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Monday, March 10, 2008
Cheney’s talking: ‘Saxby’s courageous. He hunts with me.’
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Gov. Sonny Perdue just introduced Vice President Dick Cheney as “the friend and confidante of George Bush.”
Cheney thanked him for the kind words. “A welcome like that is almost enough to make me want to run for office. Almost,” the vice president said.
U.S. Sens. Johnny Isakson and Saxby Chambliss weren’t there. But Cheney praised Chambliss’ bravery.
“Saxby’s a very courageous man. I know that because he’s one of my hunting buddies,” the vice president said.
But seriously, folks.
Cheney laid out the Bush legacy. “The absence of another 9/11 is not an accident. It’s an achievement,” the vice president said. He condemned Congress for failing to extend Bush’s warrantless wiretap legislation, but has not yet mentioned the president’s veto of a bill to ban waterboarding.
The vice president also emphasized the need to extend the Bush tax cuts soon set to expire, which Cheney said would cost 116 million Americans an average $1,800. “And they wouldn’t have to move a muscle to do it, because the tax cuts would simply expire,” he said.
The audience, nibbling on its salad, has been polite — but their enthusiasm isn’t out of control. Not the shouting and screaming we saw at the parallel event that Democrats held in late January.
Cheney blogging: That primary race for ag commissioner is already over
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Dinner’s finally underway. Many lobbyists, plus a full turnout by state elected officials. Lt. Gov. Casey Cagle is in sight, and House Speaker Glenn Richardson just passed by.
State GOP chairman Sue Everhart gave the welcome. “I think I look great behind this vice presidential podium,” she said.
Gary Black, who ran in ’06 against Democratic incumbent Tommy Irvin for commissioner of agriculture, was introduced by Everhart to lead 750 diners in the singing of the national anthem.
“He’ll be the next agriculture commissioner of Georgia,” Everhart announced. That’s known as clearing the field of any primary opposition.
Blogging for Cheney: Brace yourself for a nasty rush-hour
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
It’s 4:25 p.m., and Vice President Dick Cheney still isn’t on the ground in Atlanta. Which is bad news for any of you commuting southward from downtown.
“I’m sure the Secret Service is doing everything they can to make this as painless as possible,” said Ben Fry, the spokesman for the state GOP. You’ll recall that on Cheney’s last trip to Atlanta, to Kennesaw Mountain for a gathering of descendants of Union soldiers, the vice president locked up rush-hour traffic on the northside.
About 750 diners are expected here. Tickets are a minimum of $750, but their are no caps on how much donors can give.
Fry said he didn’t know what the vice president will be talking about. We’re betting Cheney’s speechwriters are thanking their stars for Elliot Spitzer.
FYI, reporters at the Cheney event have now been assigned an embarrassed young man whose duty it will be to escort journalists — including those faces you see on local TV — to and from the hotel facilities. Yes, TMI. We know.
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Blogging from the Cheney bash. Three hours early.
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Vice President Dick Cheney shows up here at the Atlanta Hilton somewhere in the six o’clock hour, just in time for rush hour.
Which is why members of the press — and everyone else — were required to be here, and patted down, three hours early.
That’s a longer lead time for security than President Bush required on his last trip through here.
The event is the annual Presidents’ Day fund-raiser for the state Republican party.
Ran into one GOP strategist downstairs, who wondered whether anyone other than the retired or the very rich could afford to spend 180 minutes cooling his heels in security limbo.
That’s his thought. We in the press corps are more worried about the health of diners. Waiters are putting out pads of butter and the dessert. And dinner’s not for a long, long time.
Added at 4 p.m.: Security just announced that reporters with bathroom needs need to be escorted from their pen now, or hold it until after 7 p.m. These are the details that make a career in journalism so glamorous.
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Truth and euphemism at the Capitol
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Hardly a day goes by that the people who inhabit the state Capitol don’t prove their ways to be dark and mysterious.
The Republican-controlled Senate Rules Committee just put together its calendar for tomorrow’s crucial 30th day of the legislative session. Any bill that hasn’t passed at least one chamber by Tuesday midnight will be considered, for the most part, dead.
The standards used to create the list are unclear.
Let’s take the case of two sets of Democratic bills.
S.B. 441 and S.B. 442, sponsored by state Sen. Ed Tarver of Augusta, would make it illegal to lie when testifying before a Senate or House committee — punishable by fines or hard time.
That’s right. Currently, it’s quite legal to spout the most bald-faced falsehood in the Capitol. And it will be legal to do so next year, too. Tarver’s bills were given no place on the Tuesday calendar, and are thus dead for the session.
The official line is that Republican lawmakers feared that asking lobbyists and members of the executive branch to tell the truth would curtail free speech. And Lord knows, lying is the most liberated kind of speech there is, ranking right up there next to proposals of marriage.
However, we were quietly informed that primary problem lay with the bills’ fiscal note, which indicated the legislation would force a vast and costly overhaul of the state prison system.
Nevertheless, there is news for those interested in good government. While the Senate may not have a stomach for the truth, it does have an appetite for euphemism.
The Rules Committee voted to permit senators to debate the merits S.R. 809.
This legislation would encourage the renaming of “seat belts” to “life belts.” And “air bags” would be known as “life bags.”
Chief sponsor of S.R. 809 is Emmanuel Jones of Decatur, owner of a car dealership.
Do not scoff. There’s opportunity here. If this measure passes, then “seat belt” and “air bag” would cleansed of their current meanings — and thus would be open for new business.
We suggest an amendment:
Henceforth, an “air bag” will designate a Georgia politician, preferably one who enjoys being lied to at every turn. And “seat belt” will be defined as the slug of whiskey that an air bag enjoys, from his armchair, at the end of a long day.
Isakson: Grandpa, yes. Governor, maybe
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Sen. Johnny Isakson was racing to the hospital to see his newly born eighth grandchild today when we finally caught up with him to ask if he knew anything about a website promoting him as a candidate for Georgia governor - in 2010.
The website, Draftjohnny.com, gives 10 reasons Isakson, now a first-term U.S. senator, should be Georgia’s next chief executive, including Isakson’s “steady hand,” his business experience, his ability to unite the Republican Party and his status as “a proven conservative.”
“I’ve never seen it,” Isakson said of the site and the Facebook page to which it links. “Don’t know anything about it, and that’s all there is.”
Isakson himself has hinted at the possibility of running for governor in 2010 rather than seek reelection, by saying only that he’ll be on the 2010 ballot without specifying which office.
Efforts to reach people who may have created the site were not immediately successful.
“I’m not a Facebook kind of guy, so I’m not signed up,” Isakson said. “I just learned how to send e-mail.”
The senator and his newest grandchild, William, were both doing fine last we heard.
