The Miami Herald had a nice scoop today about the NFL offering local politicians Super Bowl tickets at their $600 or $700 face value. A lot of them -- including Broward County Commissioners Sue Gunzburger, Stacy Ritter, John Rodstrom, and Diana Wasserman-Rubin -- took advantage of the offer. Josephus Eggelletion, Broward's mayor, ducked the question like the corrupt, sleazy coward that he is. Listen to this:
''I choose to keep my private life my private life,'' said Broward County Mayor Josephus Eggelletion. ''I can understand if someone was giving some tickets to the game, or offering them at less than face value, but that's not the case.''
What a douche.
The only really surprising name on the Herald-generated list of those who took the tickets is Gunzburger, who has pushed for stricter ethics rules, including a ban on gifts.
The worst offender of all was Miami-Dade Commissioner County Manager George Burgess, who accepted eight tickets for "personal use," the pig. Those are worth about $25,000 on the street.
The story -- which was put together by Jack Dolan, Jennifer Lebovich, and Erika Bolstad -- raises interesting questions. Local governments gave hundreds of thousands to the Super Bowl committee (including $750,000 from Broward). Assumedly, the politicians voted on that. So I'm going to go ahead and say if that's the case, then I think it's an actionable ethical conflict for the pols who both voted and accepted tix. The tickets, even at face value, are huge gifts, worth about $3,000 apiece). The out for the politicians is the face-value technicality, which could be exploited by lawyers to defend the officials. Ilene Lieberman, who in addition to lobbying for developers defends corrupt politicians on the side with her husband Stuart Michelson, declined to accept the tickets. I find that interesting.
Whatever the conclusion, the whole thing smells worse than Zach Thomas's practice jersey. Now all we have to do is see how many of them give the tickets back and how many keep their greedy little fingers clutched around them.
After the jump: Time For Regime Change
All I could think of last night when I watched the president on TV was, "Why in the hell do we still have to listen to this devious dolt?" He plays all contrite but at the same time gives us all the big "Fuck You!" by intensifying his debacle in Iraq, by sending in more of our troops to kill and die in a bloody disaster he created but still doesn't understand.
You can't help but feel like Iraq isn't the only country that has been abducted by the creep. Recently somebody remarked to me that the Dems would be investigating the hell out of Bush and possibly impeach him in the coming months. I said they wouldn't do that because they didn't want to turn off voters and drag the country into a digressive political fight. Now I know there's only one recourse for the Democrats and the country: Impeach the son of a bitch along with his dirty cohort Dick Cheney. Now.
The goods are there. He's a criminal and has been one for years. A war criminal.
Sun-Sentinel columnist Michael Mayo captured the mood of the veterans in his piece today, which is headlined, "It's Vietnam all over again."
