I AM THE FORCE

Okay, let me get this right. He's terminating the contract, but keeping the money. Jim Doyle decided that the Adelman contract should be terminated, just to be safe. But the $20,000 in contributions from Adelman don't need to be returned? They say Adelman did nothing wrong, but decided anyway to ask Adelman to walk away for the good of the team. This is not a very coherent or savvy strategy. Doyle removed the benefit for the guys that bought him off, but keeps the benefit of contributions for himself.

Regular people will take this as a sign of Doyle's greediness, and inability to clean up the mess. He continues to cling to the argument that he's seen no evidence of wrongdoing, but is taking half measures like bringing in Mark Bugher to try and allay suspicions. It's all so incredibly weak, that I find myself getting very happy. Yesterday's move does nothing to put this scandal behind Doyle, and only makes the shortcomings in his thinking more apparent.

In the overall picture of Doyle's millions in campaign cash, the $20,000 from Adelman is virtually meaningless. So why not just return them and pose for holy pictures to play it safe? Might they believe that further indictments are on the way, and that returning the money would be an admission of the Administration's guilt?

And when will Doyle or Adelman be forced to answer questions about the solicitation of these large contributions. As a former bagman myself, I can tell you that people don't just wake up one day and decide to write $10,000 checks to politicians -- even if they just received a big state contract. Somebody asked them for the money, and the idea that this was coincidental to the irregular rewarding of this contract is simply laughable.

The arrogant guy who thinks he knows better than the rest of us is failing to intelligently manage this crisis. All I can say is thank you, Jim Doyle, and keep up the good work.