The Return Of Fighting Franken

T. Boone Pickens has no business being at Democratic policy luncheons, and while the rest of the caucus just sits there politely, proud of their elite brothers and sisters, the newest member takes a look around and sees nothing but madness.

Five years after he put his money behind the Swift Boat ads that helped tank John Kerry’s presidential campaign, Senate Democrats gave T. Boone Pickens a warm welcome at their weekly policy lunch Thursday.

Or at least most of them did [...]

According to a source, the wealthy oil and gas magnate and author of “The First Billion Is the Hardest” stepped up to introduce himself to (Sen. Al) Franken in a room just off the Senate Floor after the lunch ended.

Franken, who was seated talking to someone else, did not stand when Pickens said hello. Instead, Franken began to berate him about the billionaire’s financing of the Swift Boat ads in 2004.

According to a source, the confrontation grew heated.

Said Franken spokeswoman Jess McIntosh: “It was a lively conversation.”

Good. Maybe Pickens will get pissed off and never come back again.

The saddest part of this is how Franken's the only Senator to even find a luncheon between Democrats and T. Boone Pickens to be weird.

America's Jack-Off

Remember when T.Boone Pickens tried to convince everyone that we had to give his natural gas and wind power companies hundreds of billions of dollars RIGHT NOW or the world would explode? Remember that?

Never mind, it's not profitable anymore...

T. Boone Pickens has temporarily shelved plans to build the world's biggest wind farm in the Texas Panhandle because of tight credit markets and low natural gas prices, and his company Mesa Power is looking for other projects that could use the $2 billion worth of wind turbines already on order.

Pickens unveiled plans in 2007 for the 4,000-megawatt wind farm -- big enough to power 1.3 million homes -- at a projected cost of $10 billion. In May 2008, Pickens ordered 667 wind turbines from General Electric for the first of four project phases. Mesa is scheduled to begin taking delivery in 2011.

The project was a symbol of the oilman's commitment to his high-profile campaign to slash the nation's dependence on foreign oil with a combination of wind power and the use of natural gas in vehicles.

"Boone still remains committed and focused on developing wind energy in the United States," said Jay Rosser, a spokesman for Pickens's BP Capital Management. "The timing is not as aggressive as he originally outlined because of the collapse of the capital markets and because of the steep downturn of natural gas prices." (Many utilities are choosing natural gas to generate electricity.)

Remember, we had to end our dependence on foreign oil as an urgent national security and environmental issue. "We've been talking about it for 40 years," and the consequences of delay were grave.

Unless the market drops.

So, the moral of the story is, don't do business with right-wing greedheads who really aren't committed to anything but lining their pockets.

You Punch A Bully In The Nose

During the first Yearly Kos convention in Las Vegas, I remember heading to my room and encountering a hotel guest with a Southern accent who wasn't an attendee. She asked me what the gathering was all about and I explained that it was a convention for a Democratic website. We got out of the elevator and right before she went into her room she turned to me and said, "I still don't like John Kerry."

It occurred to me that if I had said "I don't like George Bush" unsolicited, I would be seen as an angry vituperative blogger. But after reading this I think I understood why she didn't like Kerry. During the campaign, he didn't have the gumption to stand up for himself. That was Kerry the Presidential candidate, a construction of consultants. Kerry the man has no such problem.

Sen. John Kerry, whose 2004 presidential campaign was torpedoed by critics of his Vietnam War record, said Friday he has personally accepted Texas oilman T. Boone Pickens’ offer of $1 million to anyone who can disprove even a single charge of the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth.

"While I am prepared to show they lied on allegation after allegation, you have generously offered to pay one million dollars for just one thing that can be proven false," Kerry wrote to Pickens. "I am prepared to prove the lie beyond any reasonable doubt."

The Massachusetts Democrat, a Navy veteran and former prosecutor, said he was willing to present his case directly to Pickens and would donate any proceeds to the Paralyzed Veterans of America.

In an interview, Kerry added: "It’s beyond me; it’s important for all the vets who served with me, who cared about it, whose own records were lied about. The problem is, it’s the way they operate on the other side, and we have to end swift-boating forever. The way to do that is to have this public accounting."

T. Boone Pickens is one of America's worst people, a filthy rich oilman who is one of the behind-the-scenes forces behind movement conservatism. He made a crack that he would give a million dollars to anyone who disproved any Swiftie allegation, expecting nobody to take him up on it. As soon as John Kerry challenged him, Pickens started changing everything around:

In his response, Pickens wrote: "I am certainly open to your challenge," but he said he would not pay Kerry unless the senator first provided him with copies of his wartime journals, as well as movies he shot while on patrol and his complete military records for 1971 to 1978.

Pickens said such documentation, which the group has previously sought, would be needed to disprove its ads.

"When you have done so, if you can then prove anything in the ads was materially untrue, I will gladly award $1 million. As you know, I have been a long and proud supporter of the American military and veterans’ causes," Pickens wrote.

He also proposed a counter-challenge: "If you cannot prove anything in the Swift Boat ads to be untrue, that you will make a $1 million gift to the charity I am choosing — the (Congressional) Medal of Honor Foundation."

Now who's being defensive? T. Boone Pickens is a bully, who thinks that the fact that he has more money than God will sufficiently stop anyone who dares to challenge him. John Kerry did and now he's changing things around, moving the goalposts and generally running scared.

This was a good response.

In his letter to Pickens, the senator challenged the billionaire’s honor.

“I trust that you are a man of your word, having made a very public challenge at a major Washington dinner, and look forward to taking you up on this challenge,” Kerry wrote.

Why is this important? Because liars and con artists ought to be exposed for what they are. The Swift Boat allegations may be old news, but John Kerry is offering a model for the next Democrat in the line of fire. We all wish he had done this sooner, but it's great that he's doing it now.