Oh, Man, I Was Sooooo Messed Up …

So it was the drugs, huh? Well, one thing you can say in Chuck Rosenthal’s favor: At least he didn’t roll over on his wife during a nationally televised congressional hearing, or insinuate that a supposed good buddy is so feeble-minded as to have misremembered significant conversations.

Instead he fell back on America’s all-purpose excuse. These, of course, were legal drugs---at least according to the statement by Rosenthal that accompanied his resignation as district attorney---but prescribed and consumed in such a combination as to impair the D.A.’s judgment (or to cause “some impairment,” as he phrased it). Anyway, that’s what he said, and who are we to discount that explanation (for whatever)? After all, you don’t have to be a Scientologist to see that ours is one seriously overmedicated society. It would be one last act of public service by the retired D.A. to publicly specify which drugs combined to loosen his screws, if only to warn other depressed middle-aged males of the dangers of mixing certain medicines.

We must confess to finding it difficult to suppress a latent sympathy for Rosenthal that arose while we watched the news clips of Lloyd* Kelley** and noted theologian and recent Holocaust Museum visitor Quanell X (what a pair!) holding forth on the courthouse steps. One station aired a snatch of Quanell, speaking before it was known that Rosenthal had permanently clocked out, declaring the district attorney to be “the devil himself.” That right there is all anyone needs to know about Quanell: No sooner does he emerge from the Holocaust Museum a "changed man" than he’s back setting the bar for "deviltry" as close to the ground as possible.

*By the way, it’s still unclear to us at this late date what relevance Rosenthal’s email traffic held for the lawsuit Kelley is pressing against the sheriff’s department. We think the answer is “none,” although the lawsuit appears to be meritorious in its claims.
**Check out the way Kelley tosses out for public consumption the rumor that Rosenthal is a boozehound, much the same way he years ago tossed out for public consumption the rumor that Sylvia Garcia was gay. The boy’s a charmer!

Mrs. Rosenthal Writes: My Erectile Dysfunction is Nothing but an Insane Inference on Your Part

A new character emerged from the wings over the weekend to briefly command center stage in the ongoing public spectacle of the Chuck Rosenthal Saga, a house with way, way too many mansions for us to fully enumerate in this limited space. It was none other than the previously unvoiced and possibly cuckolded Cindy (Mrs. Chuck) Rosenthal, who took pen in hand to author a very long letter to the Houston Chronicle in which she defended her husband the D.A. against what she claimed were “insane inferences” apparently assembled by the media out of thin air. Mrs. Rosenthal’s handiwork took up a sizable amount of space on the paper’s Saturday op-ed page---a volume of newsprint usually given over only to letters from flacks for trade associations who believe their products have been defamed, or to potential libel plaintiffs (a category that excludes both Mr. and Mrs. Rosenthal)---and it was hard to tell whether the writer’s presumed audience was the general public or the newspaper’s editorial leadership, or whether she was just muttering to herself (which we have been told can be therapeutic).

In case you were up in Lufkin on Saturday and couldn’t find a Chronicle, you can read the letter here---and it’s well worth a minute of your time---but we feel obligated to call attention to two of the choicest excerpts. For some reason Mrs. Rosenthal was moved to take issue with what seemed to us to be the media's fairly straightforward coverage of the $11,000 raise for Rosenthal executive secretary Kerry Stevens, the object of those recently revealed semi-amorous emailings from the district attorney, a raise which he recommended last year (pre- Saga) and which took effect a week or so ago. Mr. Rosenthal has acknowledged carrying on an affair with Ms. Stevens in the 1980s when he was married to an earlier wife, pre-Cindy, but has denied that he and his secretary have of late been conjoining in a manner that would violate the 7th Commandment, despite the intimate tone of his electronic communications to her. Mrs. Rosenthal, a former FBI agent who is, at the very least, the victim of emotional cuckoldry, will brook no suggestion that her husband showed favoritism to the Other Woman. (We previously noted that Stevens’ $78,000 salary did not seem too far out of line for the executive secretary of a big-city D.A., but close to $90,000 … that’s just too much). The very notion, in fact, is “ludicrous,” Mrs. Rosenthal wrote ( meaning, apparently, that the media should have ignored it altogether), and besides

… no one has the right to be upset about my husband's relationship with his secretary but me. I was the party aggrieved — no one else. Not once in any of these sensational inferential stories did anyone complain about the job Chuck did as district attorney for eight years (after all, Teddy Kennedy and Bill Clinton still did their jobs and still do!). It all relates to personal issues, and Chuck and I are dealing with those. Shame on the Chronicle and the tone of the media today, which only want sensational stories and not factually news-related stories.

I told friends that the only way to get Chuck out of the news was to bring Britney Spears to Houston because her life struggle seems to be of more interest to all of the media. But, the fact of the matter is, neither should be newsworthy. People's personal lives are not what newspapers should be about!

You’ve got to admit that it takes a peculiar talent to draw Clinton, Kennedy, and Britney into the Rosenthal orbit.

Then there was this:

… six to eight out of 1,100 to 2,800 e-mails (both numbers have been reported) are "questionable." The media is complaining about six to eight e-mails that Chuck did not originate or draft. What is the deal? I defy anyone at the Chronicle to pull out a pristine hard drive. We all get that junk all of the time. If the Chronicle looked at my hard drive, they would infer I had a serious case of erectile dysfunction! We cannot control what people send us, and, to me, six to eight out of those numbers is pretty darn good! Sometimes I get six to eight bad jokes or chain e-mails in a day! Instead of focusing on the six to eight that are bad, focus on the fact that 2,794 are good!

One thing we can safely infer from Mrs. Rosenthal’s letter is that she definitely does not have a case of erectile dysfunction, serious or mild.

“They’ll Hunt Me Down and Hang Me for My Crimes, When I Tell About My Dirty Life and Times”

A week-ending quiz on current events, specially prepared for you, the discerning and erudite reader …

1.) During Roger Clemens’ Monday news conference, lawyer Rusty Hardin passed Clemens a note that read

A. “Please, please, don’t throw a broken bat at any of these sportswriters.”
B. “Lighten up.”
C. “Tighten up, but don’t you get too tight.”
D. “Don’t look now, but there’s a third ear growing out of your forehead.”

2.) Harris County District Attorney Chuck Rosenthal’s forwarding of an email he received at work in which Bill Clinton is called “the closet thing to a black president we’ve had” (because he “smoked weed” and “had his way with ugly white women,” etc.) confirmed that

A. Rosenthal possesses a second-rate intellect.
B. Rosenthal possesses a third-rate intellect.
C. Rosenthal is eminently qualified to be chief prosecutor of the nation’s third-largest county.
D. Rosenthal secretly wishes he were black.

3.) In that email the Clinton “joke” is attributed to

A. Nipsy Russell
B. David Duke
C. “A black comedian in Canada”
D. “A black comedian from the Congo”

4.) Dr. Sam Siegler, husband of made-for-TV assistant district attorney Kelly Siegler and Rosenthal’s personal physician, passed along to Rosenthal an email with an attachment that showed

A. Men pulling down the blouses of unsuspecting women
B. Men pulling down the pants of unsuspecting women
C. A man “wagging his weenie” at unsuspecting women
D. “Hot Latina-Asian Foot Worship”

5.) Following disclosure of the Siegler email, Kelly Siegler, who is seeking to replace her boss as district attorney, said her husband

A. “Cusses like a sailor …”
B. … Has a crude sense of humor.
C. Is a “total asshole.”
D. “… is one funny son of a bitch …”

6.) According to Roger Clemens, over the years Roger Clemens has been given many injections of painkillers and Vitamin B12 in the buttocks by

A. “Ken Caminiti”
B. “A faded, jaded junkie nurse …”
C. “Dr. Sam Siegler”
D. “… trainers, nurses, doctors ...”

7.) Before storming out of his own news conference, Roger Clemens professed a desire to enter “the private sector” to, as the New York Times put it, “avoid ever dealing with further questioning” about his alleged use of performance-enhancing drugs. The most likely “private sector” occupation open to Roger Clemens after his retirement from baseball will be

A. Pulling tractors with his teeth at county fairgrounds in Mississippi and Arkansas
B. Breaking a 4-foot stack of concrete blocks using his forehead
C. Strutting around a wrestling ring in tight shorts
D. Anger-management consultant

8.) Should Chuck Rosenthal resign or be removed as Harris County district attorney, which private sector occupation is he likely to pursue?

A. Bit player in remake of The Shaggy D.A.
B. Geriatric model for Darque Tan and/or diversity consultant
C. Vaudeville humorist and/or radio talk-show host
D. Pulling tractors with his teeth at county fairgrounds in Mississippi and Arkansas

9.) Which of the following comments was made by Brian McNamee, Roger Clemens accuser and former trainer, during a phone conversation that Clemens recorded last week?

A. “I love you, man.”
B. “You turn away every time I try to share my feelings.”
C. “I can’t open up to you the way I want to---and I know you can’t.”
D. “You had the softest cheeks, Rocket Man.”

10.) An email discovered among those in District Attorney Chuck Rosenthal’s inbox included an attachment that, according to Channel 13, “shows a black man passed out, surrounded by watermelon and fried chicken” and is titled “fatal overdose.” Other food and drink traditionally enjoyed by rural black Americans* that would have been appropriate to reference in the email include

A. “Red pop”
B. Chitterlings
C. Hog jowls and gravy
D. Collard greens

BONUS: At the heart of the Chuck Rosenthal email scandal lies

A. Arrogance
B. Hubris
C. Stupidity
D. Insularity and in-breeding

Answers: B, B, C, A, A and B, D, D, D, C, All, All

*If you haven’t check out the comments on this posting at Lone Star Times, where, in an “I am Spartacus” moment, Caucasians and African Americans weigh in on their love of watermelon and fried chicken.

Kiss Me Deadly (Behind the Right Ear, If You Please)

The Chuck Rosenthal email saga keeps on giving, what with mullahs of the local Republican Party asking the district attorney (unanimously!) to withdraw his re-election bid and Rosenthal telling them to go screw themselves (figuratively, as the D.A. himself might put it). This GOP “advisory committee” is certainly powerful: So far all they’ve done is to ensure the matter gets even more media attention during the traditionally slow local holiday news cycle and, in an even neater trick, managed to make Rosenthal a sympathetic figure (well, almost). Perhaps they are a super-clever bunch and that was their intent all along.

We should note here that all the above-mentioned individuals are getting what they justly deserve for presenting themselves as the earthly representatives of Jesus Christ and Dr. Steven Hotze. Especially the district attorney. Yet we’re not sure what exactly Rosenthal is guilty off, other than being a Late Middle-Aged Lover Boy (is there nothing more pathetic?) and leaving himself open to the courtroom bullyragging of Lloyd Kelley. The use of a county car by executive secretary Kerry Stevens, the object of Rosenthal’s semi-amorous electronic mailings, is indeed bothersome if not a raging scandal, so perhaps the D.A. could usher in the New Year by announcing his executive secretary will henceforth be driving her own vehicle (or bicycling, or taking the bus) to and from work. We doubt, however, that the resplendently tan and headstrong D.A. will bring himself to do even that modest bit of housecleaning.

It’s rich---the notion that the filling of a high-profile county office might hinge on supposedly unintentionally disclosed emails in which the sender tells the recipient he wants to plant a smooch on her right ear---if not enough to make us want to cast a ballot for Clarence Bradford for D.A. (What’s the matter with the local Democratic Party: It couldn’t disinter Lee P. Brown and prop him on the ballot for some high office?) It certainly threatens to set a new standard of saintliness for the holding of local office. Perhaps the League of Women Voters should ask the following question of candidates for its next Voters Guide: Have you ever carried on an affair of any sort with an underling in your workplace, or sent emails from which a reader might reasonably infer you were conducting an affair? Perhaps Rosenthal could ask the question of whatever GOP primary challengers the party scares up.

Let’s get it on!

Oh, Now He’s Sorry

The supposedly inadvertent disclosure* of emails from Harris County District Attorney Chuck Rosenthal suggesting he’s been carrying on with his executive secretary has proved a satisfying holiday diversion---much better entertainment than, say, driving through River Oaks to “look at the lights.” Any story that includes an extramarital tryst involving a high elected official and returns Lloyd Kelley** (bad ’90s flashback!), the not-so-lovable Irish cop from the east side, to the public stage … well, as Rosenthal himself might say in another context, We are truly blessed.

Ordinarily we aren’t exercised one way or another by anything an elected official does behind closed doors (short of pedophilia and/or heroin addiction). We figure his or her rich and rewarding private life is his or her business and no one else’s. But in Rosenthal’s case the media intrusion into his extracurricular activities is wholly justified, if only on the grounds that this longtime pillar of the Second Baptist Church has exuded a very thick air of sanctimony throughout his public career.

But there’s the more tangible question of whether putative gal pal Kerry Stevens’ $75,000 salary is out of line for the work she does---a point Chronicle birddog Matt Stiles endeavored mightily to prove in Saturday’s newspaper (although the figure doesn’t seem that outrageous)---and the even more tangible question of why Stevens is allowed to use a taxpayer-funded county car that she can fill with taxpayer-funded county gasoline. The last perk bugs us: Stevens is a secretary and presumably must only drive to and from the courthouse in connection with her job, unlike, say, an investigator for Rosenthal’s office who has to get out and about. We’ll be thinking of Stevens next time we gas up at our neighborhood Hugo Chavez gas station.

We hate to have to be the first to point out the obvious, and we’re sure the principals would strenuously object, but it would seem that Stevens is the walking definition of a “kept woman.” Here’s the chronology, as supplied by Rosenthal before he clammed up: He and Stevens had an affair back in the ’80s when both worked in the D.A.’s office and he was married to his first wife, although the relationship did not cause the break-up of that marriage. Since then he’s taken a second wife, a special agent for the FBI. After winning election in 2000, Rosenthal elevated Stevens to the executive secretaryship and, at least until very recently, was sending her such icky-poo professions of amore as “The very next time I see you, I want to kiss you behind your right ear” and “I always want to see you. You own my heart whether you want or not.” The “kiss you behind your right ear” line suggests a certain old-school gentlemanlyess, but you’ve got to wonder about a politician who’d convey such sentiment via publicly funded email, especially in light of the way elected officials’ electronic missives are FOI’ed right and left these days.

Rosenthal has said he’s sorry, and his apology included the somewhat cryptic suggestion that his public embarrassment is part of God’s plan:

I also understand that sometimes things happen for a purpose. This event has served as a wake-up call to me to get my house in order both literally and figuratively.***

Yeah, the D.A. sounds remarkably like many of the criminals he's prosecuted over the years: They’re always sorry after they get caught.

* How did the judge “accidentally” unseal the emails? Wasn’t he a Reagan appointee?
**Another question: Hadn’t Lloyd Kelley been married three (or four) times back when he was an elected city official, and wasn’t he once accused of having a fling with an underling in one of his offices (or it was strongly implied that he had …)? Maybe we’ve confused him with some other ex-official.
***We’re not sure what this means, exactly, but if Rosenthal needs help getting his house in order literally we’ve got some time on our hands right now and would be available for housecleaning duty at $50 an hour. We realize this is higher than a professional firm would charge but we’re fast, organized and speak nearly impeccable English.