The Political Whore

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Scott Farrell of The Farrell Files on 10 Connects and Joe Bardi of Creative Loafing’s Film & TV section were on board again this morning to tape the weekly HoCast, in which we examined the week’s top political stories, made sense out of them and played funny-sounding audio clips.

Here was our tentative show rundown as written before taping; we added the Tampa health care reform “near riot” to the top of the issues list and had some audio from the unpleasantness:

1. BIll Clinton (and Al Gore??) set free the journo-hostages from North Korea. The price? An unsmiling photo-op with an equally unsmiling and flaccid Kim Jong-Il plus some “face” for the North Koreans. Worth it or not? What happens next time a nation takes poeple hostage and we don’t send Slick Willy or a different ex-president to rescue them? Can you imagine the hilarity that would have ensued if we’d sent former President George W. Bush?!? And how long will Hillary stand for Bill upstaging her?

2. Snakes in a State, starring Samuel L. Jackson Jr. Florida is overrun with Burmese pythons, and they’ve started eating our children and other endangered species. Time for a War on Snakes!
http://blogs.creativeloafing.com/politicalwhore/2009/08/06/its-war-florida-vs-burmese-python-snakes-with-a-possible-pet-ban/

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Mrs. Former Fort Myers Beach Town Manager

This week’s HoCast marks a revamp of my format. While I will continue to do long-form interviews with political figures as podcasts, the PoHo brand will feature a fairly regular cast and a quick, funny format that looks at the top political and media issues, the Quotable soundbite and the Political Whore of the Week.

Joining me are Scott Farrell of The Farrell Files on 10 Connects and Creative Loafing Film & Television editor Joe Bardi.

Our topics this week:

1. The shameful Today Show coverage of the Obama health care newser

2. The firing of the town manager of Fort Myers Beach for marrying a porn actress (shown above)

3. The Barack Obama-as-Witch Doctor e-mail flap

4. ESPN’s multi-problems with censorship (the Ben Rothlisberger story)

5. Mary Mulhern uses tax dollars to go to Cuba

This week’s PoHo Award nominees are:

New York stripper Christy Yamanaka, who was involved in the Judge Thomas Stringer scandal. He pleaded guilty this week to one count of mortgage fraud in connection with a house the two bought in Hawaii.

And, via txt message from an anonymous politician, this nomination:
“The Jersey 44, that’s lookin’ like a real political gangbang! Even by Jersey’s standards.”

Listen to the HoCast after the jump to find out who won:

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Abusive, cruel, philanthropist, loyal, disloyal, good samaritan, phony, vengeful, manipulative, vindictive, delusional, a guy with a heart of gold, a real giver, financial deadbeat, bully, kind-hearted… Tampa Bay’s most famous resident, George Steinbrenner, has probably been called all these things and more at one time or another, but rarely have so many conflicting characterizations appeared in the space of one book.

Now they have — in George: The Poor Little Rich Boy Who Built The Yankee Empire, the laugh-out-loud biography by St. Petersburg author Peter Golenbock. Read the rest of this entry »