Oh Yeah? And Another Thing, We Can't Count Either!
From The Hill E-News, their November 17th tipsheet a piece entitled, Bitterness Lingers over Murtha vs. Hoyer by Jonathan E. Kaplan. Jon notes that four years ago, Nancy Pelosi "taunted" Steny Hoyer, who she had just defeated for the position of Minority Whip, by saying, "Steny can't count." In light of the leadership vote yesterday, Kaplan quotes obviously embittered John Murtha supporter, Congressman Jim Moran (D-Va.), regarding the lopsided tally this time in favor of Steny Hoyer for Majority Leader.
Murtha's supporters seemed stunned by the 53-vote margin.
"There are a number of members who can't be trusted," said Rep. Jim Moran (D-Va.), adding that there are "a couple of dozen members we won't trust" in the future.
Well, the first question that comes to mind is, who is doing the math over at The Hill? The vote total was 149 – 86, which is a difference of 63 votes, not 53.
Secondly, the obvious question for Congressman Moran is: Whadda ya mean, "we" Kemo Sabe? Who is this ubiquitous "we" that you're talking about?
And, if as you claim, a "couple of dozen" more votes had swung your way -- that would have been "24" more for your guy, and 24 fewer for Hoyer -- you still would have been fifteen votes short.
So, who is doing your arithmetic these days, Jim? Heck, even with the short-sheet arithmetic of the guys over at The Hill, you would still have come up short . . . by five.
Plus, I thought John Murtha confidently went on national TV and told Chris Matthews, "We've got the Votes." He wouldn't have done that without a cushion of several votes, would he?
Just exactly what was your count?
Here is how Murtha put it to Matthews on Hardball:
. . .
MATTHEWS: Are you going to win?
MURTHA: We’re going to win, we’ve got the votes.
MATTHEWS: You’ve got them?
MURTHA: We’ve got the votes.
MATTHEWS: Eyeball to eyeball, you’ve got them?
MURTHA: Eyeball to eyeball.
. . . .
Must have been something in his eye.
On to the Battle of Hastings! And you can count on it!
UPDATE: (11/20/2006) The Washington Times reports Hoyer to seek assurances from Pelosi she won't retaliate against those who publicly supported him. Hey, it's a legitimate question, based on the comments by Rep. Jim Moran, noted above.
Also, a friend of ours asks, how did Pelosi/Murtha ally, Rep. Jim Moran know which 2 dozen Democratic members who, as Moran said after the vote, "we won't trust." After all, it was a secret ballot, right? Hmmmm?
UPDATE II: (11/27/2006) It appears the Battle of Hastings has concluded. According to reports today, the Speaker-Designate, Nancy Pelosi met with Congressman Alcee Hastings this afternoon to inform him that she would not be naming him as the Chair of the House Intelligence Committee.
The Washignton Post has much more, including details about the federal judicial panel that oversaw the administrative complaint against Hastings for judicial misconduct following his acquittal by a jury on the bribery charges. They concluded that the judge had repeatedly lied to the jury, and had manufactured evidence to win the acquittal.
In fact, there is a certain simplicity in the conclusion drawn by an investigating committee of five eminent federal judges, each with strong civil rights credentials. Those judges, and later more than three dozen others, concluded that Hastings lied to the Miami jury as many as 15 times to win acquittal.
. . .
Two federal judges soon filed an administrative complaint, accusing Hastings of conduct prejudicial to the courts, which led to the judicial investigation. John Doar, the chief House Watergate counsel, and a panel of judges investigating the matter said they uncovered substantial new evidence that convinced them that Hastings joined the bribery conspiracy and then fabricated a defense to hoodwink the jury.
In one example, they focused on Hastings's testimony about telephone calls. The issue was a taped conversation with Borders that prosecutors considered coded talk about a bribe. Hastings said it was an innocent discussion about helping a friend, Hemphill Pride, regain his law license.
Pride said that he knew of no such effort, that he would have rejected one and that he was not even eligible for reinstatement. He told the panel that Hastings, while under indictment, had urged him to remember details that, as far as Pride recalled, had never happened.
On the witness stand in Miami, however, Hastings showed the jury records of four telephone calls and confidently declared that he had made them to Pride. In fact, the Doar investigation revealed, the numbers called belonged to other people with no connection to Pride.
"Judge Hastings' conduct was premeditated, deliberate and contrived," wrote the committee, whose most prominent member was U.S. District Judge Frank M. Johnson Jr., famous for rulings integrating Alabama's public institutions.
Michelle Malkin also had an exhaustive wrap on the issues arising out of the impeachment of then-Federal Judge Hastings, which completely contradict his recent rant attacking,
"Newt Gingrich, Sean Hannity, Ann Coulter, Michelle Malkin, Michael Barone, Drudge, anonymous bloggers, and other assorted misinformed fools"who he claimed had cited his impeachment as a basis for challenging his lack of fitness for the position.
After expressing his disappointment over the failure to win the Intelligence post, Hastings issued a statement claiming he would actually be seeking "bigger and better" opportunities in the new Congress, and fired off a parting shot,
"Sorry, haters, God is not finished with me yet."
He must be next in line, right behind John Murtha.
posted by Trochilus @ 11/17/2006 12:35:00 PM
6 comments
6 Comments:
We received the same comment on our blog. "The Big Professor" claims he teaches at Rutgers. Pathetic!
In addition to shopping it around to various locales, he tacked up the same "divination" on his lonely little blog as a primary post, just a few days after the November election.
Please also note for the record, that the Prof's powers of prognostication are, shall we say, a little shaky, no?
For example, just this past January, the Prof sought to light up Jersey cyberspace with his terse tribute vigorously defending former Senator John Lynch of New Brunswick, together with his prediction that Lynch would not only be fully vindicated, but that he would go on to become Governor! Heh!
But as we all know, within a few months the touching tribute morphed into a sad political eulogy.
Taken together with his peculiar current comment that America is "lagging behind the rest of the world," I think that we can safely conclude that The Prof is still looking for a place in reality to touch down.
I must say that he isn't very frequent with his comments or updating his blog.
Being that college professors usually only work between 15 and 19 hours a week, you'd think he would have more free time on his hands to challenge us more often.
Pretty funny.
I agree. And given the fact that he shopped this silly, generic comment all over, would lead anyone to believe that he really doesn't have very much to say. If he is a professor, one has to wonder what he teaches? Or, what he brings to the table?
As you know, the hiring practices at some of our state-run schools are proving in some instances to have nothing at all to do with academics. Just check out the phony "professors" the University of Medicine & Dentistry of New Jersey (UMDNJ) got caught hiring, just to get referrals for their non-compliant cardiac care unit. Their numbers haven't met specific minimum requirements for years, so they paid doctors huge sums of money just to refer all their patients to UMDNJ's cardiac surgery unit. That practice is criminal under Federal law, but they were doing it on a large scale basis because they wanted to keep their trauma care licensure. The way they tried to cover it up was to hire them as "professors."
And, they even hired Senator Wayne Bryant as an assistant professor to lobby for handouts for them with the State legislature because he chaired the appropriations committee! He didn't teach a thing! His "job" reportedly was sitting around one day a week reading newspapers.
I don't know if he's a professor or not, but his IP does come back to Rutgers. But, hell, he could be the guy that cleans the toilets... although I would think that someone who actually works for a living would be a bit more grounded in his views.
Matt McGrath at Matter of Fact seems to think it's some guy from Rutgers named Cowans.
Yes, as does a a rather unusual character calling himself the Comment Police, who left one of the very few comments of any kind on The Big Professor's pitiful little blog.
I see you couldn't resist either, Abe! Heh. That post of his defending Jumpsuit Johnny Lynch was downright comical.
Matt might very well be in a better position to know the identity, as his profile indicates he has a degree in history from RU, and could possibly have had a teacher by that name, though I would hasten to note that a "University Professor" is clearly not the same thing as an "associate professor."
Biggy Prof, whoever he is, wants so much to attract attention. Maybe what he should do is slightly change his name and develop some real analytical capacity . . . like The Buggy Professor.
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