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Let's just say that the Fenty administration and the D.C. Council aren't planning any friendly get togethers any time soon.
Tensions between the two city government branches had already intensified after news broke late last week that millions of dollars of recreation contracts have been funneled improperly through the semi-autonomous D.C. Housing Authority, allowing bids to be awarded non-competitively to firms owned by friends of Mayor Adrian Fenty, without Council approval. Then, Fenty moved to allow ousted DPR nominee Ximena Hartsock to stay in her job for another 180 days by simply changing her title from "Acting" to "Interim," which prompted this rather astounding exchange of fightin' words in the pages of the Washington Post:
"It's almost becoming a lawless administration," said council member Mary M. Cheh (D-Ward 3). "They seem to have no limits or restraint on what they are willing to do."
Attorney General Peter Nickles, who often speaks on behalf of the administration, said Cheh "has no idea what she's talking about."
"For her to make comments like that, it's stupid," he said. "She's an angry woman."
Come on, Mr. Nickles, surely you must know that calling an accomplished law professor and elected official an "angry woman" is no way to win feminist of the year!
Now enter At-large Council member Kwame Brown (D), who lately has taken it upon himself to play the role of the District government's shame police. Brown's office just put out this statement demanding that Nickles apologize to Cheh:
"Councilmember Cheh deserves an immediate apology from Peter Nickles for calling her an ‘angry woman’ and saying her comments were ‘stupid.’ This is just another example of how the Attorney General has stepped over the line and stooped to the lowest levels. Councilmember Cheh is a respected lawyer and professor whose opinion about the law I have the utmost respect. She is fulfilling her responsibility to ensure the integrity of government."
This feud really is starting to feel like we're mere days away from Vince Gray taking off one of his shoes and pounding it down on the dais.
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Nickles is just agitated that someone would dare attempt to usurp his mandate to say stupid things. Anyway, this reads like more media-generated nontroversy. Who care's who called who stupid or who keeps stinking up the mensroom and refusing to give a courtesy flush? What matters is that suspicious transactions occurred at DCHA that merit full investigation by an independent body. That, and the fact that Peter Nickles is, has been, and continues to be....a bachelor! Suspicious? I'll say. And I won't rest until every tawdry detail of his sick and twisted private life is made public, even if I have to make most of them up. Let the Lord of the Black Land come forth, and may justice be done upon him! Let justice be served though the heavens fall!
I have Viggo Mortensen/Kevin Costner head explody from that rant. Thank you, Monkey.
it's so great that the council has decided to be the PC police for us now.
maybe kwame brown can get his colleague and necrophiliac marion barry to apologize for the racist and sexist things he had to say during the ximena hartsock's hearings?
somehow, i doubt that will ever happen.
Thanks, I'm glad I wasn't the first person to think that Kwame's comments were an embarrassment.
Fight night at the Wilson Building? LET'S GET RRRREADY TO BUMBLE!
It's Mad Woman Cheh: Beyond Thunderdumb.
I'll bring the socks filled with manure. No quarter shall be asked. None shall be given. And no I can't spare twenty-three cents, bi**h! I know I'm ugly, but I don't look like no bank.
His comments notwithstanding, this is what really bugs me:
"Attorney General Peter Nickles, who often speaks on behalf of the administration..."
The man is supposed to represent the District, not the administration. This distinction has long been lost on Fenty and Nickles, and is probably another reason for the feud between the D.C. Council and the mayor.
Whoa. Hold the phone, Mabel. You mean the AG isn't the Mayor's private attorney, pissboy, lickspittle, bag man, hobo dismemberer, and tranny hooker disposal service? Because I distinctly recall seeing all those duties on the AG's job description. They're in really tiny print under, "Other duties as specified."
The mayor would argue that he was elected by the people and so represents the district, and so the AG he appoints represents his administration (which in turn represents the district).
I think there's some merit to that.
Sure, Fenty was elected, but there's the administration (him) and the bureaucracy (the city). Those are two different things.
Nein! Fenty is DC, und DC ist Fenty! I vill hear no more insinuations about the Leader. Nothing bad happened! Sie werden sich hinsetzen! Sie werden ruhig sein! Sie werden nicht beleidigen!
Uh...isn't that a cupcake store?
Oh, ja! DC ist renown for its gourmet cupcakes!
It's not so different as you seem to think.
Fenty as the elected Mayor gets to appoint (with consent of the council) all agency directors and board and commission memmbers. Together, the agencies and boards and commissions make the bureaucracy.
Whereas board and commission appointees are independent, agency heads are not and serve at the pleasure of the mayor.
So, in a very real sense, Fenty is elected to represent dc and is the head of the bureaucracy. That's not to say that Fenty has perfect control over the bureaucracy, but it is "his".
And because of this thing called "checks and balances," the Council controls the purse strings, approves the appointments, and has the power to subpoena incriminating documents that will conclusively prove whether or not Peter Nickles is indeed a bachelor.
With full awareness of the meaning of my words and the responsibility of what I am about to say, it is my considered belief that Mr. Peter Nickles, in every essence of his social beliefs and by the dangerous manner in which he has persistently attacked the American traditions of private property, initiative, and opportunity for advancement, is in fact nothing more or less than a Communist.
I think I like Fenty more in theory than in practice. He appears to be combining the worst of his mentor Mayor Mike (arrogance, unwillingness to explain his actions and consider other viewpoints) with the worst of DC politcs (contract steering, client politics). I want to like the guy, but he doesn't make it easy.
I think I like Fenty more in theory than in practice.
I feel the same way about democracy, christianity, and foreplay. Can you PLEASE bust a nut so we can go to sleep?
I'm pretty sure that Mayor Mike covers the contract steering and client politics in his Mayoral seminar.
I'm pretty sure that Mayor Mike covers the contract steering and client politics in his Mayoral seminar.
But does he cover SUV steering in his contract recipients seminar?
Grammar police alert!
From Kwame Brown: "Councilmember Cheh is a respected lawyer and professor whose opinion about the law I have the utmost respect."
That sentence is grammatically incorrect. I can't diagram why it's wrong, but I know it's wrong.
And can someone tell me when Kwame issued a similar press release decrying Marion Barry's improper use of taxpayer funds to give contracts to the women he was bedding?
Come to think of it, can someone show me a similar outraged press release by Cheh, Gray, or any other Councilmembers?
That sentence is grammatically incorrect. I can't diagram why it's wrong, but I know it's wrong.
It's missing a preposition. "Councilmember Cheh is a respected lawyer and professor for whose opinion about the law I have the utmost respect" would be correct, if a bit stilted. "Councilmember Cheh is a respected lawyer and professor whose opinion about the law I have the utmost respect for" would also be correct and would read far better, unless you're one of those freaks who insists that it is incorrect to end an English sentence with a preposition since it's impossible to end a Latin sentence with one.
I thank the Nerdiness Gods that I was not the only one who noticed this.
Remember, kids: Good grammar costs nothing!
I think it's wrong because a "respected lawyer" wouldn't write legislation like the Protection of Criminals from Light Pollution Act of 2009.
Or introduce a law to put sidewalks on all city streets EXCEPT, you know, those streets in her ward that don't want them.
thanks, cranky, i'm glad i'm not the only one who thinks kwame is swimming in the hypocrisy today. methinks this is just him laying down a marker for a future mayoral run.
Yes. In his case, he's casting swine before pearls.
Mary Cheh may be an angry woman, but she's an angry woman with a degree from Harvard Law. And nice teeth (Seriously, Nickles' teeth give me the willies.)
And great eyes.
Uh-oh, is that sexist?
They're all criminals, and incompetent criminals at that. The mayor, his AG, and the city council should all be shaved down, sprayed with alcohol, and painted black and white in a panda motif.
This just in from Eleanor Holmes Norton. "Hey Cheh, I crated DC's 'angry woman.' Stop stomping on my brand!!"
It's downright unAmerican to deny that ending a sentence in a preposition is correct. Witness the following example, an exchange that occurs dozens of times every second.
Person 1: Hey, you've got a dick for on your forehead.
Person 2: What's a dick for?
Person 1: Ha ha. You don't know what a dick is for.
I passed by the Wilson Building early this morning and saw Peter Nickles heading into the office, but I couldn't tell if he was trying on his vagina costume, or if he looks like that every day.
This calls for a mediator. Someone who can get Nickles to stop calling Cheh an angry woman (and help him stop sounding like an angry man in the process) and stop Cheh from depicting the administration as a drunken cowboy... What's Judge Judy up to these days?