If this is all the evidence Ronnie has, his charges are real turkeys.

Posted by: jd watson at October 5, 2005 11:03 PM

Did you mean Peggy Cass, oj, or Momma?

When someone who's made as many enemies as Earle has suddenly come into the national spotlight, he oughtn't be surprised when he catches as much flak as the man he's trying to undo.

Another black eye for Ronnie, after his failed prosecutions against Republican Hutchison and Democrats Bullock and Mattox, though the latter case he actually a partial suceess, because the goal was to scuttle Mattox's 1990 primary run against the more liberal Ann Richards.

DeLay may be right when he alleges that the Mattox case was the playbook here; not so much to convict, but to force him out of the way as Majority Leader. But the demogrphics of Travis County have changed a lot in the past 15 years, and while the county went for Kerry in 2004, the areas of the county outside Austin are trending Republican, which may explain why the first grand jury liked the ham sandwich better than the legal hotdog.

You would think all these stories of ineptitude coming to light now, combined with his past failures, would put Earle out to pasture once and for all. But Ronnie doesn't run for re-election again until 2008, so memories may fade by then, though his status among Texas Democrats as that shining light of honesty and justice may take a hit for a while if DeLay gets off untouched.

Fred:

Thanks.

I am now terminally confused about the title.

More to the point, this DA looks like a complete clown. The MSM will follow this as if the DA had a clue. But I just don't see why anyone with a shred of sense would.

Robert --

Mama Cass didn't make it through her sandwich (as for the other Cass, I always preferred Kitty Carlisle).

Robert:

Mama Cass (Mommas and the Papas) choked on a room-order ham sandwich in London and died. Peggy Cass was also rotund, but was of an older generation, her claim to fame being appearances on game shows (e.g. To Tell The Truth).

The source said that Earle tried to convince the jurors that if DeLay "didn't say, 'Stop it,' he gave his tacit approval."

By that standard MOST Americans would be guilty of heinous crimes, since we accept without question elements of our lifestyle that are harmful to others, either actively or passively.

While most of the left-leaning commentors who show up here grievously overreach in their indictments of current American leaders and American culture in general, they are right about two very basic points:

Americans don't want to know where their goodies come from, or how or under what conditions they're produced.

The world isn't as good as it could be, and America could do a lot more to fix it.

As to the latter point, while actions like toppling the Taliban and Saddam certainly fall into that category, ordinary Americans could effect much greater change for the better by simply refusing to purchase goods produced in conditions or ways that don't meet our standards.

However, like driving high-MPG vehicles and being efficient trip planners, to cut oil demand and pollution, that kind of conscious and deliberate decision-making seems to be undesirable to most.

As Mr. Burnet commented in the 'FROM THE “WE’RE ALL GOING INSANE” FILES' thread:

My main question is whether you believe you are describing a factual reality that applies to almost everyone or appealing to minority values that must be acquired through experience, discipline and self-control. It would be really nice if human nature substantiated the former, but it doesn't.

Your fallacy is in the assumption that, because all the incidents of modern life can be broken down into matters of conscious individual choices, their sum is therefore just a total of a bunch of conscious individual choices for the average person. [...] Everyone has the strength and wit to understand the effects of these [choices] on herself better than anyone else.

I guess that what I'm really saying is that if the average American just valued discipline and self-control a little more, the world would be a LOT better.

Plus, we wouldn't be such a fat peoples, which would lead to longer, healthier lives, which ought to lead to increased happiness.

Posted by: Michael Herdegen at October 6, 2005 1:21 AM

It's an urban legend that Mama Cass choked on a ham sandwich

But a great one.