It’s the story that just won’t go away. Former Gov. Don Siegelman, who’s been out of public office for five years now, was released from a federal prison camp in Oakdale, La. last month pending the appeal of his 2006 conviction.
After claims from Jill Simpson – labeled a GOP operative, but no one in the Republican circles seems to know – that Karl Rove asked her to get photos of Siegelman getting sexual gratification from someone besides his wife to use against him, the House Judiciary Committee has requested Rove come and explain himself.
It is probably a little far-fetched to think we’ll see Rove testifying, but it’s something to see the black helicopter theorists have succeeded in getting this story some legs.
Elements of the far left contend Siegelman was an unfortunate victim intentionally targeted by Rove via the Justice Department. And most of the elements on the right contend this is just a way to for Democrats to get one of the most vilified Republicans in political circles in Rove.
Here’s a question I can’t seem to get an answer to: How in the hell would Jill Simpson get a photo of Siegelman in a sexually compromising position?
To be continued….
Alas, the Democrats have candidate for the District 1 House race
Somewhere within the confines of Alabama’s First Congressional District, someone is whistling “Dixie,” literally.
Washington County Democrat Executive Committee Chairman Thomas Fuller, of Chatom, will face Rep. Jo Bonner this fall in the general election for the seat.
Fuller is a private investigator for the law firm Turner, Onderdonk, Kimbrough, Howell, Huggins and Bradley, P.A., which has offices in Mobile and Chatom.
A Google search revealed Fuller is the commander of the #1606 CPT Leroy Bowling Camp of the Sons of Confederate Veterans (SCV).
According to their Web site, the SCV describes itself as a group that preserves the history and legacy of “the citizen-soldiers who fought for the Confederacy personified the best qualities of America. The preservation of liberty and freedom was the motivating factor in the South’s decision to fight the Second American Revolution.”
The Southern Poverty Law Center called them neo-confederates (that’s not your daddy’s neo-con) and says it has been “dominated by racial extremists since 2002.”
Maybe it’s just Civil War re-enactments, but it’ll be interesting to see if it even matters to local Democratic voters, especially in the black community, which votes overwhelmingly Democratic. Efforts to get in touch with Fuller were unsuccessful
Why does this make me think of Ben George?
Northwest/Delta merger and Mobile
As if Mobile needed this, but they’re about to lose an airline due to a merger deal agreed to by Delta Air Lines and Northwest Airlines.
After the two morph into one – which will take some time – Delta will have an even more of commanding presence at Mobile Regional Airport, where they dictate airfares across the board.
It wouldn’t make sense for the merged airline to maintain all those gates at the Mobile airport, but that might make an opening for another carrier that would compete harder with Delta than Northwest, Continental, U.S. Airways and American have.
Where it’s likely to make a bigger impact is in Gulfport. Northwest has a much more dominant presence in Gulfport and it could cause fares there to rise somewhat. A lot of Mobilians travel to nearby Pensacola, Gulfport or even New Orleans for air travel when fares are higher in Mobile.
Shelby’s elevated stature in wake of Bear Stearns collapse
Usually turmoil in the financial markets is bad for right-leaning politicians with a free-market perspective, but Sen. Richard Shelby has bucked the trend.
Shelby, who is the ranking Republican on the Senate Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs Committee, was labeled as the panel’s “traffic cop” by Politico. (The Politico did take a jab at him for scoring a lot pork projects.)
Basically Shelby prevented the committee’s chairman, Sen. Chris Dodd (D-Conn.), from going too overboard with some sort of housing bailout plan in the wake of the ever-expanding subprime mortgage crisis.
Shelby has a reputation with the lobbyists on K Street for getting his way. Once upon a time, pre-1994 Republican revolution in Congress, Alabama’s senior senator was a Democrat. One of the possibilities some suggested was that after the Democrats retook control of Congress in 2006, Shelby was going to take a beating from Senate Democrats for crossing the aisle.
It’s been a year and a half and Shelby’s still manages to hold his own. Although he’s in the minority party – something he’s not accustomed to regardless of which side of the aisle he was on – he hasn’t lost much ground and is still bringing home “the bacon.”
Washington Post calls Sessions ‘a good arbiter’
I’m always surprised when I read The Washington Post’s take on the Alabama congressional delegation. Last month it was Bob Novak questioning the conservative credentials of Rep. Jo Bonner. This time, the capitol’s home newspaper’s editorial board had praise for Sen. Jeff Sessions and his proposal on a binding mandatory arbitration agreement.
“Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-Ala.) provides a better framework to improve the system,” the editorial published on April 12, 2008 said. “Mr. Sessions’s bill would, among other things, force companies to more prominently display arbitration provisions and provide an explanation of how the costs of the arbitration are to be split between consumer and business.”
The Post’s editorial was advocating Congress regulate how the resolution of disputes between businesses and consumers are handled. You just don’t expect a conservative politician to pass muster with the paper’s left-leaning editorial board.
Contact Jeff Poor at jeffreypoor@yahoo.com.
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