October 13, 2006

DUMB: Stealing an $80 windshield from a golf cart... while wearing your police uniform. Lamar, S.C., Police Chief Mike McDonald was charged with petit larceny and misconduct in office: "I messed up, your honor. It's embarrassing for my position. I know the news media is here, and they're going to have a field day with it," he said. Bingo!

DUMBER: Stealing a pair of pants from a department store is dumb. But secretly returning them and stealing a different pair that fit better is dumber. "Department store assistants were surprised to find the trousers that had been stolen on Sunday when they took stock after the business hours on Monday evening - but another pair of trousers of another size were gone."

DUMBEST: Defending a fellow Republican by listing all of his misdeeds is probably not a good idea. On Face the Nation Rep. Ray Lahood of (R-IL) provided the worst imaginable defense of House Speaker Denny Hastert: "I give Speaker Hastert high marks for strong leadership. He took care of Tom DeLay, his best friend. When Tom was having ethical problems, the speaker went to him and asked him to leave. When he appointed Duke Cunningham to the intelligence committee, he went to Duke and made sure he wasn't on the intelligence committee after it was disclosed he took 2.3 million dollars. And when Bob Ney was appointed chairman of the House administration committee, he was appointed by Speaker Hastert. Speaker Hastert went to him and told him to step down from that committee after the Abramoff disclosures."

Honorable Mention: Ottawa County, Michigan, will pay about $40,000 to reprint 170,000 ballots to fix an embarrassing typo on its Nov. 7 ballot. The "L" was left out of "public."