Party at Taricani’s house!
	Dead Men Walking Dubya Bush, our little commander-in-chief, the AWOL chicken hawk ex-National Guardsman, is seen above addressing troops at Fort Pendleton on December 7 in a New York Times photo. Georgie Boy is wearing his " isn’t-that-special! " Ken doll dress-up jacket with the Michael Jackson epaulets and a little CiC patch on the front. Is he precious or what? It is quite an impressive photo of our military might, a Karl Rove wet dream, so P&J give it royal treatment. By our rough count, there are 103 soldiers behind and in front of Dubya. Imagine them all in body bags, squeeze in nearly an extra two-dozen more of our bravest slain young Americans (sans necessary body armor, thanks Rummy) for false or empty reasons in Iraq, and it matches the 136 deaths of US soldiers just in the month of November. Mission accomplished!

Now that the posturing and pedantic Judge Ernest Torres has misguidedly given six months of home confinement to Jim Taricani, P&J’s fave JARhead investigative reporter, we will adhere to at least one of the judge’s wishes: to have Jim’s sentence "mirror as closely as possible" actual prison conditions.

Your superior correspondents have already ordered a set of free weights and a bench press for immediate delivery to Jim’s domicile. We will also make sure that he gets recordings of the entire run of HBO’s Oz. (Hey, wait, isn’t that Frank Corrente? Just joking, Jimbo.) We will help his lovely wife, Laurie, remove all his books from the library, stocking it instead with copies of Soul On Ice, Manchild In the Promised Land, Bob (Prince of the City) Leuci’s new autobiography, All the Centurions, the Koran, the Bible, and an entire set of Reader’s Digest condensed books. We are glad that Mr. Taricani will be able to have a few glasses of wine or other potent potables, as long as it is not "to excess," but P&J — and Jim, we are sure — are longtime adherents of addressing any drinking problem with the adage, "I drink, I get drunk, I fall down — no problem." So when we drop in to smuggle in some drugs, as happens in the best of correctional facilities, toting a 30-pack of Pabst Blue Ribbon and a half-gallon of Jack Daniel’s, we expect that this will meet with Judge Torres’s approval.

Other than that, it will be party hats at the door, with all guests required to wear surfer dude-style anklets, so Jim won’t be self-conscious about the prison Rolex he’s sporting for the old "invisible dog fence" monitoring, and everyone dressed to the nines in vertically striped clothing. To make him feel just like he’s at the ACI, we’re already framing the famous official check-in photo of disgraced former governor Ed "Gerber Baby" DiPrete, in which it looks like the Gerb slept in his car and combed his hair with a washcloth. This can go over the mantle at Casa Taricani. Just click together the heels of those ruby slippers and say, "There’s no place like home."

On a serious note, kudos to Jim (and the folks at WJAR who backed him) for sticking to his right and righteous guns through what we know was a harrowing emotional ordeal, and for the brave message he sends to journalists everywhere. His steadfastness rings even more loudly in a political climate in which chilling the media has become a priority for the secretive, insulting creeps in the White House. Do we yet have those records of "Big Time" Cheney’s energy commission, or the name of who leaked Valerie Plame’s name, Judge Torres? Way to go after the big fish.

REFORM, RHODY-STYLE

That the Republicans in Foster want to act like a bunch of chooches does not mean, of course, that the State House Democrats are all sweetness and light. Kudos to Liz Anderson and Kathy "Faster Pussycat, Kill, Kill" Gregg for their December 13 profile of state Representative John DeSimone, and to Anderson and Scott MacKay for a companion piece a day later on Speaker William Murphy.

As you know, DeSimone is making a run for the speakership (still a position in Vo Dilun state government with more power than the governor). He is the latest in a long line of "reformers" who have pledged to take over the job because their immediate predecessor had become corrupted by "special interests." Those who have been around for a while will remember many of these past reformers: Matty Smith, Joe DeAngelis, John Harwood, and, now, Murphy.

Representative Peter Kilmartin (D-Pawtucket) told the BeloJo scribes that the contested speaker election is about power, not ideology. Indeed, but for some time the subtext for the brass ring has been gambling — "gaming," as its proponents call it. This topic is the elephant in the room that no one wants to address.

Dan McKinnon, former Speaker Pucky Harwood’s law partner, is legal counsel for Lincoln Greyhound. The establishment of a Harrah’s/ Narragansett casino in West Warwick could considerably hurt the track’s cash flow. Murphy represents West Warwick, where a number of political players stand to significantly gain if the casino comes to pass. (As one P&J confidante, an in-the-know player, puts it, "If the casino goes through, there are about a half-dozen people — political operatives whose names you know — who will become millionaires virtually overnight.")

And what about DeSimone? Well, his lineage, as explicated in Monday’s Urinal profile, indicates that he is certainly a player in this, too, although we just aren’t sure where. Here are the prime indicators: his first political patron was la famiglia Bevilacqua (he was a student page in the office of former Senator John J. Bevilacqua and started his legal career at Bevilacqua, DeSimone & Gosz, and, yes, his father practiced law with the former chief justice). Another patron and mentor was Albert Lepore, law partner of Arthur A. Coia (perhaps you’re familiar with the Laborers International Union of North America?).

With this sort of pedigree, you can be sure that Rep DeSimone knows a little something about "what’s happening." You also might suspect that this is not the resume of a reformer.

BARNYARD PUTSCH

If the RI GOP really wants to reform the political culture around here for the better, it might want to tell some of its cohorts in Foster. Two newly elected Republican members of the Town Council, Heidi Rogers and Steven Bellucci, and incumbent Ralph Berkowitz, recently decided to take a little trip to Republican godfather Brad Gorham’s farm to be surreptitiously sworn into their council seats before the first meeting of the new panel. (The custom has been to swear in new members during the "new business" portion of the initial council meeting.)

The new council members then commandeered the meeting from the opening gavel, promptly firing a bunch of town employees. Of course, there was this little thing called a Personnel Board that had established personnel policy, but the insurgents simply eliminated the board and the policy. This means that Rogers, Bellucci, and Berkowitz can now make up town policy as they go along.

To P&J, it’s nearly a microcosm of the idea contained in a quote from Ron Suskind’s now-legendary profile of President Bush in the New York Times Magazine a few months ago. You may recall the unnamed senior advisor to the president explaining to Suskind, "We’re an empire now," adding that "reality-based" decision making would be left in the dust by the new Bush paradigm.

FOX-Y NBC

Now that Brian Williams has moved on to the anchor desk as chief newsreader at NBC News, joined by the fake journalistic title of "managing editor," perhaps he’d like to explain his network’s coverage of the now-infamous incident in which a soldier in Kuwait reamed out chicken hawk war enthusiast Rummy Rumsfeld. Rummy’s insulting and condescending reply to the soldier’s question — about why troops have to supply their own "hillbilly armor" — is now legend, albeit one that makes you want to spit.

P&J read about the exchange after having seen Rumsfeld’s reply as broadcast on the Today show. The Associated Press story reported, "[A] big cheer arose from the approximately 2300 soldiers in the cavernous hangar" in response to the soldier’s question at this seemingly pro forma "town hall" suck-up to the defense secretary. (Little Rhody’s Linc Chafee was at the event, and he told his staffer, Lars the Houseboy, always a reliable P&J source, that Rummy, indeed, was shaken by the question, and due to pure shock, asked that it be repeated.)

On the NBC News that evening, however, the video of the cheers and applause for the confrontational query was cut, perhaps under Mr. Managing Editor’s direction, leading instead to Rummy’s twisted answer about going to war with the army you have.

This conveniently disregarded several facts, including how we chose to go to war and that even armored tanks get blown up. Hell, Rummy, why don’t we just send our brave troops out on bicycles?

This is the sort of subtle nuance mastered by Fox News. Those unaware of the extended account would think it was just one soldier with a red ass, not a man speaking for all the troops on hand. He had their overwhelming support in pointing out yet another Pentagon failing that it costing young Americans their lives in a war based on the lies of the Bush administration and its commander-in-chief (honk!). Evidently, other networks used the video with the response from the troops, making NBC’s fold-up even more apparent.

Looks like Brian Williams, now that he’s a big media star, is scared to death that he might offend Dubya and his warmongers. That’s worse than gutless. Go back to shopping for shirts and ties, Weenie Boy.

KUDOS AND CONGRATS . . .

. . . to Bill Reynolds, BeloJo sports columnist supreme. We won’t embarrass him by going into details, but suffice it to say he’d be good to have watching your back, because in the past weeks he has spoken truth to power and come to the aid of a friend in trouble, all above and beyond the call of duty. Selah.

. . . to P&J’s artist of the week, Christopher Savido. Mr. Savido’s portrait of Dubya Bush was hanging at a huge art exhibition at Chelsea Market in New York last week. This was before the market’s management closed the show 60 days early. Why? Savido’s portrait of our simian-IQ leader consists entirely of tiny images of chimpanzees arranged to look like Boy George. Come, Cheetah. Me not know art, but me know what me like.

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