Two Important Updates

First, we now know the person who dictated Joke Line’s horrifically bad column to him on the Dems’ RESTORE Act co-written by Rush Holt, and that would be Repug (of course) Rep Pete Hoekstra (pictured). And Christy Hardin Smith thoroughly dissects Hoekstra and his mendacity here.

Update (to an update? I guess): On this and other matters, Hunter at The Daily Kos has some thoughts (gosh, I wish he'd tell us how he really feels).

Second, it turns out that another reason why Mark Everson resigned as the head of the Red Cross was because the “female subordinate” he was carrying on with was a married woman who is now also pregnant (buried in the story – wonder what would have happened if we were talking about someone appointed by a Dem?).

Stephanie Strom’s story in today’s New York Times also makes an important point about how the Red Cross board took 18 months to hire Everson and then chose to fire him for this; you could argue that a sanction would have been severe enough given all the time and money spent on this guy along with some reports that he was doing a good job. As much as I’d like to see Everson pilloried, I wouldn’t encourage that if it compromised the organization’s effectiveness.

So now the board is trying to find someone familiar with non-profit and humanitarian efforts, to the point where the name of former General and Bushco sycophant Colin Powell has been floated (sorry, but he looked the other way on Iraq, and even though he’s a different species from Dubya’s “inner circle,” he’ll be tarred the same way from now on – and does he have that kind of experience anyway?).

Why not ask this guy just above on the right instead?