The wash from the week that just ended - finallyl

Summit County Democratic chairman Jeff Fusco drew a good turnout  - 100 or so - for a pep session of party activist sand candidates on a rainy Saturday at the Dems' Grant Street headquarters to deliver a single message:  Hit the streets.

The centerpiece was the launch for delivering 80,000 sample ballots in the county.  "It will take a couple of  weeks,"  Fusco  told me afterward.  "But we'll get it done."

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Finally unwinding after the near-collapse of the Steelers. The game saver:  Ben Roethlisberger, who never  knows enough to panic and led the team to a field goal spot on the field in the final minute.. It was known as winning ugly, but worth a win in the standings.  Whew!

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When Eric Cantor joined aWall Street investment banker after his loss in the Republican primary, his new career offered perfect symmetry to Gov Kasich's own line of work when he voluntarily left congress to become a very rich man at Lehman Brothers (now defunct).  For the one per centers who are ideologically with you, there's always room for one more.

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So eager are the Obama haters to find fault with his every breath, Dana Perino - former president Bush's press secretary - noted that Obama's brief tourist walk at Stonehenge had bad "optics".  I wonder how many divisions the optics army has.

Running cover for Bush

EVEN AS we await the few moments left until George Bush renditions himself back to Texas, his friends in the administration are doing their damnedest to give him cover while they think of odd things to say - lies, really - about his legacy.  I was particularly astonished that he was said to have read more books than a Doubleday editor, including in the past year the works of Albert Camus.  As one who once took a study course in, of all things, existentialism, I can tell you that Camus doesn't always come through that clearly on first reading, especially so when you are someone who is supposed to be preoccupied with workaday matters like... oh, rising unemployment and closed retail enterprises across the spectrum.  One wonders why his apologists didn't advance  such books as Treasure Island or Wizard of Oz as his night-table reading staples.   His entire cabinet could relate to them and grade the president accordingly.  Besides, being a defiant Frenchman, Camus never regarded himself as an existentialist, although most other literary people do.   But that's another story.

Meantime, regarding the legacy, we are told to be patient in a waiting  game until the truth is fully known about his historic  accomplishments. That tactic recalls the six-month leaps of faith "until we hear from General Petraeus" - now a shopworn quaint phrase no longer useful for the Bushies' political survival.  Karl Rove, Dana Perino, Donald Rumsfeld and Dick Cheney are all huddling on their own two yard line to throw a 98-yard touchdown pass that would still leave the game well out of reach for them.  So what else is new?   This is a team that has been in denial for so long that they don't recognize the benefit of simply cutting and running  while leaving a toppling world to their successors.  Won't happen.  Not with this gang.  Not with the legacy thing.  It's their last remaining false hope.     

Unemployment, Perino-style

DANA PERINO, the White House's forever overwhelmed press secretary who will be out of work in January, offered for economics textbooks the following insight into  why the Bush administration opposes an extension of unemployment benefits.   Responding to a press conference question, Perino Merino explained: "We want people to be able to return to work as soon as possible...I hope that everybody who wants to find a job can find a job."   And if they can't?  Dana's hopes won't make it so.  

Meantime, greeting me this morning on the front page of the Plain Dealer   was a big photo of Brady Quinn speaking in behalf of McCain-Palin in Cleveland.  Bench-warmer Brady, as you may be aware, has been figuratively out of work for more than a year since he signed a stratospheric contract with the Browns.  It figures that he would have a better opportunity to protect the cash under McCain's non-tax increase policies for the wealthy.   He has a lot of company among some other cash-rich athletes (with the exception of the cash-richest of them all on the lake,  Cleveland icon and Obama supporter LeBron James).