Internet Security and The California Governor’s Race
Posted by Moonage on 13 Sep 2006 | Tagged as: US Regional Politics
California is doing what it can to compete with Kentucky when it comes to local politics. This one’s pretty fun actually.
The Governator was quoted saying Latinos are "very hot", as in hot tempered.
That wasn’t bad enough, he had to explain why. But, the odd twist is what
should have been a simple gaff has turned on the Democrats there as well.
Seems the recording was lifted from a secure part of the Governor’s server via
the internet. What’s pretty amazing is
how the Angelides campaign is
dealing with it:
The acknowledgement Tuesday that the campaign of Democrat Phil
Angelides leaked an embarrassing tape of Gov. Arnold
Schwarzenegger to the news media set off a new clash between the
warring camps over the standards of political ethics in a world
dominated by the Internet.Although a criminal investigation continues into allegations
of computer hacking, the manager of Angelides’ gubernatorial
campaign said members of her staff found four hours of
Schwarzenegger’s private tapes while perusing the governor’s Web
site and turned a small snippet over to the Los Angeles
Times….."The Schwarzenegger campaign’s continued
contention that someone hacked into their
computer system is a blatant attempt to mislead
the public, and they should stop the cover-up,
admit that their office made a mistake and stop
the finger-pointing," she said.
Gosh, seems to me the Democrats, who have accused Bush of lying for years,
and considered the "outing" of Plame an impeachable offense, would be a little
more sensitive to someone being upset about having their computer broken into
and information stolen. Guess it only goes one way for them.
What’s even dumber about this is their stating they were "perusing" the
Governor’s web site. You don’t "peruse" a site, you read what’s presented.
Their defense doesn’t smell right. Thirdly, the IP address is easily
identified these days via any number of services that basically tie back to the
Whois database. It only takes a
few seconds. So, this person "perusing" should already be known by now.
That’s why I think Cathy Calfo is tossing out the strawman argument that
complaining about being robbed is an attempt to mislead the public, a cover-up,
or someone else’s fault. They did a bad thing that is easily proven one
way or the other. If it truly was a hacker tied to Angelides’ campaign,
Cathy will have a LOT of explaining to do. Personally, I think she already
knows she’s in deep doo-doo.
Bottom line, I’m waiting for Nancy Pelosi to condemn Angelides as yet ANOTHER
example of the Culture of Corruption within the Democrat Party.
6 Comments »
on 13 Sep 2006 at 1:53 pm 1.Vote Angel - ides said …
Arnie is like the devil in that stepehn king, novel, and his fans are like the demons, while Angelides, as the name suggests is a angel, vote angel
on 13 Sep 2006 at 2:11 pm 2.Moonage
said …
Where I come from, there is a saying, “Vote for the devil you know rather than angel you don’t.” And, Lucifer was an angel as well.
Gotta be careful with rhetoric.
on 13 Sep 2006 at 3:27 pm 3.American Phoenix
said …
GREAT comeback! That said, I don’t like Schwarzenegger, but Angelides is even worse. Schwarzenegger is neither a social nor an economic conservative. I may very well vote for the rest of the Republican slate, but leave my vote for Governor blank.
on 13 Sep 2006 at 3:37 pm 4.Moonage
said …
I wasn’t endorsing Arnie or Angelides, I was simply commenting on the actions of Cathy Calfo et al. Hacking is a pretty serious crime these days, her rather flippant remarks just struck me as the worst possible response. From a purely unattached political perspective, she took a huge positive ( the hot remark ), and turned it on herself with the remarks. However, since she’s rather attached to Angelides, it could hurt him probably worse than the “leak” did in the first place, as most Latinos I know are rather proud of their “hotness”.
Only in cases where I am fairly familiar with what’s going on do I go to any effort to recommend one candidate over another ( see my comments on Cynthia McKinney ). In California’s case, I don’t know one single thing about Angelides, so making a comparison is not something I’m going to do. However, if Angelides or his people do something stupid, I will comment on that just as I have Arnie in the past ( I still LOVE that girly-man row from a while back. )
on 14 Sep 2006 at 5:25 pm 5.mw
said …
I like Arnie, and I’ll vote for him. Although my blog advocates divided government on a federal level, I have shied away from applying the same advocacy at the state or local level. I just have not found the same scholarship and documentary evidence at the state level that exists at the federal level. Still, I suspect it is just as applicable, and it seems to be working in California.
Jon Stewart had a funny piece on this flap last night. He makes the point that there is no need to hack into the governor’s computers to find embarassing audio and video clips - then ran a compilation of Arnie saying a lot of things much cruder than the “hot blooded” remark.
Pretty stupid move on the part of whoever is responsibile in the Angelides campaign. It reeks of desperation. He’s got no chance.
BTW, moon - For all of your complaining about the left painting all Republicans with the brush of a few big spenders, or few corrupt Delay-like pols - you do exactly the same thing with Dems in this post.
on 14 Sep 2006 at 10:09 pm 6.Moonage
said …
Oh, I don’t think so at all. None of the Republicans are running around citing every little thingy as an example of the “Democrat Culture of Corruption” while simultaneously ignoring all the issues within their own party. I take offense to Pelosi’s broad brush of lumping the entire party into one corner.
As far as being divided, California has Arnie in a primarily Democrat state. So, supporting Arnie under those circumstances would seem logical for one who thinks being divided is a good thing. I personally don’t think it’s that big a deal. It’s how the government functions regardless of whether or not it’s divided. And, in many cases, a hugely minority party leader just spends four years fending off attacks with little to no chance of promoting their agenda as governor ( see Kentucky ).
And yeah, Calfo didn’t need to hack Arnie’s computer to find “incriminating” blurbs.