Two stories in Tupelo’s Daily Journal catch my early-AM eye.
Bill Minor’s review of his encounters with three generations of John S. McCains includes some interesting stuff about the current edition and Dickie Scruggs:
Though I’d briefly met McCain back in the 1980s when he was a member of the U.S. House, it was 1999 at a small private luncheon in Jackson here honoring the Arizona Republican that I had a good opportunity to talk and interact with him. Mind you, the luncheon host was Richard “Dickie” Scruggs, the Mississippi super trial lawyer now under indictment for judicial bribery involving legal fees in a Katrina insurance case settlement.
Scruggs and McCain had become close the previous year when Scruggs and Mississippi Atty. Gen. Mike Moore spent weeks on Capitol Hill trying to persuade Congress to approve a national settlement with tobacco companies over health care damages. McCain, then chairman of the Senate Commerce Committee considering the bill, turned over his office facilities to the two Mississippians to wage their campaign. (In the end, the bill failed under the 60-vote cloture rule.)
Some heavy-hitter guests at the luncheon (certainly, excluding me) raised a pot of money for McCain’s planned bid for the 2000 GOP presidential nomination. As history records, his “Straight Talk Express” campaign fell short, chiefly after George W. Bush’s forces used a smear campaign in South Carolina to stop McCain’s surge.
Wups, not a great name to crop up in the middle of your campaign for the Presidency, eh, Senator? And, according to Minor, Dickie isn’t John McCain’s only Mississippi problem:
One major foe was Mississippi’s GOP Sen. Thad Cochran who headed the Senate Appropriations Committee. McCain recently described Cochran as a “pork king” in an interview with NBC’s Tim Russert. In turn, Cochran blasted McCain’s well-known hot-headedness, adding: “I certainly know no other president since I’ve been here who’s had a temperament like that.” (Cochran backed former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney until Romney dropped out, then later endorsed McCain.)
Nor does McCain seem to get far with Bill Minor himself anymore:
Once considered by Democratic Sen. John Kerry as his 2004 running mate, McCain in his 2008 presidential bid has veered far from his maverick days. Now pandering to the GOP right wing on social issues, he has become such a hawk on the War in Iraq that he’s talking an unending American military presence there and “winning.” What is there to win in Iraq?, most Americans ask. For two years they have said they want out and soon.
The second new DJ item turns out to be merely an update of Patsy Brumfield’s story about the apparent concluding session of this N.D. Miss. federal grand jury (the original version brought to our attention yesterday by IAG). The new passage holds only local interest, having something to do with “the legal woes surrounding the Oakland beef plant.” Note that neither version mentions local-favorite Joey Langston . . .
Lots of talk in Lee County MS that Circuit Court Judge Thomas J. Gardner III has received a GJ target letter. He is very close with Joey Langston.
Hope its not true but I heard this from several different people yesterday. One of which is a Tupelo city official. Local Lawyers have been saying (Gossip) this all week.
Now that would be really interesting. When will something be coming out on this deal?
It may turn out to be tupe afterall.
It being Minor, I am sure there is a side or several sides I am not hearing. I’m not a fan of McCain but I don’t take what Minor writes as gospel either.
Kingfish, Minor is a crazed dementia rebel rouser on ritalin…The Mississippi Republicans I know don’t vote McCain/Kennedy..McCain/Fiengold..To old, to much baggage, and toooo far toooo the left of left.
I can see how Scruggs and McCain might have had cordial relations back then; after all, both were former naval aviators, carrier pilots even, which must have been an important bond.
But the Scruggs name is no doubt anathema to McCain nowadays. That’s fo’ sho’.
OT, but I just have to say I love the dog ad on this page, lotus. There’s something therapeutic from just Looking at that big old friendly face. It sure beats the Beast, Ann C******* (I’m assuming her name is of those configuration of letters that attracts spam).
Click,click,click.
Has anyone heard anything from Oxford about the Grand Jury concluding its work? IMHO, their final report will either be a bombshell or a ho-hum. I don’t think they would split the investigation into two GJ’s as this GJ is familiar with all of the facts. Any thoughts?
The dog ad is ok.
But what I find funnier is the “Join Our Team” ad sponsored by John McCain for President.
New paymaster…same as the old paymaster.
Pugs
…and kisses
…to duckweedpond, from Dogstuff.
Love It!! Thank you dogstuff. My male mastiff wants to know if she’s flirts like that with everybody.
Here’s something for you: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jFR014BanWI
Charley Patton’s village Lula, BTW, got its very own blues trail marker this week.
Now, now, Magnolia 5, vitriol from such a sweet blossom as you is most unseemly. Mr. Minor has served us well over the decades, and I believe he’s due a certain amount of respect.
No more on this interesting deal today?
Oh look, I found out what ducky’s valentine is really good at!
Same rumors around Lee county at lunch today. Gardner has received a target letter. I wonder if a reporter has called and asked him yet? Maybe the Daily Journal will step up and get the Judge on the record.
Does a public official have to admit it when asked? He could pull a Jim Hood answer “I dont know what I have been served with. Ask my Assistants.” That would be very telling. Jim Hood admitted he got a target letter by not answering the question when SF asked him on the stand.
What’s Judge Gardner’s reputation around town, Hat? I mean before all this.
I know he’s a Millsaps graduate (like Joey), and went to Ole Miss law school. He’s been on the bench for a good while, too, hasn’t he?
Judge Gardner….If true devastating…..If true let me go puke and then I might be able to tell you exactly how I feel.
magnolia I agree. Dragoman His rep is pretty solid.
Most lawyers locally have a high opinion of him. I hope this is just a rumor but its coming from a lot of different sources.
Make me three, I’ve never heard anything but good things about him from up there or from folks who know him here.
I just copied a question IAT asked yesterday and pasted it into a comment on another thread – if someone answered, I missed it. Since Langston’s plea was to “influencing”, I’m going to paste it again here as I’m really curious:
“If scruggs hired Balducci (or Peters) to use his friendship to influence Judge Lackey (or Delaughter) and to influence the outcome of the case with no money involved (except to Balducci or Peters) what is the crime? Must be one. Or perhaps just unethical? Certainly a deprivation of property without due process under color of state law under 1983, but what is the corresponding criminal statute?”