Opinion: Friday Tickets: Phil Spector, Carrie Prejean, Harry Reid and Dick Cheney

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Ahh, Fridays and once again time to cap another confusing political week with questions nobody knew needed asking:

First, we’ve banned waterboarding captured terrorists because that might scare them into thinking they’re drowning. But obliterating innocent civilians in houses near a terrorist target in Afghanistan is OK. How does that work exactly?

Also, Carrie Prejean, Miss California, ignited a firestorm of bitter criticism and catty leaks about her semi-nude modeling and enhanced upper torso, because she’s been so public stating her belief that marriage is only between a man and a woman.

But as Jimmy Orr points out over at the Vote blog, that’s the same stand on gay marriage as President Obama. Are we gonna learn via leak soon that those perfect pecs of his are enhanced too?

Moving from Red to Blue

And what’s the big deal about Phil Spector changing political parties? The music pioneer has always been a Democrat and even wore a Barack Obama pin to his murder trial last summer (see photo).

Relax, we know he’s different than Arlen Specter, the convenient Republican senator from Pennsylvania who became a convenient Democrat 10 days ago.

But here’s the kick: Apparently some other Democrats were also confused about this other old guy with a lot less hair.

New York’s new senator, Kirsten Gillibrand, Hillary Clinton‘s replacement, issued a news release headlined: ‘GILLIBRAND WELCOMES SENATOR SPECTOR TO DEMOCRATIC PARTY.’

So too did Democrat Sen. Sherrod Brown from Ohio, which is next door to the real Specter’s Pennsylvania, and former Rep. David E. Bonior, a Democrat from Michigan, which explains a lot.

Spector currently resides in prison. Specter currently resides in legislative limbo (although ex-Gov. Tom Ridge‘s decision not to run against him will help Specter’s chances next year). At first the turncoat Republican thought he’d been promised the retention of all of his Senate seniority despite the party switch.

But a brewing revolt by lifelong loyal Democrats caused Harry ‘Make Me an Offer’ Reid to clarify that no, now that the deal was done, Specter would have zippo seniority for now.

We’re all terribly excited that on third thought Reid let Specter have the chairmanship of an inconsequential subcommittee that meets in a basement closet.

Changing from Green to Purple

But look at the fallout from Specter’s switch: Now, even Brett Favre is talking about playing for the Minnesota Vikings. The Minnesota Vikings!

Seniority is one of those things that really seems to matter in the wondrous world of Washington and looks like a puzzle in the real world. It rewards not intelligence or savvy, not accomplishments or bipartisanship. It rewards, well, surviving. Which is great for ‘The Price Is Right.’

But if we applied seniority to real life, every high school class valedictorian would be the dunce who took the longest to complete four years of classes.

Why not test senators too?

As you may have heard, Manny Ramirez of the Dodgers earned a 50-game suspension for testing positive for substance abuse. Why don’t they test members of Congress for controlled substances too? Manny just plays baseball; that D.C. crowd writes the laws the rest of us have to live by. Boozy breath before noon could bring a 20-vote suspension.

These government stress tests for banks this week got us thinking: If doing poorly on the stress tests means a bank gets a few billion more Obama dollars, please pass the donuts. Better odds for regular people than the lottery.

Speaking of odds, The Ticket reported this week that the Sunday TV talk show ratings race is tightening with ABC’s ‘This Week’ and CBS’ ‘Face the Nation’ closing in on the traditional leader, NBC’s ‘Meet the Press,’ now Russert-less.

Be fun to see what happens this Sunday. ‘Face’ has snagged the talkative Dick Cheney as its guest. Bombs away!

-- Andrew Malcolm

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