Wednesday Roundup: Lightning Crashes The GOP Debate

If you had told me yesterday that you could count on the CNN Republican debate to provide jokes this morning, I would have believed you. I didn't count on the jokes stemming from this case of what will no doubt be seen as cosmic hilarity (irony, instant messaging, what have you): as Rudy Giuliani began to answer a question about his pro-choice beliefs, lightning shorted out the sound system in the building. We can't make this stuff up, folks.

(In case you were wondering, while Iraq was the large issue at hand for Democrats, the GOP focused on immigration. Get used to that.)

Speaking of shorting out, TXU has agreed to settle with state agents in order to gain absolution on charges that they conscripted businesses into service contracts by way of automatic renewal. The regulators levied the charges that this was illegal a while ago, and TXU is going to end up paying about $5 million, but as terms of the settlement, TXU doesn't have to admit any wrongdoing. I will never for the life of me understand the "Exorbitant Cash From A Corporation In Lieu Of An Apology" method of resolving illegal behavior, but I guess business is business.

In more government agency news, apparently Harris County's Toll Road Authority has been paying for golf trips, holiday parties, and field trips with money donated to it by companies it does business with. The Chron has more on the story, which seems to involve a place called SplashTown. I don't know how anything you do somewhere named SplashTown can be illegal. Contract malfeasance can ruin even a water park.

This should probably be higher on the list, but you've already heard about it for 20 hours straight: Scooter Libby was sentenced yesterday to 30 months in jail for perjuring himself. I don't know that anyone doubted this would happen, despite the letters written on his behalf by the likes of Kissinger, Wolfowitz, Feith, and Rumsfeld. The clamoring calls from some reaches of the Right are for him to be pardoned; I think the Left wants him pardoned worse than anyone on the Right, so they can have yet another thing to point to as a symbol of how rotten the Iraq War buildup was, how Republicans outed a covert CIA agent, and so on. I find it particularly disturbing that General Peter Pace, Chair of the Joint Chiefs, would write a letter in support of a convicted perjurer who contributed to deliberately blowing the cover of Valerie Plame, who was actively working on nuclear proliferation issues and likely preventing enemies of the United States from acquiring weapons of mass destruction. This is shameful, and I hope it clears the wash in a few days so we can talk more frankly about it.

In local news, who says municipal meetings are boring? In Sunset, Texas on Monday evening, a small "scuffle" broke out at a city council meeting over where a video recorder could or could not be placed to record the proceedings. Sounds like someone has some material for their first mail piece next May.

Finally today: I am a fan of The Daily Show in general and Jon Stewart in particular, as I'm sure many of you are. The American Journalism Review's Rachel Smolkin has written a thoughtful piece on the show's appeal, how it handles the news, and what lessons the media could take from the program.