Notes For Saturday, November 30, 2002

Broward News: Buddy Nevins reports on surprising Lori Parrish numbers (she really shouldn't have contributed to Katherine Harris). ["Besieged commissioner gets set for dirty campaign". In the Sun Sentinel.] 8:49 AM [Go to current Florida Politics site (no popup ads)]

Homegrown Media Asleep? The National Century scandal was broken by Washington Post Staff Writers Carrie Johnson and Robert O'Harrow Jr., writing from Port Charlotte, Florida on Monday, November 25, 2002. The Bush Audit scandal was first reported by Larry Margasak of the Associated Press on November 26, 2002; the AP's Brent Kallestad did a follow up the following day, and printed Bush's cryptic response: "There's no moving parts here that yield some kind of secret conspiracy."

Where has Florida's press corps been in all of this? Silent. There has been nothing aside from the AP wire stories about the audit scandal . . . perhaps they are all digging deeply and will have blockbuster stuff for us in the near future.


8:38 AM [Go to current Florida Politics site (no popup ads)]

Audit Scandal Crawling Along: The audit scandal does not seem to have any legs. There has been little coverage outside the AP wire stories, and only one editorial thus far (see below).

The Daytona Beach News Journal editorializes today that "Pension fund conflict: Request for audit delay looks suspicious". The editorial speculates that John Ellis Bush sought the delay of the pension fund audit (from Chief Justice Rehnquist's daughter) to avoid attention being drawn to the more than $300 million that Alliance Capital, the fund manager, lost when it invested in Enron stock after Enron's downhill slide had begun. John Ellis, the savvy businessman, was Chairman of the pension fund when this happened.

Whatever John Ellis Bush's motivation for delaying the audit, it remains unlikely that any of the three (3) inquiries into this matter will produce anything more than a whitewash. Notwithstanding Republican Senator Charles Grassley call for his Senate Finance Committee staff to look into what he calls "serious" allegations about why Rehnquist delayed the investigation, the General Accounting Office investigation, and the review by the FBI-led panel of the President's Council on Integrity and Efficiency, do we really expect to see a fair investigation?

8:20 AM [Go to current Florida Politics site (no popup ads)]

The People Speak: Please read this letter to the editor; no wonder our "tin-arsed" governor (see preceding note) thinks 900 people a day moving to Florida is a good thing. 8:02 AM [Go to current Florida Politics site (no popup ads)]

Q - It Isn't A Term Of Endearment: A - What did Australia's Sydney Morning Herald mean by calling John Ellis Bush "tin-arsed"? The Australian daily called our John Ellis Bush "tin-arsed" in referring to a Carl Hiaasen column in the Miami Herald that harpooned Bush for citing Florida's population growth as a Good Thing. Whereas in truth, argued Hiaasen, rampant growth is turning Floridian into an "urban pit", writhing under highway congestion, water shortages, street crime and an ever-slimming public purse. ["Love thy neighbour" in Australia's Sydney Morning Herald]

By the way, the Hiaasen column is as always - well. most always - worth a read. Hiaasen savages Bush's claim that 900 people moving to Florida each day is a good thing - "If he lived in Kansas, would he brag about the locusts?" 7:56 AM [Go to current Florida Politics site (no popup ads)]

It's The Economy Stupid: George II's "war on terror" will danage Florida's economy. As Many As 50, 000 Britons who own property in Florida could be affected by changes to visa laws designed to keep out terrorists. ["Is the fairy tale over in the Sunshine State?" In the UK's Telegraph 7:27 AM [Go to current Florida Politics site (no popup ads)]