They don't get it. You have a president and an administration that does what they say they are going to do. Ambassador "Cowboy Bob" Sembler clowning around at the Suncoast Tiger Bay Club, May 28, 2003, fielding a question from the floor about the European perception that "jingoistic cowboys" run the US State Department.

Sticker price for ambassadorships dropping, podners Michael Crowley, a senior editor at The New Republic, was shocked to report in the Dec. 2004 Reader's Digest that George W. Bush named George Argyros to be ambassador to Spain even though he did not speak Spanish. He notes that Argyros did contribute $100,000 to the Bush-Cheney inaugural committee. But we're not shocked. After all, we know that in 1988 George H. W. Bush, the President's daddy, nominated Joseph Zappala to be ambassador to Spain even though Mr. Zappala claimed to be a co-founder of Straight, Inc. (a chain of juvenile drug rehabilitation programs that had been accussed of child abuse all over the country); his sister was a convicted cocaine dealer; and he was but a high school graduate who didn't speak Spanish either! But Joe Zappala had donated $126,000 to them Republicans. (Bush I named Peter Secchia, a $100K donor from Michigan, as his choice for ambassador to Italy even though he was not fluent in Italian. When asked what he hoped to accomplish in Italy, Secchia reputedly answered, "I’m looking for a big-titted woman".) Homeland Security should really be concerned about what information political buffoons leave laying around on their kitchen tables or throw out in their trash. Related stories: Bush puts friends in high places, Christian Science Monitor; Ambassador Sembler and others to be fired, World Peace Hearld White House for Sale

More pork for Pinellas County's white, Republican elite Look at this map. It shows Pinellas County's beautiful, exclusive beach communities along the Gulf of Mexico. Townships like Treasure Island where Mel and Betty Sembler live; Madera Beach where Miller Newton lives; and, to the north, Belleair Beach. Also notice the little bridges, called causeways, that take Tampa Bay's elite out to their waterside homes. Last year, US Congressman C.W. "Bill" Young, who heads Congress' Appropriation Committee, got $50 million approved to upgrade the Treasure Island Causeway. [Mayor Mary Maloof had even written a letter to Mel Semble in Rome. She says she wanted, "to see what he can help us do with his contacts in Washington."] This year Young got another $34 million approved to build a new causeway for Belleair Beach! He said this year's hurricanes underscore the importance of an evacuation route for the beaches!

In 1989 Young gave an almost laughable endorsement for Sembler when Sembler bought his Australian ambassadorship. A reporter once asked St. Petersburg Mayor Rick Baker who's the most powerful man in St. Petersburg. He responded Bill Young followed by Mel Sembler. In 2002 Young visited with Sembler at Mel's Villa Taverna in Rome. Young got just $3 million for Betty Sembler's Operation Par. Meanwhile Mel Sembler and the NAACP's Daryl Rouson have teamed up build a $ 5 million Kash n' Karry supermarket in the economically deprived Midtown section of St. Petersburg. [The city donated the land.]

And if the blacks don't like the way our money is being spent down there, they can always complain to County Commissioner and Operation Par board member / DFAF Advisory Board member Susan Latvala who has remarked that if African-American leaders want more blacks in administrative positions in the county they, "should send to the district people who could pass the test."