I noted a few weeks ago (at BizzyBlog; at NewsBusters) that Mike Celizic at MSNBC couldn’t get though his article about Jenna Bush’s upcoming wedding without bringing up her misdemeanor arrests from seven years ago.

Julie Mason of the Houston Chronicle also went there in a late Thursday report. She also threw in a number of shots at Jenna’s father, his administration, and his hometown:

Saturday, in an Oscar de la Renta gown with twin sister Barbara at her side, Jenna Bush, 26, will marry 29-year-old business school student Henry Hager at her parents’ Central Texas ranch.

It’s probably as close as Oscar de la Renta will ever get to Crawford.

….. The wedding also is a last hurrah of sorts for Crawford. The town saw its fortunes and profile rise when Bush built his 1,600-acre ranch there. More recently, like the president’s approval ratings, Crawford has fallen on hard times.

….. The White House is being secretive about the ceremony, secretive even by the opaque Bush administration standards.

….. It’s all a far cry from “Jenna and Tonic,” the tabloid sobriquet she earned after two college-era busts for underage drinking. (Ohio University historian Katherine) Jellison said it’s clear Jenna has put some work into improving her public image.

Leanne Italie of the Associated Press (HT Captain Ed at Hot Air) also went to apparent go-to “expert” Jellison, who managed to tie a daughter’s wedding into the Iraq War:

“This is going to be such a different kind of situation,” said Katherine Jellison, an associate professor of history at Ohio University who chronicles the American obsession with marital pomp in her recent book, It’s Our Day.

“Jenna’s father is not running for re-election,” she said. “The frivolity of a big White House wedding in the middle of an unpopular war would have used up what little political capital he has.”

Since all sense of decorum has been abandoned, I hope it’s not too rude to point out that Ms. Jellison has a, uh, unique perspective on weddings, as this Editorial Review of her book, the full title of which is “It’s Our Day: America’s Love Affair With the White Wedding, 1945-2005,” explains (original had no paragraph breaks; bolds are mine):

Love may be the catalyst for the American white wedding, but hosting an elaborate celebration also demonstrates a family’s prosperity and material success, argues Jellison in her compelling economic and social history of how this ritual survived despite the major cultural and political changes of the 1960s and beyond.

Jellison, an associate professor of history at Ohio University, argues that while the white wedding of the 1940s may have celebrated youth, virginity and a patriarchal family structure, Americans have reinterpreted the symbolism of satin and lace: the 21st-century bride evokes the tradition of female-focused celebration and uses the elaborate and costly event as a display of her professional and social success as she marks a life transition.

With chapters on celebrity nuptials, silver-screen I-dos and the latest batch of reality TV brides, Jellison demonstrates how advertisers, media and brides themselves slowly reshaped the white wedding into an act of organized feminism.

Who knew that weddings, of all events, are now celebrations of the sisterhood?

Cross-posted at NewsBusters.org.

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

• Fabius Maximus delivers a resounding up-to-date debunk (HT Instapundit) of “Peak Oil” (link is to a search on previous related BizzyBlog posts), so I don’t have to.
• From the Useful Reminder Dept. — When people questioned the patriotism of the presidential candidate I irreverently refer to as “Mr. BOOHOO-OUCH” (Barack O-bomba Overseas Hussein “Obambi” Obama - Objectively Unfit Coddler of Haters), and he, in his answer, confirmed the validity of their concerns, he turned around and questioned theirs. I thought we weren’t allowed to do that.
• It happened “way back” on Sunday, but Chris Wallace made Howard Dean look like such a fool (because he is), that if you haven’t seen it, you should.
• Oh, how the pro-aborts despise it when they are reminded of what they are sanctioning. Two years ago, a prolife memorial in Northern Kentucky was vandalized. This time, the destruction of a prolife memorial is on tape.
• This story (”10-year-old gives birth in Idaho; Suspected illegal immigrant charged with rape”; HT Stop the ACLU via Ace) made me think of this BizzyBlog post (”The ‘My Culture Made Me Do It’ Excuse for Statutory Rape”) in September of 2006. If the current suspect is indeed illegal and guilty, will he also make the claim that “this type of conduct is legal in his culture”?
• As an equal-opportunity critic: I don’t care that, after several highly-publicized “odds of recession” pronouncements, Alan Greenspan is now changing course, and telling us that “(the) worst of credit crisis (is) over.” He should be keeping his mouth shut, and letting Ben Bernanke do his job. Greenspan should imagine how he would have felt if Paul Volcker had constantly given his opinion after he left the Fed and Greenspan took over.
• Well, of course Code Pink’s witches are resorting to witchcraft.
• A “Why in the bleep do we bother?” moment — “House passes $300 billion housing rescue plan that will allow the government to back loans for struggling homeowners.”

So the New York Times, as it lays people off, partially blames Bush — falsely, of course:

A little over two months ago, I told you that we would have to reduce staff within the newsroom by roughly 100 jobs given the difficult financial challenges facing our business and the deteriorating national economy.

Our hope, as you know, was that we could trim our payroll by encouraging enough volunteers to accept buyout offers. While the overwhelming majority of our reductions did indeed come from volunteers, we have been forced to resort to a relatively small numbers of layoffs to meet our assigned goal. (We are not going to discuss numbers or the details of the staff reduction, nor will we be releasing a list of names.)

Earth to Times: Stop reading your own bogus economic articles. Things are improving, not deteriorating, and the “challenges facing (y)our business” haven’t stopped your two Gotham rivals from holding their own.

The Times has been catching flak (HT Instapundit) for not releasing the names, and somewhat deservedly so, since it would release the names of those laid off at other companies, especially unfavored ones, in a heartbeat if it ever got its hands on such a list (or at a minimum would hound each released employee for an interview in search of dirt).

My bigger beef is that in a truly professional organization, the Times, as a company, would be giving them professional send-offs and good-luck wishes, including letting the employment market know who’s available publicly (unless the person involved wished otherwise). But the Times is not a professional organization.

The Times’s Newspaper Guild thinks the “Company appears to have violated (the) contract” in its handling of the layoffs.

___________________________________________________

Speaking of the Times — On Wednesday, it had a rare example of pretty decent business commentary by the Times’s David Leonhardt, who nonetehless still owes us a retraction of his bogus “manufacturing recession” call over a year ago) —

….. when the new inflation numbers come out next week, they will indeed be misleading. They will be artificially high.

Rhetorically excessive question: “How much inflation has there been in the 19 years Wendy’s has had its 99-cent menu?” Yeah, I know it’s more than zero; but it’s barely so.

__________________________________________________

The rebuilding of the Interstate 35W bridge in Minnesota is an ahead-of-schedule, temporary privatization success.

Locally, we should be treating the rebuilding/replacement of the Brent Spence Bridge connecting Cincinnati and Northern Kentucky similarly. It certainly shouldn’t take seven freaking years — until construction (hopefully) begins (not kidding).

_________________________________________________

As he was on Wednesday, the Associated Press’s Martin Crutsinger was still “clinging to recession” on Thursday in his report on unemployment claims:

Many economists believe that a prolonged housing slump and severe credit crisis have pushed the economy into a recession. For that reason, they believe job layoffs will rise in coming months as the unemployment rate climbs higher.

Ian Shepherdson, chief U.S. economist for High Frequency Economics, said that even with the improvement this week, claims are now at a level equal to where they were at the start of the last recession in March 2001. He predicted that layoffs would increase further in coming months.

Mr. Shepherdson failed to note that:

• The workforce is 4%-plus bigger now than in March 2001, so current per-capita claims aren’t up to that level.
• Even though there never were two consecutive quarters of GDP contraction (the everyday working definition of “recession”), the alleged start of the “recession,” as “defined” by the “nonpartisan” National Bureau of Economic Research, should have been sometime during the summer of 2000.

___________________________________________________

RIP Lynne Harvey, wife of legendary broadcaster Paul Harvey:

She was the first producer to enter the National Radio Hall of Fame and was inducted in 1997.

….. Bruce DuMont, (Radio Hall of Fame) museum founder and president, said Lynne Harvey was “one of the most remarkable behind-the-scenes talents in the history of American broadcasting, both radio and television.”

….. “She was to Paul Harvey what Colonel Parker was to Elvis Presley.”

DuMont called the Harveys’ relationship “probably the greatest love story that I’ve ever experienced.”

Her Hall of Fame bio is here. “The Rest of the Story” was her brainchild.

Husband Paul called her “Angel.” In her industry, she was “The First Lady of Radio.” Her passing should be receiving much more notice than it is.

From the UK:

May 2 2008

BRIGHT-EYED Charlie Lambert is back in the pool - after giving his parents the shock of their lives.

Just weeks after he plunged fully-clothed into the chilling waters at a north Warwickshire park, the two-year-old is happily continuing the swimming lessons which almost certainly saved his life.

It was in February that Charlie, wearing his waterproofs and wellies, fell into the depths at Kingsbury Water Park, near Atherstone, while on a fishing trip with his mum and dad, Katy and Scott.

The family were accompanied by their six-month-old puppy, Otto.

For a split second, Charlie’s parents were distracted by a badlybehaved Otto. In that short space of time, Charlie toppled head-first into the water.

Re-living the moment, mum Katy said: “Scott and I looked at each other in shock and it was simply a mother’s instinct to jump in to rescue Charlie - only to find the water was actually up to my armpits.”

Although fully dressed and wearing wellies, Charlie had quite calmly started to kick his legs, splash his arms and keep his head above water.

The fact that he swam was, according to his mum, a tribute to staff at Atherstone Leisure Complex who had been teaching little Charlie in ‘Duckling’ swimming lessons.

His grateful mum said: “There’s no doubt in my mind that Charlie’s swimming lessons at Atherstone Leisure Complex helped him cope when he fell into the water.

“I think it’s really important for children to learn to swim - even if they don’t use it for leisure purposes, but only for safety purposes.”

Go here for the rest of the story.

Item: “Calls For Dann’s Impeachment Soften”:

Lawmakers continued to threaten embattled Attorney General Marc Dann with impeachment on Tuesday, but the tone was distinctively softer as those same lawmakers determined how the process of impeachment would work.

Item: “Dann Cancels Appearances; Hires Consultant”:

Attorney General Marc Dann is gearing up for a fight to stay in office.

10 Investigates on Thursday learned that the embattled Attorney General has hired a political consultant from Texas who specializes in political counter-attacks.

It looks like Gunga Dann is gearing up to soldier on:

The Associated Press’s business writers just won’t let go of their claim (or is it audacious hope?) that we are in a recession — not heading towards one, but actually in one.

Wednesday, despite yet another decent economic report, this one on productivity, the AP’s Martin Crutsinger downplayed a significant beating of expectations, and continued to invoke the R-word (bolds are mine):

Worker productivity rose by a better-than-expected amount in the first three months of the year while labor cost pressures eased.

The Labor Department reported Wednesday that productivity, the amount of output per hour of work, increased at an annual rate of 2.2 percent in the first quarter. That was slightly higher than the 1.5 percent increase that had been expected.

Analysts read the bigger-than-expected rise in productivity and the smaller increase in unit labor costs as a good sign that inflation pressures, at least on the labor front, are remaining under control and the country is not facing the danger of a wage-price spiral.

….. Many analysts think the country has already toppled into a recession. But overall economic growth, as measured by the gross domestic product, eked out a tiny 0.6 percent rate of increase in the first three months of the year, the same anemic pace as the final three months of last year.

I did the math just to make sure — 2.2% is 47% higher than 1.5%. Additionally, the 2.2% first-quarter performance was higher than the 1.8% reported for the fourth quarter of 2007, while expectations were that it would come in lower. “Slightly,” schmightly, Martin.

Consider the other economic news of the past week that Crutsinger had to blow past with his assertion that “many (unnamed) analysts” think that the US has “already toppled into a recession”:

• The Institute for Supply Management (ISM) Manufacturing Index released a week ago, covering about 15% of the economy — contracting, but barely, and holding steady.
• Last Friday’s Employment report — Unemployment rate down to 5.0%, seasonally adjusted job losses smaller than previous months.
• ISM’s Non-Manufacturing index, covering the remaining 85% of the economy, including the troubled housing and financial-services sectors — Moved significantly into expansion mode in April, blowing away expectations that it would further slip into contraction.

Topping all of that, the ISM issued its Spring Semiannual Economic Forecast Tuesday. The press release for the report had these headlines:

The weighted average of the expected 1% increase in manufacturing revenues and the 2.7% increase in non-manufacturing is about 2.4%. That’s not spectacular growth by any stretch, but it’s a far cry from negative growth.

Yet the AP’s Crutsinger and his unnamed analysts continue to “cling to recession.” Excuse me for believing that he, his business-reporting co-workers at AP, and their oft-unnamed agenda-driven “analysts” will continue their clinging until, oh, about early November.

Cross-posted at NewsBusters.org.

__________________________________________

UPDATE: Reuters looked at the ISM’s Spring Semiannual Economic Forecast and (of course) decided that the weak figure relating to 15% of the economy was more important than the better one about the other 85%. So this is the headline — “US Factory Growth Seen ‘Marginal’ in 2008: ISM.”

It’s here.

It will be posted at BizzyBlog on Saturday morning (link won’t work until then) under the title “The Economy Is Improving, While Old Media Remains Mired in ‘Recession’ Talk.”

Longtime readers here will recognize one of the column’s targets: Rex (”You can have a recession while the economy is growing”) Nutting (link is to a BizzyBlog site search on Nutting’s name).

From West Chester, Ohio:

Last Update: 5/04 1:09 am

We appreciate you, we love you and you’ll always be a part of our life.”

What do you say to a man who saved your daughter’s life? For Sonya Guthrie, the feelings are beyond words. But she tried her best Saturday when she met Will Corey, a U.S. Navy sailor, whose bone marrow was a match for her daughter, Trinity. Corey traveled to Cincinnati from Washington D.C. to meet Trinity this weekend.

Guthrie remembers well the day she first took Trinity to Children’s Hospital. “October 27th, 2002, I took her to the hospital; thought she was constipated and found out her kidneys and spleen had swelled from Leukemia.”

“Two-and-a-half years of chemotherapy, the cancer returned, then she had to have a bone marrow transplant or she wouldn’t live,” said Guthrie.

That’s where Corey comes in. The sailor from Alexandria, Virginia happened to be a match.

“Being a parent, having children myself, it was something I didn’t have to think about” said Corey.

Corey, who is a father of four, says he never thought twice. Now, two years after that life-saving surgery, he’s touched at seeing the bubbly girl with a big smile, knowing he had something to do with the life she’s so full of

“Just to see her running around and happy and smiling, it’s great, and to hear she’s ice skating and doing things my daughter’s do, so it’s a good feeling” Corey said. Guthrie and her daughter hugged Corey and called him their hero. “Words cannot express how I feel. I’m very thankful.” Guthrie said. “I appreciate him, he will always be family, he’s a part of my life, a part of my daughter’s life.”

Trinity was admitted, she began chemotherapy, and spent months in the hospital.

As for Trinity, she’ll always remember the first time she met Corey. “I just looked at him and I just smiled and he just laughed a little bit and I was just really happy; it was my moment.”

“Quite literally, Trinity won the lottery,” said Scott Carroll, President of the Southern Ohio Chapter of the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society.

Trinity is also a hero for the Leukemia Society’s team in training. A group of runners running in the Flying Pig Marathon has raised nearly half-a-million dollars this year alone to fight leukemia.

In the past 20 years, Team in Training raised almost $900 million in the flight against blood cancers, and in those past two decades, incidents of death in childhood leukemias has dropped substantially. …..

Go here for the rest of the story.

These reflect Obama’s percentages of the African-American vote in NC and IN as noted by Jim Geraghty at the Campaign Spot:

Previous commentary is at this previous post, and this one.

Further elaboration on the NC-IN results is at Newsbusters.org.

____________________________________________

UPDATE, May 8 (HT to commenter dscott): A MYDDer compared Obama’s performances in Virginia, in the midst of when he was cruising to big wins, and North Carolina, and found that:

(in NC — Ed.) Obama won 40% of White Men (28% of total)
Obama won 33% of White Women in NC (35% of total)
Obama won 91% of Black Men in NC (13% of total)
Obama won 91% of Black Women in NC (20% of total)

Obama lost ground among:
White Men (-27)
White Women (-12)
Black Men (-2)
He gained among Black Women (+6)

Read this:

Here’s what the middle para above means: Polls, schmolls — Obama had the Hoosier State in the bag until the Wright mess came along, and he let it get away.

If it weren’t for Wright, Obama wins Indiana, and the contest would be over.

Spin that.

Further elaboration on the NC-IN results is at Newsbusters.org.

__________________________________________

UPDATE, 1 p.m.: Rush is on today saying that the Obama campaign has said three separate times in the past 18 hours that Hillary would not have won Indiana if it were not for Rush Limbaugh’s Operation Chaos campaign to get Republicans to register as Democrats and vote for her. If so, it’s the Obama-Wright decay that made it close enough for Operation Chaos to have a chance to succeed.

UPDATE 2, 1:30 p.m.: Well. Be careful what you “assume.” My estimate of Obama’s performance with non-African Americans in Indiana is that he did more dismally than I would have thought:

(This chart was updated with a different African-American vote percentage and slightly different vote totals at this later BizzyBlog post.)

Given the next-door-neighbor effect, getting barely 40% of the non-black vote is pitiful.

As before, the vote numbers are from this ABC link. The estimate of black voter turnout is based on a black Hoosier State population percentage of 9.4%, then assuming that its turnout multiple was the same as North Carolina’s estimate (40% turnout divided by 22.3% of the population):

40% divided by 22.3% = 1.79
1.79 times 9.4% = 16.8%

As with North Carolina, the result supports the notion that Mrs. Clinton would outperform Obama in the general election.

UPDATE 3, 2 p.m.: Now here’s an interesting point. What percentage of the African-American vote did Obama win in South Carolina? Surprise: “Only” 80%.

It’s going to be really easy, and really wrong, for Old Media to try to claim that the above-90% black support of Obama is a Rev. Wright backlash. The fact is that Obama got 86% of the black vote in Ohio, where the governor, who is somewhat popular with blacks, was and still is a Hillary superdelegate. He won 85% of the black vote in Texas. Both primaries took place nine days before the Wright story broke nationally.

It’s much more likely that the extraordinarily high black vote in NC and IN was part of an ongoing reaction to Bill Clinton’s “subtle” race-card playing that began after South Carolina. Ohio and Texas were just short of the halfway marks of that trend, which has never truly ended. Obama’s African-American pickups have had little if anything to do with Wright.

As expected, many in the press are falling in line to declare the presidential candidate I irreverently refer to as “Mr. BOOHOO-OUCH” (Barack O-bomba Overseas Hussein “Obambi” Obama - Objectively Unfit Coddler of Haters) the nominee. Tim Russert has anointed him. The pressure on the candidate I irreverently refer to as “HR4C” (Hillary Rodham Cackling Crying Complaining Clinton) has to be enormous.

Those who are doing the “Barack the Inevitable” dance need to explain how someone transitions into general election mode when he barely won 1/3 of the non-white vote in North Carolina:

(This chart was updated with a different African-American vote percentage and slightly different vote totals at this later BizzyBlog post.)

Vote totals are here.

Take the items in yellow as “givens,” and the item in orange is the forced result. The Obama percentage of the African-American vote is based on this USA Today article’s claim that blacks went 13-1 for Obama in exit polls. Any cleaner info than the 40% I have for the estimated African-American percentage of total turnout, which is based on supposed early-voting breakdowns that I can’t find a link for, would be welcome (with a link if possible).

As noted last night, Obama won every demographic group except white females in South Carolina. He almost certainly lost every major group except African-Americans in North Carolina.

Yes, Indiana looks different (Update: Not as much as originally thought), but everyone’s totally ignoring the Illinois senator’s next-door neighbor effect, especially in high-turnout Gary. In the 45 states that either aren’t Illinois or don’t meaningfully border Illinois, the North Carolina result should be frightening to Dems who want to win the White House as opposed to feeling good about themselves while losing (based on the update just noted, the Illinois border states aren’t automatics for Obama in the general).

Further elaboration on the NC-IN results is at Newsbusters.org.

From PIEVE DI SOLIGO, Italy:

Thursday May 1, 2008

Paola Brenda sacrifices life for “gift of motherhood, the gift of having children”

In an act of sacrifice comparable to that of pro-life patroness St. Gianna Beretta Molla, Italian mother Paola Breda recently died after having declined potentially life-saving cancer treatment that could have harmed her unborn child.

Breda was diagnosed with breast cancer six months into her pregnancy with her child Nicola, but postponed treatment until after Nicola’s birth.

During her funeral, Vittorio Veneto Bishop Corrado Pizziolo called Breda an exemplification of Jesus Christ’s Gospel call “to lay down one’s life for one’s friends.”

“What Jesus did - the Gospel which He lived for us - this is what we see carried out in the life of our sister,” said the Bishop according to the Italian newspaper Avvenire.

Father Giuseppe Nadal told Radio Vaticana that Breda was disappointed that she and her husband Loris Amodei were unable to have a child until a decade into their marriage.

Both Breda’s first child, Illaria, and her second child, Nicola, brought their mother great joy, said the priest. Fr. Nadal also recounted a teary-eyed Breda coming to him during her second pregnancy.

Go here for the rest of the story.

12:30 a.m. — Oops. Took a longer nap than anticipated.

Looks like the spin will probably be the “big” win in NC for Obama and the narrow escape for Hillary in IN (with Obama still having an outside shot of winning in a photo-finish).

Fair enough on IN. But the real question in North Carolina should be, “How did Obama get only 35% of the non-African-American vote?” I’m not kidding:

Take the items in yellow as “givens,” and the item in orange is the forced result.

Obama won every demographic group except white females in South Carolina.

If it turns out that African-Americans cast half of the votes, Obama’s percentage of the vote from all other groups drops to 24.1%.

They’ll spin at will, but the reality is that NC represents quite a deterioration in Obama’s support from 3-1/2 months ago.

10:05 p.m. — Going to get away from watching paint dry. Will be back at about 11:30 p.m.

9:50 p.m. — Obama’s lead at ABC’s link is 14% in NC with 56% counted, while Hillary’s is down to 4% in Indiana. I don’t think either candidate can claim an impressive win tonight. Obama needed to win by 20% to get back to a semblance of where he was in demographically similar South Carolina, which he won by 28%. If I’m right that the rural and small-town white-dominated vote comes in later, then Obama hasn’t done that. Hillary, though, should have done better in Indiana, though there may have been a previously undetected next-door neighbor effect that broke for Obama.

9:35 p.m. — The drama remains in the margins, as Obama wins NC and Clinton wins IN (there seems to be a sliver of doubt about IN). It looks like the 90% or so African-American vote for Obama held in NC. Obama is up 20% in NC, Clinton up 4% - 6% in IN.

___________________________________________

All right, the two “biggies” are tonight.

As with Pennsylvania, it’s a near-dead thread because the results are provisional at best, irrelevant at worst. That’s because even pledged delegates are NOT bound to vote as they have pledged when the Democratic convention is held in late August.

In NC — The point I speculated about this morning stands. The North Carolina Dem electorate today will be 40%-plus African-American. That’s not far from their proportion in the South Carolina primary, which the presidential candidate I irreverently refer to as “Mr. BOOHOO-OUCH” (Barack O-bomba Overseas Hussein “Obambi” Obama - Objectively Unfit Coddler of Haters) won by a whopping 28% in January.

Surely, if he wins by less than 20% tonight in NC, Old Media will say that Obama underperformed. Wright Right? Unfortunately, no.

I think the thing to watch for in the Tar Heel state is whether there is a signficant erosion in African-American support below the 90% we saw in almost every state until Super Tuesday for sure, and probably in Ohio, Texas, and Pennsylvania after that. Any erosion that goes in the direction of the candidate I irreverently refer to as HR4C (Hillary Rodham Cackling Crying Complaining Clinton) — or even a lower-than-expected African-American turnout — should definitely get the attention of the Dem superdelegates, even more than the blue-collar white vote swinging, as many expect they will, to Hillary.

Indiana is supposedly a Hillary lock. If that indeed occurs, and especially if the margin approaches double-digits, someone should ask why Obama’s popularity in Illinois doesn’t cross state lines. Probably no one will.

Because of other commitments, I won’t be checking in until about 9:30, and will then, unless one of the two contests is dramtically cose, only comment briefly.

From the Youngstown Vindicator — “Valley party leaders urge attorney general to stand firm; legislators want Marc Dann to resign now.”

Ohio’s AG is getting love from the locals, who want Gunga Dann to intrepidly soldier on.

I just realized that I have neglected to heed the “Name That Party” criticisms that I have so frequently thrown at Old Media reporters. Accordingly, I have retroactively modified all related posts with my new Marc Dann graphic:

Unintentionally Funniest Headline of the Day — from a the Wall Street Journal’s Law blog:

With or Without Dann, Ohio’s Subprime Work Likely to Continue

There’s a lot of subprime work being done by the State of Ohio — and it has noting to do with mortgages.

In a remarkable example of “Name that Party,” the Associated Press, in an unbylined report about the beginning of his divorce trial appearing in USA Today, failed to name the party of former New Jersey Governor James McGreevey, who resigned in 2005, or of his former “male staffer.”

Beyond that, AP did not accurately describe the circumstances that triggered McGreevey’s resignation.

Here’s how the report began (bold is mine; HT to an e-mailer):

After two tell-all books, tawdry sex claims and 3½ years of living apart, New Jersey’s gay ex-governor and his estranged wife showed up for court Tuesday morning to begin the process of ending their marriage.

….. The issues to be decided in the divorce settlement involve custody, alimony and child support, and whether McGreevey, now openly gay, committed fraud by marrying a woman.

Matos McGreevey, 41, is seeking $600,000 for time she would have spent at the governor’s mansion had her husband not resigned in disgrace. McGreevey stepped down during his first term after a nationally televised speech in which he acknowledged being “a gay American” and having an affair with a male staffer. The staffer has denied the affair and said he was sexually harassed by McGreevey.

Since his resignation in the fall of 2004, both he and his soon-to-be-ex wrote books about their time together, including their sex lives. She claims she never knew he was gay until just before he told the rest of the world. He claims their marriage was “a contrivance on both our parts,” but that he fulfilled the marriage contract by providing companionship and a child.

The AP report gives the reader the impression that the only reason McGreevey resigned was because of the affair (or harassment) and his sexual “preference”/”orientation.”

But AP left out other details behind McGreevey’s resignation that would have informed readers that it was not “all about sex.”

The former “male staffer” AP refered to is Golan Cipel, whom AP inexplicably chose not to name. Cipel’s Wikipedia entry, which on balance appears to correctly represent events that occurred during the time involved, says this (New York Times link within excerpt added by me):

McGreevey eventually appointed Cipel as a Counselor to the Governor. Investigations by the news media into Cipel’s history revealed few notable qualifications related to intelligence or security. Additionally, the Federal Bureau of Investigation would not grant him the necessary security clearances for the job because he was a foreign national. He was retained on the government payroll as a “counselor” at the same salary and with undefined job responsibilities. Documents show that he helped plan foreign trips for the governor, and that he continued his liaison role with the Jewish community. He ultimately resigned in August 2002, taking a position at the Trenton lobbying firm State Street Partners.

Reports that Cipel would file a sexual harassment suit against McGreevey in Mercer County Court led to McGreevey’s decision to out himself as “a gay American” on August 12, 2004, and announce that he had engaged in an adulterous relationship with Cipel and would be resigning as governor.

Golan Cipel dropped the suit after McGreevey resigned, stating that justice had been served.

(in 2004) Cipel claims he was one of many victims of McGreevey’s sexual harassment, that he had “no romantic affair” with the governor, but rather was taken advantage of. He also describes the former governor’s behavior as egotistical, unprofessional, immoral and immature, as well as having received threats from McGreevey’s “friends” should he come forward and speak.

The resignation thus was strongly related to McGreevey’s laxness in assigning properly qualified Homeland Security personnel, as well as to the (take your pick) the affair the former Governor claims he had, or the sexual harassment Cipel claims to have endured.

AP’s failure to name to party of a scandal-plagued Democrat is typical. Its failure to accurately recount the history is indefensible.

Cross-posted at NewsBusters.org.

From the Associated Press:

Ohio Democrats talk impeachment after AG refuses to resign

Hmm. The Dems should know that they can’t impeach anyone without Republican help.

Until that happens, Gunga Dann will soldier on:

Here’s a Dem fall campaign slogan: Give us a majority, so we can clean up our own corruption.

(PS. I know the GOP had a chance to do that in 2005, and didn’t. I’m just havin’ some fun. Columbus has been a bi-partisan FUBAR for the better part of a decade.)

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

• The eeeeevil Wal-Mart, which has done more to make prescription drugs affordable than the government since it began its program in September 2006, is now doing even more — “(It) announced Monday it would expand its discounted prescription drug program to offer 90-day supplies for $10 and add several women’s medications at a discount. It also said it would lower the price of more than 1,000 over-the-counter drugs.”
• I like this term, coined in the London Daily Mail in reaction to the “environmental activisim” of jet-setting, carbon-guzzling celebs — “Hippy-crites.”
• I wonder how many soldiers are (now maybe “were”) fans of author Stephen King, or have seen one or more of his movies based on his books? Mark Levin had it right last night when he said that one of the most offensive thing about people like King (who recently said “…. the fact is if you can read, you can walk into a job later on. If you don’t, then you’ve got, the Army, Iraq ….”) is how insufferably ungrateful they are.
• I haven’t done any math on North Carolina yet, but if the African-American Democratic electorate’s proportion of the population is close to South Carolina’s, why should we impressed with a Tar Heel State win by the presidential candidate I refer to as “Mr. BOOHOO-OUCH” (Barack O-bomba Overseas Hussein “Obambi” Obama - Objectively Unfit Coddler of Haters) if it isn’t close to the 28-point margin he got in the Palmetto State in January? Rush is right, though; if Obama wins by even the slimmest of margins in either IN or NC, Old Media will try to play it as the Return of the Messiah.
• It’s no longer Obama the Chama. The presidential candidate I refer to as HR4C (Hillary Rodham Cackling Crying Complaining Clinton) appears to have turned into Hillary the Hospitable.
• Hmmm — The Reverend Jeremiah Wright counseled a married couple in distress in the early 1980s. Then, “after Delmer and Ramah Reed were divorced, she got remarried - to Wright.”
• First domino to fall? The Minneapolis Star-Tribune, where circulation has declined 15% in the past three years, is in deep trouble (HT Hot Air)

From the Upper East Side of Manhattan (HT to an e-mail from Kevin at Pundit Review):

May 5, 2008 — An Upper East Side girl made good on her bat mitzvah promise - and, as a result, dozens of teens from less fortunate families went on a designer-clothing shopping spree at a Queens synagogue yesterday.
For her bat mitzvah last year, Ali Reisner asked friends and relatives to donate money and gently used clothing for a charity project rather than give her gifts.

She spent the past year since her May 2007 bat mitzvah collecting clothes from friends and buying JCPenney gift cards with her gift money, collecting $12,000 in goods.

Thanks to her efforts, dozens of underprivileged Jewish girls from Queens and The Bronx went to the Briarwood Jewish Center in Kew Gardens, Queens, yesterday for a free day of shopping.

“I got so much money for my bat mitzvah, and I didn’t want all of it,” said Reisner, who’ll soon turn 14. “I like shopping. All girls like shopping, so I figured the best way to help these girls out was to bring clothes and gift cards so that each girl could shop for her needs.”

Grateful girls poured in to the synagogue to get some high-fashion loot and had the chance to thank Reisner personally. …..

Go here for the rest of the story.