Here at City Paper, December marks a very special time of year — a time for counting our blessings, and celebrating all that is most sacred. 

I’m talking, of course, about our annual “Best of” issue, due out next week. I’ll bet you’re all a-tingle with curiosity about the winners, but I ain’t saying a word. After all, I wouldn’t have gotten this far in journalism if I went around telling people stuff I know.  So here’s a couple dispatches from elsewhere instead.

— Pittsburgh’s own Primanti Brothers got a shout out in the New York Times yesterday. Detroit’s executives are so desperate for a Washington bailout that they are actually willing to drive their own cars to ask for it, and the Times suggests a rest stop on the way.

The prospect of the executives motoring along more than 500 miles of highway to Washington — a trip of about nine hours, not counting a possible stop in Pittsburgh for a sandwich at Primanti Brothers — introduces an element of ritualistic public relations gamesmanship.

Great idea. And while they’re at it, maybe they could learn something about biodiesel by inspecting the Primanti’s grease traps?

— Pittsburgh’s US Attorney, Mary Beth Buchanan, announces she’d like to stay on in her post, if Barack Obama will have her. This comes as little surprise: If Buchanan knew when to give up, we wouldn’t be contemplating another Cyril Wecht trial. 

— Bram Reichbaum over at the Pittsburgh Comet gets to his computer before anyone else, and is first to post news that Chelsa Wagner has e-mailed backers telling them she won’t be running for mayor after all. No word yet on how this guy is taking it. 

This article appears in Dec 4-10, 2008.

E-mail Chris Potter about this post.

4 replies on “‘Tis the Season for a Thursday morning news round-up”

  1. I was proofreading my (pretty boring) morning post when the Chelsa e-mail came over the wire. In my judgment, being first excused me from having to come up with any value-added content or analysis, right?

  2. Indeed. And for the record, MY excuse is … the earth-shattering revelations to be revealed in the BEST OF issue.

  3. It is no surprise that Mary Beth Buchanan demonstrates her lack of professionalism and dignity. If she truly feels that she wants to stay in the office, the prudent approach would be to contact the president-elect or his transition staff personally and ask such a request.

    Instead, Buchanan choices to run to the press using her unpaid spokesperson, Paula Reed Ward, to make a statement which is almost a threat to the incoming President. Buchanan’s threat is that if she resigns, justice will not be served. Translation, if Buchanan resigns, her personal interests will not be served.

    I look forward to Mary Beth utilizing the coming firing that she will receive as a basis to run for office. Don’t be surprised when she seeks Spector’s seat as a Primary candidate or some other position.

    However, if I were Buchanan, I would be wary of running for public office. The political enemies she has made in some of her very questionable prosecutions and due to her polarizing nature will surely be an issue during any such candidacy. Skeletons will come out.

    What will Buchanan’s response be? Is she seriously going to attempt to run on her record? A record of gun violations and high-profile cases from other districts. Just to recap Buchanan’s record:
    U.S. vs. Daniel Zehr – Deportation of an Amish man because he refused to have his picture taken and Buchanan refused to authorize an exemption for his religion. Those Amish are terrible terrorist…you know.
    U.S. vs. Tommy Chong – CA focused case for selling water bongs
    U.S. vs. Whizzinator – IN focused case for selling prostectic appendixes
    U.S. vs. Karen Fletcher – PA case in which Buchanan went after a website owner who distributed fictional stories to twenty people.
    U.S. vs. Extreme Associates – CA case in which Buchanan is going after makers of disgusting pornography. Agree the porn is in poor taste, but should we really spend millions in court and appeal costs on this issue??? Does anyone think a conviction if achieved will hold up in an appeal

    then there are the great political prosecutions:
    U.S. vs. Mayor Murphy – no charges brought. Instead Buchanan struck a deal which Muphy agreed not to seek office.
    U.S. vs. Pete Defazio – after years of an investigation, Buchanan got a misdemeanor charge of macing, which sounds worse than it is, against Defazio to stick. Defazio said he plead to the charge since he could not afford a court case and the potential loss of his pension.
    U.S. vs. Wecht – yeah, this case is great. Right now the charges that are still pending relate to misbillings of less than 200 dollars on expense reimbursement forms Wecht sent from his PRIVATE practice to his PRIVATE clients. Since no one raised an issue with the charges, don’t understand how the charges involve the U.S. interest.

    There are others of course. You can read Bitter Pills by Charlie Dietrich in which it is clear that Mary Beth Buchanan paid off drug dealers with get out of jail free passes in order to railroad an innnocent man into jail. Why would Buchanan do this??? She wanted anotehr feather in her hat on her road for personal gain.

    Yeah, justice my ass mary. Be honest to the public for once. You are not resigning for your own personal twisted gain. Our area has had enough of this crap and it is time to get new blood into the office that seeks to enforce justice not one’s self interest.

  4. JTC – I can’t help but agree, her record is not quite all that it could or might have been.

    CP – Let me guess … slightly sharper worded criticism, or wondrous development concessions for Brookline?

Comments are closed.