"One set of rules for us... another set for the little people"

Book Review: Do As I Say (Not As I Do)

The detailed reporting in this book is truly surprising: Michael Moore owns stock in Halliburton and, while filming 'Roger and Me', drove a German automobile. Al Franken, throughout his entire career, has hired over 110 people - only one of whom was African-American. The Clintons and Ted Kennedy lambast school vouchers while sending their own precious progeny to private schools.

Babs Streisand laments the destruction of the rainforest while enjoying the luxury of a 12,000 square foot mansion made of - yes - wood. And her annual water bill of $22,000 keeps her lawn green while she rails against the American consumer culture. She is driven around in an SUV and has, in the past, made rounds in Beverly Hills in a motor home due to an aversion to public bathrooms.

Nancy Pelosi -- an avowed union supporter -- has ownership stakes in a resort, vineyard and some restaurants, all of which are strictly non-unionized. And while she advocates far-reaching environmental regulations, the country club she partially owns has failed to meet existing environmental regulations for nearly a decade (including a failure to protect an endangered species).

The eye-opening list goes on and on. Schweizer has done an astronomical amount of research into the bloviating voices of some mediacrats who, true to historical form, advocate one form of government for the little people and another for themselves. I suppose it's not so surprising that these public figures were to get away with such hypocritical behavior -- without any scrutiny -- for so long. It's probably more surprising that they've been exposed at all.

Air Enron

Picture credit: http://www.airamerica.cc
The massively unsuccessful Air America network is embroiled in a major scandal that you probably haven't heard about. The heart of the scandal: hundreds of thousands of dollars in loans made to the liberal talkshow network by a Bronx-based Boys & Girls Club.

In early 2004, the directors of the nascent Air America network were scouring the nation for potential contributors... One of the network's directors, Evan Montvel Cohen, appears to have partially solved the problem by arranging loans from the Gloria Wise Boys & Girls Club that eventually totaled at least $480,000, and possibly more...

Oddly enough, the mainstream media (oops, I meant the MSM/DNC) hasn't found any time to explore this scandal. Michelle Malkin points out:

Number of NY Times articles mentioning Air America since March 2004: 59 Number of NY Times articles mentioning the Air Enron scandal: 0

Chalk up another one for the utterly unbiased Gray Lady.

The ramifications for the Boys & Girls Club, however, have been catastrophic. New York City has suspended about $10 million in funding because of "inappropriate transactions and falsified documents."

The calculus (or, rather, the plain arithmetic) behind the scandal is simple: taxpayer funds appear to be siphoned from the Boys & Girls Club to help pay the likes of Al Franken. Now, I know that some of these geniuses have socialist tendencies but... wow. Taxpayer funding for a private enterprise like Air Enron?

Meanwhile, the kids who could have used the funding are left in sweltering apartments in the City. And the millionaire Franken continues to enjoy the perquisites of immense wealth. Nope. I don't see any scandal there.

Arizona Republic: A scandal below the radar

Philadelphia Inquirer: Franken Squashed Like a Bug

Picture credit: http://www.coloradopsycho.com
It's tough to keep it all straight. Air America, embroiled in a scandal here, falling off the Arbitron ratings chart there... it all gets a bit confusing. The Philadelphia Inquirer -- no shill for red-staters -- weighs in with some key money lines:

Here [in Philadelphia, Air America] doesn't even register a pulse. The flagship show, hosted by author and former Saturday Night Live comic Al Franken, airs from noon to 3 p.m. weekdays on WHAT (1340 AM). Both WHAT and the show have fallen off the charts, according to radio-rating service Arbitron, meaning there were too few listeners to measure during the second quarter of this year - the so-called spring book. Franken's show didn't start on the station until Aug. 30. Franken named his show The O'Franken Factor to tweak his archrival, populist pundit Bill O'Reilly, whose TV show The O'Reilly Factor on the Fox News Channel outdraws all other talk shows on cable... Franken... [also] ...chose to go head-to-head with... Limbaugh in many markets. This, it turns out, was not such a good idea. Limbaugh, still the giant among talkers, with 14.75 million listeners on 600 stations, has squashed Franken like a bug. Franken's ratings have dropped 50 percent in Boston since spring 2004, and he is down 14 percent in New York, where his listeners now number fewer than 188,000...

Inquirer: Liberal Air America Radio stuck in cellar

Senator Franken

In the immortal words of Animal House's Flounder, "Oh Boy, this is Great!".

Al Franken is expected to run for the Senate seat to be vacated by brave, brave Sir Dayton (you may remember him, he's the courageous Senator (D-MN) who closed his office and scrammed from Washington, saying he'd read an intelligence report that made him fear for the safety of his staff. Dayton isn't running for re-election and Franken intends to fill that void.

PoliPundit says this is great news: "Franken would be almost as weak a candidate as Dayton would have been. Meanwhile, the GOP will have a strong candidate in Congressman Mark Kennedy..."

That sly Karl Rove... what will he think of next?

Dean, Boxer, Kennedy, Kerry... and Franken... the ostensible thought-leaders of the Democratic party. Does it get any better than this if you're a Republican?

Update: David Letterman and Conan O'Brien are P.O.'ed - Franken dropped out of the race. Bummer. There's goes the basis for a thousand punchlines.

Franken to throw his hat in the ring