CALIFORNIA'S REPUBLICAN WUNDERKIND ON HIS WAY TO THE SLAMMER-- FOR A LONG, LONG TIME

America's (Republicrook) Sheriff, Mike Carona

The corporate media once dubbed right-wing Republican crook Mike Carona "America's Sheriff." He was the other half of America's Mayor and the political heir apparent to Arnold Schwarzenegger, definately the next Republican candidate for Governor of the state. But then he got caught, reacted indignatly, swearing innocence; eventually, faced by mounting evidence and the fact that his accomplices turned on him, he resigned, still claiming innocence. It's the regular old Republican story. And it's ending for Mike Carona the same way it'll end for Tom DeLay, Jerry Lewis, Denny Hastert, Tom Feeney, Virgil Goode... dozens of them. Friday's L.A. Times reveals that there are tapes. of Carona and one of his GOP henchmen rehearsing their lies in an attempt to get their stories straight.

Secretly recorded conversations unveiled Friday in the federal corruption case against former Orange County Sheriff Michael S. Carona show him plotting to cover up illicit cash payments and gifts he received while in office, prosecutors allege.

In one section of the transcripts, according to prosecutors, Carona and his one-time confidant Don Haidl discuss money Haidl had paid the sheriff. Carona didn't know that Haidl, a former assistant sheriff, was by then cooperating with the FBI and was wearing a wire.

...The obscenity-laden transcripts were contained in a motion by federal prosecutors opposing defense efforts to exclude the Haidl tapes as evidence against Carona, who is scheduled to go to trial June 10 on charges he sold access to his office for tens of thousands of dollars and tampered with a witness by trying to get Haidl to lie to a federal grand jury.

Carona says it was "unethical" for the FBI to tape him. When will zombie-like Orange County Republicans ever learn that the slime they keep electing to office are laughing at them and stealing them blind? The last time I wrote about Carona I got e-mails from his fans telling me I was a left-wing idiot to listen to the baseless charges against their hero. You wonder where Rush Limbaugh gets his ratings? Where Bush finds 27-28% to still admire the job his does?