Quoteworthy

* “No comment.” Angel Adams’ response to Circuit Judge Tracy Sheehan’s custody-hearing question asking if the 37-year-old, unmarried mother of 15 were pregnant again.

* “We’ve got one shot to get this right. We do need some outside expertise. ” Tampa Mayor Pam Iorio explaining the need to hire a consultant to advise on building a mass transit hub downtown.

* “Someone once said that the best time to plant an oak tree was 30 years ago. The second-best time is — today. Isn’t it planting season here in the Tampa Bay area?” — Former Tampa Downtown Partnership president Jim Cloar on the urgency for action on light rail.

* “Anything would be preferable to the Trop. People would just enjoy it more. Right now they’re (Rays) playing in one of the smaller markets in an inadequate stadium. They’re shackled. (Stu) Sternberg’s not fantasizing. It’s a real issue.” — Andrew Zimbalist, Smith College (Mass.) economics professor who studies the impact of stadiums on teams.

* “It’s the first time I can recall a contest for Senate or governor with an Anglo, a Hispanic and an African-American.” — University of Virginia political scientist Larry Sabato commenting on Florida’s senate race.

* “Principles are more important than winning.” — Florida Sen. George LeMieux.

* “Charlie Crist is no different than he was the day before.” — Republican lobbyist and fundraiser Brian Ballard.

* “He’s an honest man. He’s a good man. He loves what he does. He produces for all of us.” — Former Tampa Mayor Dick Greco.

* “To remain the world’s pre-eminent nation, the United States is going to have to develop energy sources that are plentiful, clean and don’t enrich the worst people on earth.” — David Brooks, New York Times.

* “Debt seems frightening. But in a deep recession, we need economic stimulus far more than we need to control deficits. Because of collapsing revenues, state and local budgets are in free fall. Most states have constitutional requirements to balance budgets, which means they are slashing programs and raising taxes, exactly what we don’t need during a recession. They have fewer options, though, without help from the federal government. …But President Obama’s embrace of the deficit hawks has painted him into a corner where major new spending seems irresponsible.” — Robert Kuttner, American Prospect co-editor and author of “A Presidency in Peril: The Inside Story of Obama’s Promise, Wall Street’s Power and the Struggle to Control our Economic Future.”

It’s Definitely Not “Floridull”

Just when you thought Florida’s singular senate race — featuring a Tea Party Cuban, a newly-minted, blockbuster independent and a potentially history-making African-American  — couldn’t get any more bizarre, it does.  Witness the addition of Jeff Greene to the Democratic mix.

In all likelihood, U. S. Rep. Kendrick Meek will still inherit the Dems’ primary blessing, but Greene will get attention. He will buy it. Tons of it. He’s that rich. Ad agencies and electronic media will appreciate the stimulus package.

But he’s not your basic billionaire. Or even basic billionaire Democrat.  He didn’t make his money the old-fashioned way; he came out way ahead in the credit default swaps sweepstakes.  And Mike Tyson was best man, as it were, at his wedding. And Heidi Fleiss crashed at his guest house after getting out of the slammer.  

Greene’s been here all of two years. He relocated from California in 2008 and recently bought Malcolm Glazer’s Palm Beach pad.  

His message: He’s not a “career politician” and will not have to “take a penny of special interest money.”

Close enough. That’s what he’s not, and what he won’t do. That’ll have to do.

Remember when it was the Republican primary that was drawing all the attention and nightly notoriety? Seems like an eon ago now.

Brown-Waite’s Collusion

U.S. Rep. Ginny Brown-Waite, until recently best known for quoting Larry the Cable Guy, not voting for the stimulus plan, being against gun control and mis-identifying Puerto Ricans as “foreign citizens,” has further tainted her tarnished legacy. The four-term Brooksville Republican from Florida’s 5th Congressional District has just orchestrated the selection of her likely replacement.

By saying nothing about her plans to retire until the last minute to anyone but her hand-picked successor, Hernando County Sheriff Richard Nugent, she effectively pre-empted other viable candidates from entering the Congressional race. Two notable Republicans, Public Service Commission Chairwoman Nancy Argenziano and state Sen. Mike Fasano, say they would have considered running had they been accorded a head’s up. They are not pleased.

Neither should the Central Florida electorate be.

Keep in mind that the Congressional 5th is GOP-skewed, and Sheriff Nugent is likely its next U.S. representative. This is obviously what Brown-Waite wants. 

While it’s well within her purview to endorse whomever she wants, it’s not Brown-Waite’s job to select. That’s for the voters. She, in effect, just held her own primary, screened out capable, would-be candidates and handpicked Nugent, who had qualified just before the deadline.

This is beyond heavy-handed orchestration. This is an arrogant  affront to the democratic process itself.

 Even at a time of nasty, polarizing politics — and attendant cynicism with politicians across the spectrum — this is a new low. Ginny Brown-Waite’s legacy now includes this sleazy, presumptuous lesson in stealth politics.

Zero Tolerance, Indeed

The only problem with zero tolerance polices is their real-world implementation.  However well-intentioned, and they all are, they can impose a zero-sum solution to issues that demand a measure of subjectivity and common sense. Case in point: the slap heard ’round Tampa Bay.

That’s what 73-year-old Theresa Collier of Largo delivered to her belligerent, profanity-spewing granddaughter. The 18-year-old then stormed out and called 911. And her grandmother was arrested for domestic violence. The slap, context notwithstanding, induced the department’s mandatory arrest policy for domestic violence. Collier spent a night in jail.

Eventually — after scrutinizing, embarrassing media attention — the domestic battery charge was dropped. Imagine needing Bubba the Love Sponge Clem to call attention to an exercise in overkill stupidity.

We all know why such a domestic violence policy was formulated in the first place. Too many psychotic boyfriends and too many battered women. Throw the book — and any number of legal haymakers — at the feral creeps.

But a back-talking teen in rebellion against homework and her overseeing grandmother is hardly the sort of “victim” that domestic violence laws and policies are out to protect.

What is obviously needed is “zero tolerance” for such common-sense-challenged scenarios. Bubba the Love Sponge won’t always be around to set things right.

Obama Finally Catches A Break

At last President Obama gets a respite from life in the polarizing cross hairs of partisan politics. Thank you, District Judge Barbara Crabb, and thank you, Goldman Sachs.

The former is the Wisconsin judge who ruled that the National Day of Prayer is unconstitutional.  She said it amounted to a call for religious action. The Obama Justice Department is appealing posthaste, saying the National Day of Prayer, established by Congress in 1952, is merely an acknowledgement of the more-than-manifest  role of religion in America. Not unlike, say, “In God We Trust” or “So help me God.” It will challenge the decision in the 7th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Chicago.

Not that the president is now on a bi-partisan roll, but it hardly hurts when your loudest critics are atheists and agnostics. Not exactly the “Take Back America” crowd.

The second half of the political parlay is trickier but, nonetheless, a political winner.

While the GOP can claim to have free-market DNA, it’s risky to be associated with America’s new arch enemy, the traitor traders of Wall Street. All of a sudden, government-initiated reform and Glass-Steagall-like re-regulation doesn’t seem like the slippery slope to socialism — but a prudent course correction for a market run amok with insider conniving and derivative overdosing.  Anybody want to rally around Fabrice Tourre and Lloyd Blankfein? 

Either the president gets — and gets credit for — much-needed financial reform or a flummoxed  GOP takes an unnecessary hit in the fall elections for having thwarted such efforts.  Anybody want to rally around Mitch McConnell?

Adams’ Family Values

Just what a society — already at fever-pitch partisanship and divisiveness — didn’t need.

This story.

Prominent, front-page coverage of an unmarried, unemployed black woman with 15 children by multiple fathers who doesn’t just need public assistance. But demands it. And doesn’t just demand it, but does so with an empathy-challenging attitude of arrogance toward a system that can’t subsidize everything.

As it turns out, no, this is not an ACORNesque put-on to ridicule the welfare state and juxtapose societal values. No, Angel Adams, 37, is the real, woeful, you-owe-me deal. An avatar of entitlement.

And a one-woman perfect storm for these turbulent times.

Not only does she help perpetuate a “post-racial” stereotype. But in this toxic political climate, she is also red meat for the “you betcha” crowd making a bogus case against “socialism” and a reasonable one in behalf of responsible behavior, self-determination, bootstraps — and probably tubal ligation.

No, we didn’t need this — any more than any of those Adams’ family kids did.

Islam’s Skewed Priorities Of Outrage

Recently it was reported that “South Park” producers were under death threats from Muslim extremists for having taken satiric liberties in references to the Prophet Muhammad. The threats included a gruesome, graphic reminder of how Dutch filmmaker Theo Van Gogh was brutally murdered.

Upon reading this account, anyone else think this? Let’s see: Danish cartoons, a Dutch documentary, American animation. All took shots — societal and (more notably) sacrilegious — at Islam and the Prophet. And all provoked the ultimate response: a death sentence. One, indeed, has been carried out.

But why is it that we still don’t hear about comparable outrage in the Muslim “street”?  As in irate crowds, menacing invective and, yes, physical threats — against those who continue to defame Islam by maiming and killing the innocent in the name of jihad?

Surely sectarian satire isn’t a worst offense than murder, including suicide bombings and videotaped throat slashings.

Surely.

Immigration Concerns

To be sure, there are some serious concerns with Arizona’s new immigration law. Not the least of which is the slippery slope of profiling and what constitutes “reasonable suspicion.” Pandering politics is now a given.

But if anyone has a case for the toughest immigration law in the country — absent a fair, coherent, security-enhancing national policy — it’s Arizona, the “Ground Zero” state. Not only does it have an estimated half million illegal immigrants, but its desert is a virtual welcome station for a majority of illegal immigrants and drugs flooding into the U.S. from Mexico.

Ironically, maybe Arizona’s heavy-handed approach — and resultant backlash — will give impetus to meaningful national border security and sensible immigration reform.

Ultimate Irony

Another anniversary — the 95th — of the onset of the Turkish massacre of more than a million Armenians has come and gone. Turkey, perversely, still doesn’t acknowledge its utter complicity in the atrocity. The world has grown almost inured to its ongoing denial. But for the United States — and, ironically, Israel — to not officially recognize the Armenian genocide? Some things — and crimes against humanity makes every short list — should trump geopolitical and economic business as usual.