Who is this guy having lunch with yours truly at Sweetwaters today?
And what possible connection might he have to Patrick Leahy vs. Karl Rove?
Or UVM hoops?
Stay tuned....
And Sunday morning TV news junkies take note - St. Patrick will be a guest on Face the Nation at 10:30 on CBS.
**UPDATE**
OK, OK. I'll tell you. Still don't recognize him, eh?
I bet Johnny C. does.
Ed Pagano played four-years of hoops at UVM [1981-84] on scholarship. Born in Maryland, raised in Massachusetts, Ed Pagano made the most of his Vermont sojourn, cashing in, so to speak, on the contacts he made off the hard-court. Mr. Ed has been chief-of-staff for U.S. Sen. Patrick J. Leahy for the past two years, previously worked for St. Pat on the Judiciary Committee.
Ed was back in Burlap today for a long family weekend with wife Jenny Backus [Democratic consultant and regular commentator on Hardball], and infant son John "Jack" Wallace Pagano.
Bet you know his mother-in-law, former Democratic state senator and U.S. Senate candidate [1994 & 2000] Jan Backus. Ol' Jan's celebrating her 60th birthday this weekend. Jeezum Crow, I remember when "60" sound real old.
Happy birthday.
Yours truly got the word from Big Ed on sun-splashed Church Street about St. Patrick and Republican Judiciary Committee Vice-Chairman Arlen Specter issuing subpoenas to the man behind the Bush-Cheney throne - Karl Rove - as we met for a bite downtown. As we ate, St. Patrick was delivering his Senate floor speech announcing the Rove subpoena - available for viewing on Sen. Leahy's website (on Real Player).
Here's a taste from that floor speech:
For over four months, I have exhausted every avenue seeking the voluntary cooperation of Karl Rove and J. Scott Jennings, but to no avail. They and the White House have stonewalled every request. Indeed, the White House is choosing to withhold documents and is instructing witnesses who are former officials to refuse to answer questions and provide relevant information and documents.
We have now reached a point where the accumulated evidence shows that political considerations factored into the unprecedented firing of at least nine United States Attorneys last year. Testimony and documents show that the list was compiled based on input from the highest political ranks in the White House, including Mr. Rove and Mr. Jennings. The evidence shows that senior officials were apparently focused on the political impact of federal prosecutions and whether federal prosecutors were doing enough to bring partisan voter fraud and corruption cases. It is obvious that the reasons given for these firings were contrived as part of a cover up and that the stonewalling by the White House is part and parcel of that same effort.
Meanwhile the noose tightens on Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, his sworn committee testimony now contradicted by former Justice Department officials, and today by the director of the FBI.
If this were a movie, it'd be an entertaining one - everyone in the audience would know the president, the vice president and the attorney general were bold liars who stole an election and started a phony war while making their friends and backers very, very rich!
And everyone would know that they'd be in hand-cuffs and leg-irons by movie's end.
But it's not a movie.
Is it?
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