Chris Matthews Would Like To Play With Some Hard Balls.

NBC, please keep this man from moderating any more debates.

I watch the debates compulsively as a political junkie of sorts, and rarely am I impressed with any of the moderators the networks dig up among their stable of talking heads. Both MSNBC debates, from last week's Democratic debate in South Carolina to last night's GOP square-off in Simi Valley, have been lame excuses for the horse race. I get that the herd kind of needs to be thinned, but it would help if the moderators would try to stick to political questions. During the Dem debate, Brian Williams rattled off some crap about the Democratic Party being extinct if they lose the presidency in 2008 (despite 2006's Congressional takeover), and then, we get questions like these:

Moderator: Governor Gilmore, you know Karl Rove and you've worked with Karl Rove. Is Karl Rove your friend?

And later:

Moderator: But let me ask you about something else that might be a negative in the upcoming campaign. Seriously.
Would it be good for America to have Bill Clinton back living in the White House? (Laughter)
Romney: You have got to be kidding.
Moderator: No, I'm not.

Chris Matthews is still obsessed with Bill Clinton's dick after six years. That's the conclusion I've ultimately come to. It's not like Brian Williams acquitted himself any better last week, either.

Actual debate insights: Tom Tancredo (I used to live in his district), Duncan Hunter, and Sam Brownback scare me. Giuliani gets actual points for knowing the difference between a Sunni and a Shiite (but he's still creepy and authoritarian, and the whole cross-dressing and the bad splits with ex-wives will catch up with him.) Romney invoked Ronald Reagan's name the most; no coincidence there. Everyone was basking in the glow of the Reagan library, and couldn't move fast away from moderator questions about Bush quickly enough.

what did alcohol do to deserve this?

You may recall that San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom had to make an embarrassing public apology last week, admitting to fucking his ex-campaign manager's wife (while said woman was one of his secretaries). Now he's pulling the same old lame cop-out and seeking treatment for alcohol abuse.

"I take full responsibility for my personal mistakes and my problems with alcohol are not an excuse for my personal lapses in judgment." -- Newsom, in a written statement.

I call shenanigans.

I'm not making "rehab is for quitters" jokes. I'm here to stick up for booze, because it gets dissed and blamed all the time in America these days, and it isn't fair. Booze has become the favorite excuse of politicians after a scandal: Mark Foley pulled the alcohol abuse card after getting caught sending nasty IMs to pages, and he followed the book on it. Going into rehab for alcohol abuse is a script now for any politician doing something stupid, corrupt, and/or illegal.

Let's revisit Wanda Sykes on Foley, just for fun:

goodbye, statewide office.

San Francisco mayor Gavin Newsom was getting enough attention (not negative, but not exactly great) for dating a 20-year old restaurant hostess named Brittanie Mountz (insert your preferred joke here) after divorcing his newscaster wife (who got knocked down a couple pegs on the "hot" chart after going to Faux News to work), but this week's revelation that he had an affair with his former campaign manager's wife damn near ensures Californians will hear these words come 2010: "Your new governor, Antonio Villaraigosa!"

It's not necessarily the affair itself -- I doubt you could find anyone who cares about politicians getting some on the side any more -- but it's this:

1) Ruby Rippey-Tourk is not only his ex-campaign manager's wife, but was also Newsom's secretary -- and there are laws on the SF books against this.
2) He just fucked his best (political) friend's wife.

Never mind statewide office -- it turns this fall's mayoral race in SF into an actual race.

priorities, please.

Interesting New York Times bit on the veiled threat that MLB hack in charge Bud Selig and appointed investigator George Mitchell have put in place with their investigation into the steroid scandal: apparently, it's akin to, "If you don't talk to us, then Rep. Henry Waxman (D-CA) will be all over your ass."

Now, being a proper political junkie, I follow Waxman's exploits not only because I'm originally from the L.A. area -- it's also because Waxman is a certified ball-buster who happens to reflect my political leanings. But I think the players would be wise to call the bluff on this one; Waxman's made no statements on what he will do on the issue with the chair of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee (which is apparently what sports with anti-trust exemptions fall under), and regardless of my personal hope and confidence that the Democrats can walk and chew gum when it comes to legislation and oversight regarding the war in Iraq, I bet he's got higher priorities than steroid investigations. However, that's what I said to myself the last time I heard or read rumors about Congressional investigation and testimony, and we wound up with several days of the stuff on ESPN.

Congressman, hold off on the steroids right now -- let the leagues work on it, and take care of the other stuff first. And if you're gonna take on big league sports, take on the NFL and MLB on selling Sunday Ticket and Extra Innings to DirecTV.

no more kings; the queen is dead.

So let's have no more of them, shall we?

By now you've likely read or heard that Senator Hillary Clinton has formally announced her run for the presidency in 2008, and likely either heard or read the prevalent story line that's already been established: Hillary v. Illinois' junior senator Barack Obama, which will get the most play in the media until one of them drops out or is beaten come primary season.

Very few articles written by the major newspapers or pieces done on the major networks mention a key fact: if Senator Clinton happens to enter the Oval Office in 2009 as the 44th President, it would ensure a minimum of 24 years and a maximum of 28 with the head of state of the American government coming from one of two political families.

Much as our political system contains plutocratic, oligarchic, and aristocratic tendencies, I'm pretty sure the candidate pool is, can be, and ought to be a bit deeper than that. Hillary's Kerryism on the Iraq war, moralistic scolding on irrelevancies like video games, and the motivating factor of her run to the rabid right would have turned me off anyway, but give us someone relatively new, please.

don't give me that do-goody-good bullshit.

Some of you may be familiar with one Rep. William Jefferson of Louisiana's 2nd District, recently re-elected by his New Orleans constituents, and currently under investigation by the FBI for taking bribes from a construction company. The most notable part of the whole deal was finding $90K in his freezer.

Prior to last November's elections, Jefferson had been punted off the House Ways and Means Committee by then Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi after the $90K find was made public, in order to clean house ethically. Lousiana elections are run under the run-off system, so Jefferson won his runoff against another black Democrat, Karen Carter, endorsed by his state's Democratic Party. And with the swearing-in of the 110th Congress, Mr. Jefferson has been welcomed back with open arms by the Congressional Black Caucus:

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- On the same day that the 110th Democratic-led Congress convenes with a plan to immediately pass lobbyist and ethics reforms, the Congressional Black Caucus Thursday gave a standing ovation to Rep. William Jefferson, the Louisiana Democrat who faces an FBI probe into bribery allegations.

"The haters... and negative nabobs...the people who spoke against him couldn't prevail against the people who spoke for him," Dr. Michael Eric Dyson, master of ceremonies for the CBC's celebratory event, said Thursday morning.

You stay classy, CBC. It's a shame; I liked Dyson despite his long-windedeness (a common quality of academic types; you get the same problems with Cornel West) because he took good, smart whacks at ignorant Black elites like Bill Cosby and his stupid theories, blaming the poor. The theory as to why someone like Jefferson gets re-elected has a lot to do with perceived persecution: his district consists heavily of Katrina survivors, and they've received little to no attention, and their representative gets accused of bribe-taking (plus, Louisiana elects corrupt bastards at all times, black and white). But how do you ignore, literally, cold, hard cash, never mind Jefferson's using the National Guard to get his stuff when Katrina hit?

The CBC has a double standard: it welcomes Jefferson with open arms, but willingly forgot Rep. Cynthia McKinney existed.