amongst themselves and no one is even noticing the hens in the hen house.

Well, it’s 5:00 somewhere… and after this week …