Month: April 2006

Singer Gene Pitney died today. He was 65–years old. I used to work in radio, and I remember playing the song “Town Without Pity” on an “oldies” AM Station. A great tune.

RIP Gene.

This is cool, and I can’t wait to try it.

6 year-old Mary Alice and 8–year old Patricia Winkler carry flowers from the funeral of their father, Matthew Winkler, last Tuesday.

Matthew Winkler was laid to rest last Tuesday. His father, Dan Winkler, also a Church of Christ minister, delivered the eulogy in the Fourth Street Church of Christ where Matthew Winkler was described as an energetic and popular leader since he moved to Selmer more than a year ago.

The 55-minute funeral, closed to the media, started about 11 a.m. The sanctuary at Fourth Street was full to its 500-person capacity, and the basement was filled with people watching the funeral on TV monitors, Selmer Police Chief Neal Burks said.

Immediately following the funeral, Winkler was buried in Carroll County Memorial Gardens in Huntingdon. After the 15-minute grave site ceremony, Matthew Winkler’s two oldest daughters, Patricia and Mary Alice, plucked flowers out of floral arrangements atop the casket and took them home.

Incidentally, the reason why Mary Winkler waived her right to a public hearing last Thursday was because she didn’t want her three children to hear “gruesome things” about their fathers death. It’s too bad Mary wasn’t as concerned about her kids the night she took their father away from them forever.

Meanwhile, there has been much speculation over Matthew Winkler’s official cause of death.

Even though Mary Winkler confessed that she had shot her husband, the TBI would not confirm the cause of death, saying that the death was suspicious and was in fact a homicide.

Last Thursday night, state medical examiner Dr. Bruce Levy told CNN’s Larry King that Matthew Winkler was killed by a single shotgun wound to his back, fired from a range of “a couple to a few feet.” Levy said Winkler probably did not die immediately.

Steve Farese Sr., Winkler’s attorney, says research by the defense team may show that the shooting was an accident.

“Anytime you have a gunshot fatality, it’s not always, ‘Did something happen?’” said Farese. “There are the three questions: Did it happen? Why did it happen, and how did it happen? … Was it an intentional act or an unintentional act or an accidental act, and there’s a difference.”

Yet, there’s the confession from Mary hanging out there in the public domain. Did she confess to killing Matthew accidently? That would be very odd. If it was accidental, why did she flee to Alabama? Out of fear?

So many questions…

Previously: | Shot Dead Over Family Finances | Winkler: Opening Up | Winkler Attorneys Waive Fees | The Innocent Victims | Winkler Family Fund | Possible Winkler Defense? | Mary Winkler: “Overwhelmed and Confused” | Winkler Vs. the State of Tennessee | She Did It |

This is just plain outrageous. First, the “manipulated prayer” story, and now the theory that Jesus didn’t walk on water. Nope, he walked on a thin layer of hard-to-see ice.

The deal is done.

Via Drudge: Couric is set to announce her departure from TODAY on the program itself at 7:30 a.m. EDT Wednesday, multiple sources said Tuesday. Couric will tell viewers that she will be leaving the show by May 31, when her contract runs out on NBC, sources said. That will set the stage for Couric to sign a deal worth at least $13 million a year to anchor the CBS EVENING NEWS and take a spot on 60 MINUTES. The announcement from CBS could come as soon as Wednesday afternoon.

Who would have thought that Perky Katie would replace Dan Blather? Strange days indeed.

Personally, I think Katie will fail miserably reading the teleprompter. And seeing as how the future of the 22 minute network newscast is in serious flux, this really doesn’t look like a long term gig. We shall see…

Sen. John McCain got testy in an address to a department of the AFL-CIO today.

Sen. John McCain threatened on Tuesday to cut short a speech to union leaders who booed his immigration views and later challenged his statements on organized labor and the Iraq war.

“If you like, I will leave,” McCain told the AFL-CIO’s Building and Construction Trades Department, pivoting briefly from the lectern. He returned to the microphone after the crowd quieted.

“OK, then please give me the courtesy I would give you.”

It was a colorful and contentious session, producing as many laughs as boos, that tested McCain’s commitment to the straight-talking, wisecracking image he honed during his failed 2000 presidential bid. An underdog six years ago, the Arizona Republican is expected to seek the 2008 GOP nomination as a front-runner.

“I loved it. I love mixing it up like that,” McCain said after the speech to a Democratic-leaning crowd of several hundred.

Nevermind the booing. McCain can expect to receive more of that kind of thing should he enter the race for the White House in 2008. Moreover, it is expected that members of the liberal AFL-CIO would disagree more than agree with a Republican. What’s interesting to me is the subtext of the story. The so-called “testing of McCain’s commitment to the straight-talking, wisecracking image”. After goo goo’ing over McCain in 2000, the same MSM is now turning on the same John McCain. If John expects a free media ride in 2008, he should rethink that strategy. An editorial on DNRonline.com observes…

Washington Post columnist E. J. Dionne attacked Sen. McCain for agreeing to give a commencement speech at Liberty University. That criticism was echoed by NBC Meet the Press moderator Tim Russert Sunday. The New York Times hyperventilating columnist Paul Krugman launched an attack in his Monday column. The basis of the attack is that Sen. McCain was once a straight-talker but now has sold out to the religious right.

Of course, roughly translated, the gang of Krugman/Dionne and others mean, “We considered Sen. McCain an honest, upright guy only when he agreed with us.” Have they forgotten that the essence of a “maverick” — a word often associated with Sen. McCain — is that he will anger both sides of the political spectrum.

As the senator noted on Meet the Press, why should a speech at Liberty University be considered controversial when he also has given speeches at Yale and Harvard, two universities that bar the ROTC program? It’s a good question and has not been answered by Sen. McCain’s critics.

Those critics want to claim the religious right is beyond the fringe of American politics, but it clearly is not. Pat Robertson may make some bizarre statements from time to time, but he doesn’t command much attention from the millions of Americans who hold positive views of Liberty University.

Sen. McCain will continue to disagree with the religious right on some matters, and he will continue to disagree with the secular left. Perhaps that leaves him only at the center of American politics but, after all, that is not a bad place to be.

It all comes down to this – how badly does John McCain want to be president? If it’s bad enough, he’ll pull a “Kerry” and convert his straight talk express into the turbo pandering machine. Has this already begun? Some say so.

And if it walks like a duck and talks like a duck…

NRO’s Kate O’Beirne and a few other journalists sat down this afternoon with Tom DeLay to hear him walk through the events that led to his resignation last night. Full details of the interview are forthcoming.

Janet Rail, publisher of the Independent Appeal newspaper in Selmer, Tennessee, writes about the murder of Matthew Winkler and the tragedy that has left this close knit community drowning in the national spotlight.

James over at Outside the Beltway reprints the DeLay letter and provides commentary.

Tomorrow, at exactly two minutes and three seconds after 1 AM, the time and date will be:

01:02:03 04/05/06

And it won’t ever happen again.