Hail Mary

Football teams wait until the end of the game to throw the 'Hail Mary' pass, a desperate heave with little chance of success. It seems that in Mississippi we have our own version, though a long way before the end of the game.



This one was in last week's Bloomberg report on Governor Barbour's lobbying ties. Now, the fact that he was a lobbyist might be news to someone living under a bridge, but to most of us-especially anyone who's read Bill Minor's weekly Barbour bash for any length of time-well, it's about as fresh as Boise State's beating Oklahoma in the Fiesta Bowl. Because that upset was so last season.



Now the truth comes to light, of course: That the state ethics commission's findings are confidential. So how did Bloomberg News come up with the information from the story? Of course, it's members include none other than Will Ferrell look-alike Bill Wheeler, former District 19 representative and law partner of the Golden Boy, and Tom Hood, the brother of Attorney General and State Rube Samson.

Of course, Sid Salter believes that neither one of them did the leaking. And maybe that's true. But then we get back to the lawyering, and defining 'is' and whatnot. Both Hood and Wheeler have a vested interest in seeing Haley Barbour brought down-and that's the elections of Samson and the Golden Boy. The best way for that to happen is to make sure Barbour has no coattails. Because let's face it, two guys who run on the premise of making Barbour's life miserable have little to hope for if he stays popular.

This was probably the magic bullet in the gun, but I'm sure as polling has been coming in and is telling Franks/Hood/Eaves the same thing that I could have told them for the price of a meal at Hardin's Country Store: Haley Barbour is popular. Their bases of support are strong, but their ceilings are low. In order to win, they have to lower Barbour's ceiling. The best way to do that is to sling mud.

It's hard to do that when you're stump speech includes the line "Haley Barbour is a good man." Oh, but if your buddy, or his surrogates, happens to put a little something in a reporter's pocket that makes it to the paper...

This was probably going to be used the week before the election, something that hits the pages on Thursday and Sid Salter can't type fast enough to debunk it before Tuesday. It's a desperate move. But what do you expect? Playing dirty is par for the course for these two, and for the partisan media. Or did we forget about Dan Rather while we were gone?



This political Hail Mary fell short.