Okay, there are a lot of stories percolating. You should consider each section an update as you read, and the updates, hopefully, will continue this morning time permitting.
- You Make The Call: The Boston Herald, quoting an anonymous source (so take it with a grain of salt at this time), is reporting that Rep. Kennedy's claim that "I consumed no alcohol prior to the incident" may not be entirely accurate.
WASHINGTON -U.S. Rep. Patrick Kennedy insisted yesterday that he had consumed “no alcohol” before he slammed his Mustang convertible into a concrete barrier near his office, but a hostess at a popular Capitol Hill watering hole told the Herald she saw him drinking in the hours before the crash
“He was drinking a little bit,” said the woman, who works at the Hawk & Dove and would not give her name.
Leaving his office late last night, Kennedy refused to say whether he’d been to the Hawk & Dove the night before.
Howie Carr in the Herald this morning asks a good question (subscription or dead tree version necessary):
Bad news for Patches Kennedy, good news for Cynthia McKinney.
At the risk of sounding like Jesse Jackson, do you think there’s a bit of a racial double standard at work here?
White congressman swerving around Capitol Hill at 2:45 a.m., with no lights on, smashes up his car, staggers around outside, claims he's on his way to a "vote," inquires if the cops know who he is, and ... is given a lift home. That's how Patches Kennedy got treated.
Then there's Cynthia McKinney of Georgia, a black Congresswoman who strides through a security gate, is chased by a Capitol cop, punches cop but doesn't endanger anyone's life and ... is the target of a federal grand jury.
Will the race warriors bring up this seeming double standard? I think not.
UPDATE: A flashback classic, from Iowahawk. It is finally time to exit the Oldsmobile.
- I've got to give props to the Today Show this morning, certainly a rare event. They covered the confrontation between ex-CIA analyst Ray McGovern, staunch defender of Mary McCarthy, and Sec. of Defense Donald Rumsfeld yesterday in very balanced fashion this morning I thought. When they identified Mr. McGovern they didn't just list his CIA credentials, but did also call him a "political activist." Yup. He's a member of VIPS, the Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity, a misnomer if there ever was one, as outlined here by Rick Moran.
- Be afraid. Be very afraid. Well, maybe just concerned every time you drive through the "Big Dig," Boston's public works project to bury the north-south highway passage through the city. The project had cost and time overruns, already sprang leaks this winter, and now we hear of a conspiracy to deliver substandard concrete.
A widening Big Dig investigation will examine a range of companies' construction practices, authorities said yesterday, as they announced federal fraud charges against managers at the region's biggest concrete supplier in allegedly delivering inferior concrete that was used in tunnels, ramps, and roadways.
Six managers from Aggregate Industries NE Inc. were indicted in federal court on charges of running a conspiracy that delivered 5,000 truckloads of tainted concrete -- 1.2 percent of the concrete used on the entire project -- to the Big Dig over nine years. The managers used a web of falsified documents to cover up their ploy, federal prosecutors said.
US Attorney Michael J. Sullivan said the investigation is in the early stages and did not rule out further indictments.
''I think we've just scratched the surface," Sullivan said, adding that other companies would face scrutiny now. ''I'm not confident that everybody else followed all the specifications and all the rules."
It was the most serious criminal accusation of wrongdoing in the controversial 15-year history of the $14.6 billion Central Artery/Tunnel project. The investigation was prompted by a lawsuit filed by a still-anonymous whistle-blower last year.
''This is bad; this is really bad," said state Attorney General Thomas F. Reilly. ''The taxpayers of Massachusetts and the United States did not get what they paid for."
On the one hand, it was only about 1% of the delivered concrete. On the other hand, what else did the construction managers fail to supervise? My question? What political connections allowed Aggregate Industries NE Inc. to get the contract in the first place? This is Boston. You don't get squat unless you know somebody, one way or another.
