Ringing Endorsement

Castro's tip: Clinton-Obama the winning ticket
By Anthony Boadle
Tue Aug 28, 1:51 PM ET HAVANA

(Reuters) - Ailing Cuban leader Fidel Castro is tipping Democratic candidates Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama to team up and win the U.S. presidential election.

"The word today is that an apparently unbeatable ticket could be Hillary for president and Obama as her running mate."
-- Cuban President for-what's-left-of-his-life in the Communist Party newspaper on Tuesday

In his rambling editorial, Castro also writes that Jimmy Carter is his favorite American president praises former president Bill Clinton for "rescuing" Elian Gonzalez from his relatives' Florida home in 2000.

Enough said.

Mirror, Mirror On the Wall

"Mirror, mirror on the wall,
Who is the most sanctimonious state senator of them all?"

Minnesota Health Commissioner Dianne Mandernach has tendered her resignation as a result of her unilateral decision to withhold data about mesothelioma, a lethal form of lung cancer, among Iron Range miners for a year.



Commissioner Mandernach's action brought untold and needless pain to the victims of the disease as well as disrepute to the Minnesota Department of Health and she did the right thing by resigning. DFLers are not interested in the right thing, however.



In characteristic self-righteousness, Rep. Tom Rukavina (DFL-Virginia) has reportedly said that "commissioners don't make decisions like this on their own" and that he has "always felt that the governor knew what was going on." Rep. Rukovina has produced no proof that Governor Tim Pawlenty conspired with Commissioner Mandernach to withhold crucial health data on mesothelioma cases, however.



In her latest feeble attempt to raise a negative profile, Senator Ann Lynch has released a statement expressing "relief " that Commissioner Mandernach has resigned her position. Like Rep. Rukovina, Sen. Lynch is quick to smear the Pawlenty administration without concrete proof of a wide conspiracy to conceal health information on mesothelioma cases.



In what has quickly become a trademark sanctimonious tone, Lynch expresses the contrived hope that "others" in the Pawlenty administration "will take a long look in the mirror to evaluate their own competency and leadership.”



I sure hope there's enough room in front of that mirror for Sen. Lynch to evaluate her own competency and leadership. It shouldn't take very long.

Cat Fight

"One of the things, the important aspects of this race is role modeling what good families should look like. And my view is that if you can't run your own house, you certainly can't run the White House."
-- Michelle Obama at a recent Women for Obama event in Chicago.

I hear that the Obama campaign has categorically denied that Mrs. Obama's comment was a reference to Hillary Clinton. Right. Everyone knows Michelle was talking about Denis Kucinich.

Vultures Circling the Ruins of the I-35W Bridge

First, it was the media. Then it was the DFL. I suppose it was a matter of time before trial lawyers started to exploit the I-35W bridge collapse for personal gain.

Law firm petitions for access to I-35W bridge collapse site
8/14/2007 8:43:27 PM
Associated Press

MINNEAPOLIS -- A law firm asked a federal court to grant its experts immediate access to the Interstate 35W bridge collapse site so they can begin their own investigation into what could lead to wrongful death and personal injury lawsuits.

The petition was filed in U.S. District Court here Monday by the law firm of Schwebel, Goetz & Sieben, which specializes in personal injury cases. In the petition, the firm said it's representing three people severely injured in the Aug. 1 collapse and the families of two people who died in the disaster. It did not identify the victims, and attorney James Schwebel declined to reveal them.

A hearing on the petition was scheduled for 2 p.m. Wednesday before U.S. District Judge Patrick J. Schiltz in St. Paul. "We are in the very preliminary stage on this," Schwebel said. "We've been retained by several families. We've been contacted by many others. They're obviously wanting to make sure there is some accountability for whoever is culpable for this disaster, and we need to have experts to answer many of these questions for us."

Copies of the petition were served on the offices of the U.S. attorney for Minnesota, the Minneapolis city attorney and the state attorney general because federal, city and state and city agencies are involved in the collapse investigation. The U.S. attorney's office issued a statement calling the petition premature. "Efforts to recover the bodies of the victims are still under way and could be delayed or hampered by accommodating the law firm's request," the statement said. "Similar requests would be sure to follow. There will be ample time for a full investigation of the causes of the collapse after all the victims are accounted for."

Tic-toc

Well, it didn't take long for Minnesota liberals to exploit the I-35W bridge collapse for cheap political gain. The rescue effort got barely underway when the "progressive" blogosphere and other "mainstream" media outlets began to infer that the tragedy would not have happened had Minnesota raised the gas tax or if Governor Tim Pawlenty had not vetoed the DFL’s pork-laden transportation bill.

Instead of expressing sorrow and sympathy for the victims of the bridge collapse, liberal politicians wasted no time criticizing and blaming Republicans in general and Governor Pawlenty in particular for the tragic event. Never mind that the investigation on the real cause of the bridge collapse hadn't even begun in earnest. But why waste time waiting for the facts when liberals can start exploiting the tragedy and sowing the seeds of distrust and blame in the minds of potential voters early in the process? After all, the presidential and congressional elections are almost a year away.

The liberal blame game has gone all the way up to the nation's capital. According to The Politico, Harry Reid said that the I-35W bridge collapse was a "wake-up call" and that President Bush was "too distracted by the Iraq war and post-Sept. 11 national security needs to focus on the country’s water, sewer and transportation infrastructure." Shame on the President for keeping us safe from the same terrorists who slaughtered 3,000 Americans on 9/11.

The market place of ideas and issues has not been kind to liberals in the past. When cooler heads prevail and facts are laid out, liberalism loses. Always.At a time when Minnesotans should focus on alleviating the sorrow of victims’ families, the recovery and rebuilding efforts, as well as the real cause of the bridge collapse, liberals have chosen to posture and pontificate. Building support for a partisan agenda on the ruins of the I-35W bridge seems wrong to me.