July 31, 2008
"A Curious Ambivalence"
That's what the Seattle Times feels about the
indictment of Senator
Ted Stevens.
The indictment of Alaskan Sen. Ted Stevens on seven counts of making false statements on
financial-disclosure forms stirs a curious ambivalence. The long-serving Republican is the meanest,
nastiest friend Puget Sound and Washington ever had.
Unless, of course, he was off on some ballistic tangent or feuding with a local lawmaker. Otherwise,
the confluence of Alaskan and Northwest interests made him a political figure to be courted, humored and
indulged.
If I understand their argument — and I am not absolutely certain that I do — Stevens may be a
crook, but he is a crook who often helped this area get pork projects.
To this Republican, that's two reasons to be glad about his indictment, and no reason at all for
ambivalence. If he is guilty, then Alaska and the country will be better off if he leaves the Senate, the
sooner the better. And this area will be better off without projects that can not pass simple
cost/benefit tests.
(There is nothing in the editorial to support this idea, but I can't help but suspect that what the Times
really likes about Stevens is that he often helped some of our own pork barrelers, notably Senator Patty
Murray.
Here's what the
National Review
said about Stevens, and here's what our own
Eric Earling said. Neither felt
any ambivalence.)
Posted by Jim Miller at July 31, 2008
01:34 PM | Email This
1. Ted Stevens is one of the people who have greatly tarnished the GOP brand over the last decade. Good riddance. The sooner the GOP dumps the crony statists, the sooner it becomes the majority party again. Good riddance Trent Lott, good riddance Ted Stevens. Now let's get rid of about half the other GOP Senators.
2. If he's guilty, hang him.
Pity the left doesn't view their own that way.
3. "
Ten movies streaming across that, that Internet, and what happens to your own personal Internet? I just the other day got... an Internet was sent by my staff at 10 o'clock in the morning on Friday, I got it yesterday [Tuesday]. Why? Because it got tangled up with all these things going on the Internet commercially.
[...] They want to deliver vast amounts of information over the Internet. And again, the Internet is not something that you just dump something on. It's not a big truck. It's a series of tubes. And if you don't understand, those tubes can be filled and if they are filled, when you put your message in, it gets in line and it's going to be delayed by anyone that puts into that tube enormous amounts of material, enormous amounts of material. "
~ Senator Ted Stevens discussing his vast knowledge of the Internet and its uses
Send this drunk packing along with the rest of the country club plaid pants wearing Republican's we've got in the party.
It's time to Purge the Scourge
4. "
Ten movies streaming across that, that Internet, and what happens to your own personal Internet? I just the other day got... an Internet was sent by my staff at 10 o'clock in the morning on Friday, I got it yesterday [Tuesday]. Why? Because it got tangled up with all these things going on the Internet commercially.
[...] They want to deliver vast amounts of information over the Internet. And again, the Internet is not something that you just dump something on. It's not a big truck. It's a series of tubes. And if you don't understand, those tubes can be filled and if they are filled, when you put your message in, it gets in line and it's going to be delayed by anyone that puts into that tube enormous amounts of material, enormous amounts of material. "
~ Senator Ted Stevens discussing his vast knowledge of the Internet and its uses
Send this drunk packing along with the rest of the country club plaid pants wearing Republican's we've got in the party.
It's time to Purge the Scourge or be left in the past politically.
5. Stevens needs to step aside for the good of Alaska and allow Vic Vickers to battle with Begich for the position.
6. While I have no love lost for Stevens, Rick D. only shows his own lack of knowledge for criticizing the "series of tubes" statement. The actual term used in the industry is normally pipes or pilelines. What is so humorous about tubes? If you want to make fun of something, make fun of terms like "information superhighway."
7. The $250k of services he got seems to pale in contrast to the $625k spent in the name of Tony Rezko's wife to buy the land next door to Barack Obama's house. That was the piece of land the seller wanted to sell along with the house Obama purchased. Nail Stevens, but leaving Obama in there with that ikind of 'favor' from Rezko doesn't seem right.
8. @ 6 ~ Stevens was widely ridiculed by low-tech and hi-tech people alike for his statement above to "wired" magazine.
Now, if you can explain to me how that rambling, incoherent blathering by Stevens is somehow going to advance the Republican party platform into the 21st century, I'd love to hear it. His statement showed exactly the caricature that some American's have about the GOP...Old, out of touch, unethical and less than intelligent.
Quit making excuses for the guy just because he's our guy. Leave the hypocrisy to the Democrat Party.
9. The Times is acting like a whore, it's all an arguement over just the price.
10. [i]Stevens' speech was analyzed by Princeton computer science professor Edward Felten, who said that he disagreed with Stevens' argument but felt that the language "series of tubes" was entirely reasonable as a non-technical explanation given off-the-cuff in a meeting.[/i]
I will just take his word for it.
11. @ 6 ~
"If you want to make fun of something, make fun of terms like "information superhighway."
I'm no marketing genius Michael, but if you think the American public of 2008 would be more apt to describe the internet as a "series of tubes" rather than "the information superhighway".....well, I would welcome you to do a "man on the street" interview with about 250 people on the Microsoft campus in Redmond for a quick polling and report back to us your results.
Luckily, new blood is on the horizon for the GOP and unethical dinosaurs like Stevens will be put out to pasture where they belong. Unfortunately, it comes with a price that the party has to pay for his selfish greed during a politcal year.
While ridiculing the "information superhighway", I noticed you haven't mentioned Ted Stevens' huge pork project "the road to nowhere" in his home state of Alaska. Only one of the two come to a dead end, can you guess which one?
12. This guy is being prosecuted by the Bush Attorney General's office.
Let's see so far they went after a senior Republican...and Enron executives...and ...
Yeah, I'd say they are biased...
13. I think I remember reading about Sen Murray's response when Stevens was first in trouble, maybe a year ago? I think she was silent, and the story said something along the lines of she and Stevens had worked very closely together on a lot of areas of common interest. He brought this up a lot when blasting Sen Cantwell over her protests about ANWR. Basically, there are Rs, there are Ds, and there are Ps - the Porkers. Murray and Stevens are both Ps.
14. I noticed you haven't mentioned Ted Stevens' huge pork project "the road to nowhere" in his home state of Alaska.
I will assume that you mean "bridge to nowhere" instead of "road to nowhere," but again you are just parroting talking points. While the bridge to the Ketchikan International Airport might support few permanent residents, I wouldn't exactly call it nowhere.
15. @ 14 ~ yes I did mean the "bridge to nowhere", but the point remains the same, it was a proposed 398 million dollar pork project that served very few at great cost to the taxpayers.Stevens is a relic in the Republican party that has helped to tarnish the brand while erecting "monuments to me" back home in AK.
You can keep carrying his water for him if you'd like, but I take solace in knowing Sen. Stevens' days of being a symbol of GOP hypocrisy are numbered.
Got any results from that poll yet?
16. Yes, the taxpayers probably wouldn't have gotten their money's worth for the $398 million bridge, but it isn't any worse than any of Washington state's traffic boondoggles. The person who coined the term "bridge to nowhere" made the point that there were few permanent residents who lived across the bridge, but conveniently left out that the bridge would have serviced the international airport, currently accessible only by ferry. It looks like you fell for his half-truths, hook, line, and sinker. The fact that Steven's is still a rat doesn't excuse that.
17. Rick D.
You're buying into the democratic spin a bit on the bridge issue. There was more to this project than just makework.
Yes, the proposed bridge would go to a relatively uninhabited area, but the plan was that this bridge would link that area to the airport and rest of the city infrastructure so that formerly worthless property would be usable and valuable That would make for a lot of new very usable area for the continued groth of the town.
(That's the way it was explained to me by someone who lives there.)
Now, I too have some serious questions about whether our federal government should be investing in projects that only really help out a state, but frankly there's tons of that kind of spending that goes on every day. (For instance, The Seattle outdoor sculpture museum also benefited greatly from federal funds if I remember.)
The $400 million that would have been spent on this were really a drop in the bucket compared to what congress as a whole sends on such things.
The only answer to this whole style of spending it to shut down the earmarks and set-asides that congress usually does. I believe that John McCain has both a track record and a campaign plank that supports the shutting down of this kind of spending.
18. Stevens is being held accountable for the same kind of conduct that Senator C Dodd has been given a free pass, accepting but failing to report gifts. Home improvements versus tens of thousands of dollars worth of discounts and credits on mortgage loans. Both types of gifts were to obtain favors from Senators who chaired committees that regulated the donors, although both Senators deny the connection.
Why is Dodd any less corrupt and accountable than Stevens?