Politix: Michael's Revenge, Joe's Ego & More

One of the most despicable chapters in modern American political history was the grandstanding by President Bush and Congress in the fight to keep alive Terri Schiavo, the compatose and brain-damaged Florida woman.

Terri's husband, Michael Schiavo, who eventually won the legal battle to remove his wife's feeding tube, has not forgiven the politicians who accused him of being a wife abuser and murderer, and has started a political action committee to fight the politicians who intervened in the case.

TerriPAC has raised more than $26,000 in eight months, mostly in small contributions through its website.

More here.

LIEBERMAN SHOWS HIS TRUE COLORS

The hysteria surrounding Ned Lamont's upset of incumbent Senator Joseph Lieberman in the Connecticut Democratic primary last week has subsided (but can be revisited here in a terrific analysis of the race by my son, Cassidy.)

In the week since, several things are obvious:

The race was indeed race a referendum on the war in Iraq, and any pol with national aspirations won't be able to get ahead unless he or she make clear their own view on how to extricate the U.S. from George Bush's Folly.

The Republicans are so desperate to see Lieberman win as an independent that they're deep-sixing their own candidate, whose name has mysteriously (sic) disappeared from the National Republican Committee's website.

But most notably, and to put it in the crudest terms:

Lieberman has revealed himself to be an unprincipled, ego-driven sore loser who will f*ck any hole in order to get ahead.

The Democratic party doesn't need him, the Republican Party deserves him and Connecticut and the Senate will be better places if he goes down in flames come November.

HOW GREEN IS MY WALLET?

Lieberman is not the only incumbent senator to find himself in deep doo-doo. Take right-wingnut Rick Santorum. Please!

Tricky Ricky's best chance of saving his political hide would seem to be Carl Romanelli, the Green Party candidate, who is polling at about 5 percent in the three-way Pennsylvania contest with Robert Casey Jr., the Democratic frontrunner.

It is an open secret that most of the contributions to Romanelli's campaign have come from Santorum supporters, but it now appears that some of the signatures on his nominating petition are fraudulent and belong to family members of Santorum staffers.

I am shocked! Just shocked! that pious Mr. Santorum, who hides behind Jesus's robes when confronted with his serial hypocrisies, would allow such sinful behavior on his behalf.

Paul Kiel has more at TPM Muckraker.

SWANN SONG

Elsewhere on the Pennsylvania political landscape, another Republican is struggling, as well.

That would be a political novice, former Pittsburgh Steeler star running back Lynn Swann, whose drive to unseat Governor Ed Rendell has stalled at fourth down and long yardage.

Rendell, the former Philadelphia mayor, leads Swann 54 percent to 34 percent in the latest Quinnipiac University poll, which is basically unchanged from a June poll that found Rendell leading Swann 55 percent to 31 percent.

Swann was a terrific football player and seems like a nice chap, but that doesn't translate him into being a terrific candidate, let alone gubernatorial material.

I know Ed Rendell and happen to believe he's a terrific guy. He was a great mayor and has been an okay governor. But shame on the Republicans for backing Swann simply because of name recognition and not because he was qualified.

Pennsylvania has a lot of problems. Rendell has been able to deal with only some of them. Keystone State voters deserved a good race. Too bad they didn't get it.

More here.

A CRACKER MACACA-ER

Senator George Allen of Virginia wants to run for president so badly that he can taste it. Trouble is, the taste in his mouth these days is that of his own foot.

Allen, a Republican who is running for re-election, has a history of saying offensive things, then denying that they were offensive and eventually apologizing. Most recently, he said “Let’s give a welcome to Macaca, here,” pointing to a 20-year-old student of Indian (as in the country) extraction during a speech before a predominately white audience.

True to form, the Allen campaign defended the remark as being undeserving of an apology and claimed it was a reference to the student's haircut. Du-uh! Macaca doesn't sound anythink like mohawk, although it is a dereogatory term for a monkey.

Surprise of surprises, after a few days came the inevitable apology.

More here.

UPDATE ON A TEXAS-STYLE WHUPPIN'

The fallout from the DeLay Debacle continues.

If you haven't been following this political stemwinder, it goes something like this: Tom "The Hammer" DeLay, the former Republican House majority leader who brought new meaning to the term hardball politics, quit Congress and decamped to suburban Washington rather than face defeat in his Texas district because of his various self-inflicted ethical and legal woes.

But rather than merely going quietly into the night, DeLay thought he'd pull one final stunt: He ran in and won the Republican primary before quitting and hand picking his replacement.

A series of federal courts and finally Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia ruled that DeLay must remain on the November ballot, but that means he would have to explain to his (former) constituents why he deserves to be re-elected after trying so hard to bail on them.

The Texas Republican Party has gone into panic mode as it becomes increasingly likely that DeLay's seat will go to a Democrat because of his shennanigans. Party potentates are now fighting over a suitable write-in candidate.

The odds are wonderfully long: No such write-in campaign has ever succeeded in the history of Texas politics, which are among the most bizzaro anywhere.

More here.