If Karl Rove were to come to a complete stop, would Fred Hiatt's tongue break off?

Pete Rose must really be kicking himself he didn't grab this hired gun back in the summer of '89:

In the present circumstances, members of your Committee have already reached conclusions about the matter under investigation and the Deputy Attorney General has pointed the finger of blame at our client. These are precisely the kinds of circumstances in which even innocent persons are well advised to assert their right not to respond to questions. After all, when counseling our client, we must consider how others…may perceive the facts to be, notwithstanding that such perceptions may not be accurate.

Yeah, right...he even pulls out the "McCarthy Card," a clever distraction always useful for striking at aggressive inquisitors. The rest of the letter focuses on the real purpose, though, which is to plead with Chairman Conyers not to call his client before the House Judiciary Committee and have her actually assert the privilege, in public, under oath. Considering the import of this investigation, and the fact that his client remains on the job at the Justice Department even after she has stated her refusal to answer questions on the grounds that said answers might incriminate her, Dowd's frothing over the issue doesn't win him any sympathy points.

Trivial Pursuits: New York Magazine lists Out Mag's Fifty Most Powerful Gay Men and Women in America. The closet most of these people have to walk out of is the one entitled "Who the F*** Are They?" I mean, who knew that "Chi Chi Larue," "Ingrid Sischy," "Lorie L. Jean," or "Irshad Manji" wielded "power", much less that they were gay?

The LA Times spotlights Gov. Schwartzenegger's practice of filling top state positions with friends and allies with whom he's had a past business relationship (link via Kevin Drum):

On the state chiropractic panel, friends of the governor face complaints that they're protecting the profession at the public's expense.

Board Secretary Franco Columbu, a chiropractor, was best man at the governor's wedding. Chairman Richard H. Tyler, the governor's former chiropractor, is another longtime associate; he greeted Schwarzenegger at the airport when the bodybuilder arrived in the U.S. in 1968.

As chairman, Tyler plays a major role in setting the board's agenda. Allegations that the board has abused its power were the focus of a three-hour hearing Wednesday in the Legislature. Lawmakers examined whether board members voted to endorse a chiropractic treatment because they wanted to protect a chiropractor facing criminal charges in San Joaquin County.

Mr. Columbu should be a familiar name to readers of this blog; besides being the governor's Best Man at his wedding to Maria Shriver, he was also his "business partner" and co-conspirator behind one of Ahnold's early scams in this country.

LA Times Liberated !!: So it would seem, as the Tribune Corp. announces plans to go private. I don't know much about Sam Zell, but I figure any person will be better than the corporate management that sabotaged a once-great newspaper. Hopefully, this will be the start of a national trend, where the gross inefficiencies of publicly-traded corporate ownership of newspapers will be replaced by private control. The sports section might even be worth reading again.