Siegelman And Other Random Notes

The biggest political story that no one cares about is taking a bizarre twist. Don Siegelman, the former Democratic Governor of Alabama, who was serving a seven year sentence for bribery and mail fraud was released from jail today. What's so big about this? Well, in addition to the fact that a Court of Appeals soundly rejected a lower (kangaroo) court's claim that he wasn't eligible for release pending his appeal, he may be asked to testify in front of Congress. It's been long suspected that Siegelman was the victim of serious Republican judicial hanky panky. And all roads are leading to Karl Rove and Alberto Gonzales. Check out the story here.

The whole thing is extremely byzantine. Siegelman was a populer Governor who came up for re- election. This guy was not a flaming liberal. Look at his record. But Republicans felt that this was a key race and they went for broke, throwing the kitchen sink at Siegelman. This involved finally concocting a criminal case against him. According to lawyers and 50 state attorneys general who examined it, the case against him was specious at best. And it seems as if the Democratic National Committee abrogated it's responsiblity to work as hard to help Siegelman as the RNC was working to bury him. I'll be fascinated to see if this reveals a trail of manipulated justice that leads to the highest echelons of the Republican Party. Stay tune.

Yesterday, Barack Obama gave a speech outlining six principles for a new regulatory structure for the financial sector. These were billed as 'starting points' for a discussion on the subject. It's a solid address, and was completely overshadowed in our ADD age by the prospect of an Obama-Bloomberg ticket. Speculation was fueled by the New York Mayor's warm introduction of the Illinois Senator and the kind words returned to him by Obama--especially a 'brother in arms' reference to their shared goal of moving past divisive politics.

McCain has been easily painted as having a 'do-nothing' approach to the housing crisis based on his recent economic address. This has to worry Republicans for the general. McCain was simply re-stating Republican orthodoxy, but his campaign is going to have to find a way to package his stances in a way that sound more pro-active. One valuable asset, however is Carly Fiorina. The Ex-HP CEO is now head of the RNC Victory Committee and has become one of McCain's first line surrogates. She is cool, articulate and can make Republican orthodoxy sound relevant and reasonable. She gave a beautiful exegisis of McCain's position yesterday in a conference call while she was driving in her car. Unfortunately, her phone cut out, which was bad news for McCain. They need to put her in a glass bubble on these calls. She's that good. Here's some of what she said.

Finally, Hillary Clinton unveiled new specifics to her health care proposal. The centerpiece was the idea to cap the cost of premiums at 10% of a family's annual income. Most economists think this is doable. We're always happy to hear her (or anyone) lay down specifics instead of lay out an opponent. She just needs to stop listening to people like Mark Penn who must urge her to open speeches with statements like, "...some people wonder why I always lay out so many specific proposals; wellll, I think it's important to tell people exactly what I'd do as President". No kidding? Actually, no one wonders why you do that, Hillary. Because we know it's a good thing to do. But we also know self-serving smugness when we hear it. Like the apple polisher in school who says, "some people wonder why I get A's all the time; welll, I think it's important to do well in school." We get that Hillary gets A's. We don't need to be reminded of it, because it doesn't make her real likable. And that's her problem right now. So, memo to Hill: don't listen to them; keep laying out your specifics. We appreciate it.

Do you know about the Don Siegelman story? And if you do, do you think there's a serious smoking gun that can unravel a nefarious spider web of RNC activity? Talk about this or anything else by clicking on 'comments' below, bypassing the Google sign up and hitting the nickname or anonymous button.