The Senate Ethics Committee admonished Sen. Roland Burris today for being "less than candid" about his contacts with impeached Gov. Rod Blagojevich in the months before Burris' appointment to the Senate.
In a letter to the Illinois Democrat, the ethics panel said it "found that you should have known that you were providing incorrect, inconsistent, misleading or incomplete information" during its investigation into whether Burris had been truthful about his contacts with Blagojevich associates.
The panel said, however, that it "did not find that the evidence before it supported any actionable violations of law."
So the conservative icon was determined not to follow the media herd. In a half-hour interview with the Republican Party's hottest commodity, Limbaugh did not ask Palin about her quarrels with John McCain's presidential campaign, her interview with CBS' Katie Couric, her clothes, her husband or her ambitions.
Instead, he offered her a platform for policy, a chance to burnish her credentials, to add gravitas to the resume.
On the green revolution: "A lot of snake-oil science. ... Somebody's making an awful lot of money" from the fear of global warming.
On healthcare: "There are lots of common-sense solutions before we get the federal government involved."
And, finally, on the "drill, baby, drill" chant that defined her appearance before the Republican National Convention last summer: "What is complicated about tapping into safe supplies" of oil?
Responding to Vice President Biden's recent comment that addressing environmental issues is more complicated then just drilling, Palin said, "It's not that complicated, it's political."
Well, I think what you saw there is -- and of course it's not just the Republican machine, it's the Democrat machine, too. You know, if you're not the anointed one within the machine, sometimes you have a much tougher row to hoe and that's what Hoffman faced. He was the underdog.
I think great timing for him, though, to stand strong on his conservative credentials and essentially come out of nowhere and prove that an American without that resume, without that machine backing can truly make a difference in an election like this.
RUSH: Well, now, you used the term, "If you're not the anointed one by the party machine, you're the underdog and you have a tough row to hoe." Based on things that I read, the Republican establishment would not anoint you to be a nominee of their party should you choose to go that way.
Palin, who upset the entrenched GOP establishment in Alaska to win the gubernatorial primary, chuckled.
Wow, for somebody who's supposed to be such a political joke, an Arctic ditz and eminently dismissable as a serious anything except maybe a stay-at-home hockey mom, Sarah Palin is sure drawing an awful lot of attention from Democrats and eager critics.
The launch of her "Going Rogue" interviews Monday on "Oprah," of her book today, of her on-air chat today with Rush Limbaugh at 10 a.m. Pacific and of her mid-America bus book tour Wednesday ignited a surprisingly large blizzard of derogatory Democrat dis-missives.
Every few minutes another note from Democratic National Committee operatives and others dropped into electronic mailboxes across the media-verse, helpfully passing on even the tiniest tidbit of negative news about Palin.
You know how sometimes a friend tells you how much he/she doesn't really care about....
She is the political wife who bucked tradition. When scandal struck her husband, the governor of South Carolina, she did not stand by his side. Instead, Jenny Sanford packed up her things and their four children and moved out of the governor's mansion for the family's home on Sullivan's Island.
Today she issued a letter supporting another "principled, conservative, tough and smart" woman in the crowded Republican primary to succeed Mark Sanford. (You may recall the governor, who once had presidential aspirations, went AWOL last summer, telling his staff he was hiking along the Appalachian Trail while he was actually in Argentina romping with his mistress.)
Jenny Sanford's pick for the state's next governor -- Nikki Haley -- was once a strong ally of Gov. Sanford, but in the wake of the scandal over his disappearance and his affair, she distanced herself, removing his photo from her campaign website.
This is one endorsement that could actually carry some weight. Jenny Sanford, a former Wall Street executive, was instrumental in managing her husband's campaigns, and has a network of supporters around the state. "It sends a signal that you might not be wasting your vote," said Danielle Vinson, a political scientist at Furman University.
In a letter, first reported by South Carolina's State newspaper, Jenny Sanford also talked about how her family is coping in the aftermath of the national scandal.
(UPDATE: An updated paragraph has been added below.)
Not that anybody even cares or clicked here on purpose or will gobble up every word because Sarah Palin isn't even Alaska's Republican governor anymore and her GOP presidential ticket lost last year big-time and critics made a lot of fun of her habits and family and her clothing and the way she talks and didn't get an abortion and then quit as Alaska's governor.
And she's got no chance of succeeding in national politics because she's a dim conservative and no one cares anything about her to the point that her book publisher, HarperCollins, only printed 1.5 million advance copies of "Going Rogue," coming out next week.
But first Monday comes an appearance on TV with Oprah, who became a media billionairess by simply boring her audience with what they didn't want to see. (BTW, that interview was taped in Chicago today and Palin reportedly did not say no when asked if she wanted to do a TV show.)
(UPDATE: 7:18 p.m. On her Facebook page tonight Palin reported that Oprah was "hospitable and gracious," the audience "warm, energized and (no doubt) curious"" and the two women enjoyed the "great conversation" so much they went over time; the extra chatter will go on Oprah.com.)
However, just in case there are one or two people out there who remain interested in the ...
You'll note that the tour starts in Michigan. Get it? Oh, c'mon, sure you do!
Longtime Ticket readers will recall it was the stumbling McCain campaign's decision to, in effect, forfeit Michigan to the Obama Democrats a year ago and stop campaigning there.
Which caused McCain's Republican pitbull partner to grumble about giving up anywhere so easily.
Which caused those brave McCain staffers to anonymously leak their own grumblings that Palin was "going rogue."
Which provided the rebounding political celebrity with her best-selling book title -- "Going Rogue: An American Life" -- which so far has 1.5 million copies in print.
And that's before the Oprah show on Nov. 16. There'll be a five-part interview with....
UPDATE: 2:44 p.m. Saturday NBC has updated its lineup below.)
ABC's "This Week With George Stephanopoulos": Virginia Gov. Tim Kaine, chairman of the Democratic National Committee; along with Michael Steele, chairman of the Republican National Committee; and a roundtable with Democrat Donna Brazile, Republican pollster Frank Luntz and ABC's Sam Donaldson, Cokie Roberts and George Will.
Bloomberg's "Political Capital With Al Hunt": House Minority Whip Eric Cantor (R-Va.).
CBS' "Face the Nation" with Bob Schieffer: Sens. Jack Reed (D-R.I.) and Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.), Reps. Ike Skelton (D-Mo.) and Debbie Wasserman Schultz (D-Fla.) and Republican consultant Ed Rollins.
CNN's "GPS With Fareed Zakaria": Aspen Institute's Walter Isaacson, "The Years of Lyndon Johnson" author Robert Caro, columnist Peggy Noonan, "Creating Black Americans" author Nell Irvin Painter and former Pakistan President Pervez Musharraf.
CNN's "State of the Union" with John King: GOP Gov.-elect Bob McDonnell of Virginia, Republican pollster Bill McInturff, Democratic pollster Peter Hart, James Carville, Mary Matalin and former Soviet Union President Mikhail Gorbachev.
"Fox News Sunday" with Chris Wallace: McDonnell, Sen. Joe Lieberman (I-Conn.) and Reps. Mike Pence (R-Ind.) and Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.). With roundtable of Brit Hume, NPR's Mara Liasson, the Weekly Standard's Willliam Kristol and the New York Post's Kirsten Powers.
UPDATE: NBC's "Meet the Press" with David Gregory: Govs. Haley Barbour of Mississippi (Republican) and Ed Rendell of Pennsylvania (Democrat), David Brooks, MSNBC's Rachel Maddow, Republican strategist Ed Gillespie and NBC's Tom Brokaw. Meet the Press has added Gen. George Casey, Army Chief of Staff, to its guest lineup.
California Lt. Gov. John Garamendi was sworn in as a member of Congress today. He will represent the Bay Area's 10th Congressional District. He's a Democrat, but his rise creates an opportunity for Republicans, as we'll explain in just a bit.
Garamendi won the seat with almost 53% of the vote in a special election on Tuesday, soundly defeating Republican businessman David Harmer.
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi swore Garamendi in. She said his win, along with the election Tuesday of New York Democrat Bill Owens, meant one important thing: Two more Democratic votes when the healthcare overhaul hits the floor of the House on Saturday.
Mark Silva has more on what Pelosi said over at our snappy new blog about the goings-on in Washington, D.C. Now.
Garamendi's new gig means the lieutenant governor's seat is now empty.
And that means, as our colleague in Sacramento, Shane Goldmacher, explains today, that Republican Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger now has the power to name a replacement. Except that Schwarzenegger's choice will have to be confirmed by the Democratic-dominated Legislature -- which could set up a political showdown.
-- Kate Linthicum
And you have the power to get Twitter alerts of each new Ticket item. Simply click here, or follow us @latimestot.
Photo: John Garamendi and his wife, Patti, celebrate his election victory Tuesday night. Credit: Associated Press.
If you followed the suspense of Tuesday's elections, odds are you landed on Fox News.
Fox News Channel absolutely crushed the other networks in prime-time election coverage ratings.
Despite -- or perhaps thanks to -- being on the Obama White House enemies list recently.
Between 5 p.m. and 8 p.m. (8 p.m. to 11 p.m. Eastern time), Fox News grabbed 4.04 million viewers, according to Nielsen Media Research.
The other outlets weren't even close.
MSNBC had 974,000 viewers. The CNN-owned HLN (previously CNN2 or CNN Headline News) had 842,000, and CNN trailed with 826,000.
Even with the CNN networks' combined 1.67 million viewers, it was still way behind Fox News in viewership.
Fox News even dominated in the younger 25-54 age demographic with 1.13 million. The three other networks combined don't even touch that number.
The divide between Fox News and MSNBC somewhat underscores the big win for Republicans in New Jersey and Virginia, though not the loss of a conservative congressional candidate in New York. The big numbers for Fox News, often considered a right-leaning network, demonstrates that conservatives nationwide may have kept a close eye on the East Coast competitions.
A few things to take away from Tuesday's election results:
Barack Obama's got no political coattails if Barack Obama's not on the ballot:
The Democratic president invested himself and his prestige (and his vice president) in gubernatorial races in New Jersey and Virginia, where close ally Tim Kaine is the departing governor and has a second full-time job as chairman of the Democratic National Committee. Didn't help. (Will this hurt Kaine's chances of being Obama's VP pick in 2012?)
Both Democrats still lost, especially Virginia Democrat Creigh Deeds. Virginians returned to the GOP column in a big way, electing Bob McDonnell as governor plus a Republican lieutenant governor and a Republican attorney general for only the second time. And the first GOP governor in 12 years.
New Jersey voters love their Democrats until they don't. As they did in the past when embracing Christie Todd Whitman and Tom Kean, Garden State voters threw out an incumbent Democrat (multimillionaire marathoner Jon Corzine, who became so desperate late that he put out an ad mocking his Republican opponent's corpulence).
New Jerseyans chose instead a former federal prosecutor, Republican Chris Christie (see photo above), proving in the process that it's not over till the fat guy sings.
Interesting historical anecdote that sounds strangely familiar for some reason: The last time....
