Let Them Eat Wildebeest

Rep. Duncan Hunter, R-Border Fence, (left) came up with a solution to the Darfur refugee crisis.

According to The Washington Post:

Hunter’s staff contacted the embassy in N’Djamena, Chad, last week to see whether Hunter could distribute food at a camp. Hunter also wanted to put together an outing to hunt wildebeest and distribute the meat to the Darfur refugees.

That’s the Duncan we know and love!

It was left to the State Department to inform the congressman that Chad is a DESERT, big game hunting is prohibited and there are no wildebeest there, outside of game reserves.

Union-Tribune for Sale

It’s the end of an era: Copley Press announced today that it’s exploring a sale of the San Diego Union-Tribune. The U-T’s president and CEO said the newspaper is caught up in a “perfect storm” affecting all media organizations.

“Part of it is secular – that is, brought about by forces that are fundamentally changing our business model and making it impossible for us to continue doing business as usual. The other part is cyclical, brought on by the collapse in the real estate market that is affecting the entire country, but is slamming Sun Belt cities especially hard.”

It’s a big day for San Diego, and for people who resent the old order that Copley represented and the virtual stranglehold that the U-T had on the city, it’s a happy one. Copley and the U-T were the only game in town for many, many years, intimately tied in to the city’s and the GOP power structure in a way that few newspapers ever were.

I’ve written about some of this before: James Copley allowed his news service to provide cover for CIA operatives. Editors like Herb Klein and Jerry Warren moved back and forth from journalism into the Nixon White House.

The newspaper was a kingmaker in this law-and-order town, and it was part of what kept San Diego the lone conservative bastion on the Left Coast. It nurtured people like Bill Kolender, the city’s former police chief and current sheriff. He was hired on as an assistant to the publisher while he pondered his next political move. Lately, the U-T has tangled with progressive City Attorney Mike “We’re Marching On” Aguirre.

Copley was once a chain of newspapers in the Midwest and Southern California. All were sold in the hopes, I suppose, of saving the Union-Tribune, the crown jewel. Even in its weakened state, the newspaper remains a powerhouse. Its estimated revenues in 2006 of $387 million were more than all the local TV stations in town combined.  But the company can’t limp along any more.

In the end, it was the mortgage and real crisis that pushed Copley to this. Which is ironic, because the Union-Tribune, like the old L.A. Times under Colonel Otis and the OC Register, were relentless promoters of growth. Think big.  Build it and they will come.

But what goes up must come down.  San Diego just can’t expand any more because nobody wants to live in Temecula and pay $4 gas for the privilege of driving hours back and forth to work every day. Something’s gotta give.

Gene Bell, the Union-Tribune president and CEO, says newspapers aren’t dying. Maybe, maybe not. But the once mighty newspaper will never be the same.

I Have a Castle

Rep. Mark Souder, a Republican from Indiana who looks like Radar O’Reilly from M*A*S*H*, has just introduced a bill with the noble goal of preventing another Duke Cunningham.

Souder wants members of Congress, federal candidates, and top admininstration officials to disclose the mortgages they hold on their castles, mansions, compounds, and beach homes. “Transparency,” Souder says, “is fundamental to public trust.”

He took the first step by disclosing that he has eight years left on his mortgage, owes $75,000 and is paying 6.875 percent interest.

As insanely greedy as Duke was, even he would have thought twice before listing that he owed $0 on a $2.55 million mansion he had bought the previous year. But what prompted this wasn’t Duke, but the low-cost loans two senators got from the “Friends of Angelo” program. Souder and Rep. Darrell Issa, R-Vista, one of the wealthiest representatives, are calling for a House investigation.

It’s a good first step, but the bill doesn’t go far enough. A survey by Politco.com found more than one of four senators have no mortgages.

How about requiring members of Congress to disclose the values of their homes?

Who's buying?

The story of Duke’s clemency application seems to have  touched a nerve. I was on KUSI-TV this morning to discuss the Cunningham pardons. People seem to be outraged at the possibility that Duke might wriggle off the hook.

Well, I don’t think there’s much chance of that. George W. Bush has granted clemency a total of SIX times since he took office. Yes, one of those cases was Scooter Libby. But the rest were nobodies, small-time drug dealers you’ve never heard of. By contrast, Clinton granted clemency 61 times — half of which came on his last day in office.

But the bigger problem — and the more meaningful one for Duke — is the huge backlog of 2,300 cases that is overwhelming the system. The Justice Department’s Office of Pardon Attorney, which has to review and make a recommendation on each request, is drowning in paper. There are thousands of people equally, if not more deserving of clemency than Cunningham.

So, who’s representing Duke? It’s not Cunningham’s criminal attorneys at the firm of O’Melveny & Myers, as I’ve previously noted. But who is? And why?

I’m assuming here that Duke didn’t file his own application. It’s possible, but unlikely. As Duke’s former commanding officer pointed out, the man can’t write a simple declarative sentence.

Hiring an attorney at $500/hour is tough for an ex-congressman who had to forfeit all his ill-gotten gains and owes a $1.8 million fine. Then again, he is still collecting his congressional pension.

Issa, Bilbray on Duke's Clemency

From the North County Times:

“I don’t think I can overstate the damage that Mr. Cunningham did to the institution of government,” U.S. Rep. Brian Bilbray, R-Solana Beach, said Monday. “The damage done by Randy Cunningham was deep and broad.”

And…

U.S. Rep. Darrell Issa, R-Vista, said: “I know of no reason at this time that would make a commutation of the sentence appropriate.”

Nice to see that corruption isn’t a partisan issue.

But wait! Someone’s missing here. Who could it be?

Rep. Duncan Hunter, R-Border Fence. Hunter is the dean of San Diego’s congressional delegation, who is retiring from office and bequeathing his seat to his son, also named Duncan Hunter. The elder Hunter recruited Cunningham for Congress, taught him how to sing and dance, got the evangelicals to back Duke.

Duncan’s already forgiven Duke, and thinks all Good Christians should too.

“I think that as Christians, if we can forgive our enemies, we can certainly forgive our friends. So I didn’t run away from Cunningham,” he told the LA Times.

Of course, Duncan doesn’t have the grace in his heart to forgive criminals. Except for his friend Duke.