Daily Dose: 12/7/08
December 7, 2008
» First Vietnamese American Wins for Congress
» Pacquiao dominates, stops De La Hoya in 8th round
» Rumsfeld nemesis Shinseki to be VA secretary
First Vietnamese American Wins for Congress
By Associated Press
In a year when national Republican fortunes took a turn for the worse, Louisiana delivered the first Vietnamese American to Congress in elections delayed by Hurricane Gustav.
In the 2nd Congressional District, which includes most of New Orleans, Republican attorney Anh “Joseph” Cao won 50 percent of the vote. He beat out indicted Democratic U.S. Rep. William Jefferson Jefferson who tallied only 47 percent. Cao will become the first Vietnamese-American in Congress. His only previous political experience was an unsuccessful 2007 bid for a seat in the state legislature.
“The people of the 2nd District have spoken,” Cao, 41, told supporters at a restaurant near the French Quarter. “We want new direction. We want action. We want accountability.”
In a speech that was gracious but stopped short of concession, Jefferson blamed low voter turnout for his showing and said supporters may have thought he was a shoo-in after he won a Nov. 4 primary in the predominantly black and heavily Democratic district.
“I think people just ran out of gas a bit,” he said. “People today flat didn’t come out in large numbers.”
Greg Rigamer, a New Orleans political consultant, said his analysis showed turnout in predominantly white sections of the district was double that in black areas. He said that helped push Cao to victory over Jefferson, who became Louisiana’s first black congressman since Reconstruction when he took office in 1991.
“This is quite a feat,” Rigamer said of Cao’s victory.
Republicans made an aggressive push to take the 2nd District seat from the 61-year-old Jefferson, who has pleaded not guilty to charges of bribery, laundering money and misusing his congressional office.
New Orleans voters had long been loyal to Jefferson, re-electing him in 2006 even after news of the bribery scandal broke. Late-night TV comics made him the butt of jokes after federal agents said they found $90,000 in alleged bribe money hidden in his freezer.
“People are innocent until proven guilty,” said Faye Leggins, 54, an educator and Democrat who moved back to the city six months ago and still has fresh memories of Hurricane Katrina. She voted for Jefferson on Saturday. “He has enough seniority, so he can do a lot to redevelop this city.”
But Republicans argued the scandal had cost Jefferson his clout in Congress. Election Day brought excitement to the state’s usually low-key Vietnamese-American community, said David Nguyen, 45, a store manager and Cao supporter.
“The Vietnamese aren’t much into politics,” he said.
Cao came to the United States as a child after the fall of Saigon in 1975 and went on to earn degrees in philosophy, physics and law.
The election was postponed because of Gustav, which struck in September.
The national GOP backed Cao, an immigration lawyer, with a barrage of advertising portraying Jefferson as corrupt.
Prosecutors contend Jefferson used his influence as chairman of the congressional Africa Investment and Trade Caucus to broker deals in Nigeria, Ghana, Cameroon and other African nations on behalf of those who bribed him.
The 2007 indictment claims Jefferson received more than $500,000 in bribes and demanded millions more between 2000 and 2005, including the $90,000 found in the freezer of his Washington home. Jefferson denies wrongdoing.
No trial date has been set.
PROFILE
Name - Anh “Joseph” Cao
Party - Republican
Age - 41
Profession - Lawyer
Education - Bachelor’s degree from Baylor University in physics; master’s in philosophy from Fordham University; law degree from Loyola University of New Orleans.
Personal - Born in Saigon (now Ho Chi Minh City), Vietnam. Came to the United States in 1975. Married. Lives in eastern New Orleans, an area heavily damaged by Hurricane Katrina.
Political experience: Ran unsuccessfully in 2007 for Louisiana House of Representatives.
Pacquiao dominates, stops De La Hoya in 8th round
By Associated Press
Manny Pacquiao fought a lot bigger than he looked. Oscar De La Hoya simply looked old. Pacquiao dominated his bigger and more famous opponent from the opening bell Saturday night, giving De La Hoya a beating and closing his left eye before De La Hoya declined to come out of his corner after the eighth round.
The fight was so lopsided and De La Hoya looked so inept that it could spell the end for boxing’s richest and most marketable star.
It was only the second time in De La Hoya’s 16-year pro career that he was stopped in a fight, and it was made even more shocking because it came at the hands of a fighter who fought at just 129 pounds months earlier. At the age of 35 he seemed not only well beyond his prime, but unable to offer any answer to the punches that Pacquiao was landing almost at will.
De La Hoya’s left eye was closed shut as he sat on his stool after the eighth round and the ring doctor, referee and his cornermen discussed his condition. De La Hoya offered no complaints when his corner decided he had enough, getting up from his stool and walking to the center of the ring to congratulate the victor.
“You’re still my idol,” Pacquiao told him.
“No, you’re my idol,” De La Hoya said.
Two of the three ringside judges scored all eight rounds for Pacquiao, while a third gave De La Hoya only the first round. The Associated Press scored every round for the winner.
De La Hoya was taken to a hospital for precautionary reasons after the fight.
It was lopsided from the beginning, with Pacquiao landing punch after punch while De La Hoya chased after him, trying to catch him with a big punch. Pacquiao was winning big even before the seventh round, when he was pounding De La Hoya against the ropes in his corner and catching him with huge shots that knocked him across the ring.
De La Hoya remained upright, but with one eye closed and his reflexes seemingly gone there was no chance he was going to land the big punches he would have needed to turn the fight around. Ringside statistics showed Pacquiao landed 45 power punches in the seventh round to just four for De La Hoya.
“He’s just a great fighter,” De La Hoya said. “I have nothing bad to say about him. He prepared like a true champion.”
Pacquiao (48-3-2, 36 knockouts) came up two weight classes to fight for his biggest purse ever, while De La Hoya dropped down to meet him at 147 pounds. Though De La Hoya (39-6) towered over Pacquiao and had a big reach advantage over him, Pacquiao had no trouble getting inside what few jabs De La Hoya threw to land his shots.
Pacquiao was credited with landing 224 of 585 punches to just 83 of 402 for De La Hoya.
“We knew we had him after the first round,” Pacquiao’s trainer, Freddie Roach said. “He had no legs, he was hesitant and he was shot.”
Roach trained De La Hoya in his last big fight a year ago and said De La Hoya simply couldn’t throw punches when he needed in that fight. That was magnified even more against Pacquiao, who not only was as elusive as Floyd Mayweather Jr. but threw punches back that kept De La Hoya off pace.
“Freddie, you’re right,” De La Hoya told the trainer after the fight. “I just don’t have it anymore.”
If De La Hoya’s career is over, it will be the end of a remarkable story that began when he won the Olympic gold medal in Barcelona in 1992 and went on to become the biggest box office attraction in the sport. But while he sold tickets, De La Hoya hadn’t won a big fight in six years, and there were whispers long before the fight that he had nothing left.
“My heart still wants to fight, that’s for sure,” De La Hoya said. “But when your physical doesn’t respond, what can you do? I have to be smart and make sure I think about my future plans.”
De La Hoya not only dropped down to fight for the first time at 147 pounds in seven years, but actually came into the ring unofficially weighing less than Pacquiao. Both fighters got on scales in their dressing rooms and De La Hoya was 147 while Pacquiao was 148 and a half.
Pacquiao earned his biggest purse ever, a guaranteed $11 million, while De La Hoya was expected to make at least twice that in a fight by the time all the pay-per-view revenues are totaled up.
Rumsfeld nemesis Shinseki to be VA secretary
By Associated Press
President-elect Barack Obama has chosen retired Gen. Eric K. Shinseki to be the next Veterans Affairs secretary, turning to a former Army chief of staff once vilified by the Bush administration for questioning its Iraq war strategy.
Obama will announce the selection of Shinseki, the first Army four-star general of Japanese-American ancestry, at a news conference Sunday in Chicago. He will be the first Asian-American to hold the post of Veterans Affairs secretary, adding to the growing diversity of Obama’s Cabinet.
“I think that General Shinseki is exactly the right person who is going to be able to make sure that we honor our troops when they come home,” Obama said in an interview with NBC’s “Meet the Press” to be broadcast Sunday.
NBC released a transcript of the interview after The Associated Press reported that Shinseki was Obama’s pick.
Shinseki’s tenure as Army chief of staff from 1999 to 2003 was marked by constant tensions with Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, which boiled over in 2003 when Shinseki testified to Congress that it might take several hundred thousand U.S. troops to control Iraq after the invasion.
Rumsfeld and his deputy, Paul Wolfowitz, belittled the estimate as “wildly off the mark” and the general was marginalized and later retired from the Army. But Shinseki’s words proved prophetic after President George W. Bush in early 2007 announced a “surge” of additional troops to Iraq after miscalculating the numbers needed to stem sectarian violence.
Obama said he chose Shinseki for the VA post because he “was right” in predicting that the U.S. will need more troops in Iraq than Rumsfeld believed at the time.
“When I reflect on the sacrifices that have been made by our veterans and I think about how so many veterans around the country are struggling even more than those who have not served — higher unemployment rates, higher homeless rates, higher substance abuse rates, medical care that is inadequate — it breaks my heart,” Obama told NBC.
Shinseki, 66, is slated to take the helm of the government’s second largest agency, which was roundly criticized during the Bush administration for underestimating the amount of funding needed to treat thousands of injured veterans returning from Iraq and Afghanistan.
Thousands of veterans currently endure six-month waits for disability benefits, despite promises by current VA Secretary James Peake and his predecessor, Jim Nicholson, to reduce delays. The department also is scrambling to upgrade government technology systems before new legislation providing for millions of dollars in new GI benefits takes effect next August.
Sen. Daniel Akaka, D-Hawaii, and chairman of the Senate Veterans Affairs Committee, praised Shinseki as a “great choice” who will make an excellent VA secretary.
“I have great respect for General Shinseki’s judgment and abilities,” Akaka said in a statement. “I am confident that he will use his wisdom and experience to ensure that our veterans receive the respect and care they have earned in defense of our nation. President-elect Obama is selecting a team that reflects our nation’s greatest strength, its diversity, and I applaud him.”
Veterans groups also cheered the decision.
“General Shinseki has a record of courage and honesty, and is a bold choice to lead the VA into the future,” said Paul Rieckhoff, executive director of the Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America. “He is a man that has always put patriotism ahead of politics, and is held in high regard by veterans of Iraq and Afghanistan.”
Obama’s choice of Shinseki, who grew up in Hawaii, is the latest indication that the president-elect is making good on his pledge to have a diverse Cabinet.
In Obama’s eight Cabinet announcements so far, white men are the minority with two nominations — Timothy Geithner at Treasury and Robert Gates at Defense. Three are women — Janet Napolitano at Homeland Security, Susan Rice as United Nations ambassador and Hillary Rodham Clinton at State. Eric Holder at the Justice Department is African American, while Bill Richardson at Commerce is Latino.
Shinseki is a recipient of two Purple Hearts for life-threatening injuries in Vietnam.
Upon leaving his post in June 2003, Shinseki in his farewell speech sternly warned against arrogance in leadership.
“You must love those you lead before you can be an effective leader,” he said. “You can certainly command without that sense of commitment, but you cannot lead without it. And without leadership, command is a hollow experience, a vacuum often filled with mistrust and arrogance.”
Shinseki also left with the warning: “Beware a 12-division strategy for a 10-division army.”
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