“Things I‘d Like To Post About Today; But I Don’t Have Any Time ‘4‘”:

• Here’s an unintentionally humorous offering from former Wide Open co-blogger and Ohio Daily Blog proprietor Jeff (”Dann’s the Man“) Coryell (bold is mine) — “What a shame. Dann stepped up the mission of the attorney general’s office and was producing good results. But, he is not the only visionary person who could be in charge there …..”
• The presidential candidate I irreverently refer to as “Mr. BOOHOO-OUCH” (Barack O-bomba Overseas Hussein “Obambi” Obama – Objectively Unfit Coddler of Haters) won the Guam caucuses by 7 votes. Not to, uh, Guam up the works, but wasn’t he heavily favored?
• While three presidential candidates hyperventilate over oil and gas prices, free markets work. I would not rule out a big drop in the coming months.
• Anyone else wondering about “the nature of the trip” that compelled March Dann to fly to Arizona this past weekend? And who paid for it? (And, conceivably, because it’s only getting worse, if he’s coming back?)
• In transparently weak attempts at Obama-Wright equivalence, Susan Brooks Thistlethwaite wants John McCain to renounce Ron Parsley, and the New York Times’s Frank Rich whines about McCain and John Hagee. Not even in the same zip code, people. You have no idea…..
• First it was Merkel in Germany. Then Sarkozy in France. Then the recent return of Berlusconi in Italy. In yet another sign that those who think that “the rest of the world” has turned against the US under the eeeeevil George Bush are full of baloney, London’s radical Mayor Ken Livingtstone was defeated for re-election by Conservative Boris Johnson, who will be the city’s first Conservative mayor in 30 years.
• You think you’ve seen it all? How about Christianity without Christ?
• You STILL haven’t seen it all — “This is no hoax. The concept of what could be called “plant rights” is being seriously debated” (this was discussed on TIB Radio [last excerpted item at post] on Saturday).

Why does it seem that, when a Democratic politician’s career is on the line, Old Media reporters find a way to make it look like it’s only Republicans who want to push him or her out the door?

Ohio Attorney General Marc Dann, who for a while was seen as the Buckeye State’s version of New York’s now-disgraced former governor Eliot Spitzer, is fighting for his political life.

In a Friday press conference statement (a JPG transcript of statement, opening in a separate window, is here), Dann admitted to an extramarital affair with an unidentified employee and announced that he was discharging three of his closest advisers over formal complaints of sexual harassment. Storm clouds potentially loom over the fallout from this, plus other events and incidents too numerous to detail here, occurring on Dann’s watch.

Dann declared Friday that he has no plans to resign.

By mid-Saturday, two of Ohio’s major newspapers, and many of its smaller ones, had issued editorial calls for Dann’s resignation. It was clear that many others would follow on Sunday — and they did. Ohio’s left-leaning blogs are also mostly in the Dann-must-go camp.

Yet here’s how the Associated Press’s John McCarthy played the Dann story in his Saturday mid-afternoon report:

Ohio attorney general wants campaign donor to lead reform

Embattled Attorney General Marc Dann is relying on a campaign donor to clean up an office marred by a sexual harassment scandal, campaign finance records show.

Dann has asked Cleveland lawyer and lobbyist James Friedman to lead a group that will make management and personnel changes. Records show Friedman contributed $500 to Dann’s campaign for attorney general in 2006. Friedman, a Democratic Party insider, was chief of staff for former Gov. John Gilligan in the 1970s.

Dann spokesman Ted Hart said Saturday that Dann is aware of the contribution but doesn’t see a conflict since Friedman isn’t being paid.

….. Hart said Dann was in Arizona on Saturday but didn’t know the nature of the trip. Republicans have called for Dann’s resignation, something Dann has said he won’t do despite being scolded by investigators for his conduct.

….. Leaders of both parties have been critical of Dann, one of several Democrats swept into office in 2006 after a scandal over state investments sullied Republicans.

….. Dann, 46, apologized for the scandal and other problems at his office, including profanity and inappropriate communications that were outlined in a report released Friday by internal investigators. He said the extramarital affair was consensual and refused to disclose the name of the employee.

Although it’s clear in context by the second paragraph, “Name that party” monitors will note that McCarthy missed several opportunities to specifically identify Dann himself as a Democrat before finally getting around to it in the tenth paragraph.

It should also be noted that in the “scandal over state investments sullied Republicans” the AP reporter referred to, the money misappropriated by a convicted Republican donor-offender has largely been recovered, while literally hundreds of millions of dollars lost by a convicted Democrat donor-offender has not been, and never will be.

But back to Dann — McCarthy makes it appears as if it’s those mean, old, partisan Republicans who are the only ones calling for the AG to skedaddle by ignoring the following newspapers’ editorial calls for Dann’s resignation — calls that he surely should have been aware of when his story hit the wires (looking at this link, that would have been between 2 p.m. and 3 p.m. Saturday):

• The Warren Tribune Chronicle, described as “Dann’s hometown paper” elsewhere — Friday, 1:45 p.m.
• Canton Repository — Friday, time not disclosed.
• Dayton Daily News — Friday, sometime before 10:40 p.m. (based on when this entry at an Ohio left-leaning blog appeared).
• Lorain Morning Journal — Saturday, sometime before 5:45 a.m. (based on when first reader comment appeared).
• Cincinnati Enquirer — Saturday, 7:06 a.m.
• Lancaster Eagle Gazette — Saturday, sometime before 10:20 a.m. (based on when first reader comment appeared).

The following papers are among those who issued resignation calls after McCarthy released his story:

• Cleveland Plain Dealer — Saturday, May 3; 3:53 p.m.
• Youngstown Vindicator — Sunday, time not disclosed. (Update and correction: The linked item, though not labeled when you go there, is apparently by a Vindy columnist. The Vindy’s editorial today actually advocates giving Dann a second chance.)
• Columbus Dispatch — Sunday, 3:28 a.m.

If he had been interested in doing so, the AP reporter surely could have placed a phone call or two attempting to confirm that one or more of these editorials were coming.

The far-left Toledo Blade, which penned a bizarre editorial on Saturday, did not issue a resignation call. This list of editorials at the Akron Beacon Journal’s ohio.com web site indicates that the ABJ hasn’t yet weighed in.

It’s no secret that many of Ohio’s papers lean left, even in the editorial rooms. McCarthy’s omissions of the papers’ resignation calls, and of the lefty blogs who also want Dann gone, leave the impression that it’s only the Attorney General’s partisan political enemies who are demanding that he step down. That planted impression is patently false.

Cross-posted at NewsBusters.org.

From Honolulu:

ay 1, 2008 / 08:02 pm

The Vatican Congregation for the Causes of Saints has ruled that a Hawaiian woman’s cure from cancer was a miracle linked to her prayers to Blessed Father Damien De Veuster. The missionary priest, who was renowned for working with leprosy patients, is now one step closer to being declared a saint.

Audrey Toguchi, a 79-year-old retired schoolteacher who lives in Aiea, became ill in 1997 with a lump on her left thigh that was discovered to be cancerous. She asked her sisters to accompany her to Kalaupapa to pray at Father Damien’s grave.

“I prayed that he would ask God to heal me,” Toguchi told the Honolulu Star Bulletin.

After surgery in January 1998, Dr. Walter Chang told her that her rare form of cancer, liposarcoma, had spread to both lungs.

“He said, ‘I cannot do anything for you. No surgery is possible.’,” she said.

“I went back to Kalaupapa,” Toguchi continued. “I went to Mass and received Communion and then I went to Damien’s grave. I said, ‘Please, ask God to cure this cancer.’

“Doctor Chang took pictures of my lungs and every month, it was less and less until after four months, the cancer was gone. He was flabbergasted.”

According to the Star Bulletin, Toguchi told no one besides her family about her cure. Instead, she wrote to Pope John Paul II about the cancer’s disappearance, thus beginning the investigation into the miracle. Father Damien was credited with his first miracle after the spontaneous recovery of a terminally ill French nun in 1895 was attributed to his intercession. He was beatified in 1995, but one more confirmed miracle was required for his canonization to be considered.

The cure was documented in the Hawaii Medical Journal in October 2000. Toguchi’s life, faith, and medical history were also examined by church authorities. She was interviewed by a local panel and by Monsignor Robert Sarno from the Congregation for the Causes of Saints. Monsignor Sarno notified Toguchi of the congregation’s decision by e-mail.

Toguchi’s identity had been shielded by her doctor and church officials, but Bishop of Honolulu Larry Silva revealed her name in a statement on Tuesday. …..

Go here for the rest of the story.