Kind of. According to an AP article, Governor Ed Rendell defended soon-to-be former New York governor Eliot Spitzer’s whore problem, saying that he’s shocked by the allegations and urging the public to not crucify him until all the facts are out. (After that, lash away, apparently.)

In an odd statement, Rendell told AP that if he had to pick a governor most likely to be ruined by a call-girl scandal, Spitzer would be “50th pick out of 50 governors.”

So, where does that put Rendell — 49th?

Rendell shocked by Spitzer’s woes [AP]

Sometimes it’s best to just keep your mouth shut. Right now, it seems Mayor Nutter wants to hold off on a formal response to Gov. Ed Rendell’s somewhat inappropriate comments to the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette about Barack Obama’s chances of winning the Pennsylvania primary.

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Yesterday, Gov. Ed Rendell made a dreadfully insensitive remark of Joe Biden-esque proportions about Barack Obama’s chances of winning Pennsylvania’s April 22nd primary. Rendell, of course, has endorsed Hillary Clinton for president (as did Mayor Michael Nutter), but even if he weren’t backing her, it’d be tough to explain exactly what he meant by the comments he made to the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette editorial board last week:

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Yesterday, Gov. Ed Rendell lambasted Philadelphia’s City Council over its refusal to let two casinos start building. According to the Metro, Rendell called them a “City Council with no guts that can be extorted by community groups.”

Of course, the groups in question could be any “community” groups — you know, like Hugs for Puppies. But the implication is that Rendell was referring to the browbeating superheroes of Casino-Free Philadelphia. They, in turn, issued this statement via e-mail about the Guv: (more…)

Originally, Governor Rendell threw money at Delaware senator Joe Biden’s campaign. Then it was New Mexico governor Bill Richardson. But now? It’s Hillary Clinton, in town today for a 1:15 p.m. press conference at City Hall to pick up the sloppy thirds support from our beloved roly-poly Eagles fan.

The Hillary stop is an impromptu pause on the way to Jersey to start restocking her stump arsenal for a showdown in the Garden State with Barack Obama during the February 5th primaries. Meanwhile, husband and former intern-diddling president Bill Clinton was supposed to head to South Jersey, but has reportedly backed out — perhaps because he forgot his bulletproof vest?

Rendell to endorse Clinton at City Hall [Inquirer]

Governor Ed Rendell’s visit to California this weekend with New York mayor Michael Bloomberg to speak at an event with Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger has writers and politicos speculating that Fast Eddie is pole-positioning as a potential running mate for Bloomberg if — big IF — Mayor Mike decides to do a last-second hat-tossing into the 2008 election as an independent. Where is this coming from? Nobody knows.

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Of course, Governor Rendell’s gun showdown in Harrisburg today was bound to bring out strident Constitutionalists attempting to apply “It’s not guns, it’s crazy people!” logic to an excitable city in the throes of a murder crisis. People like former gubernatorial candidate Jim Panyard, who did God’s work this morning by offering up his conservative perspective about what’s really the cause of Killadelphia:

Traditional families are disappearing. North and West Philadelphia’s ghettos are as much poverty and alcohol soaked reservations as any tribal lands in the far west. Government schools are holding tanks and no longer provide even a basic education. Community standards no longer exist in an age of relativism. Over the last 33 years we have voluntarily aborted more than 47 million American lives, mostly the victims of “sexual mistakes.” We honor and worship what was once viewed as abhorrent behavior.

See? Even the most stringent gun laws are not going to make up for the fact that Philadelphia is a chaotic moral wasteland whose citizens are reckless Sodomites on the people-mover to hell.

But here’s the thing — if you strip out the right-wing rhetoric and thinly veiled racism, is it possible Panyard’s actually onto something? Given the state of the city, it’s tough to dismiss him entirely — and who hasn’t thought some version of his closing sentence: “All I know is the weight of a 9 mm. pistol on my hip gives me more peace-of-mind when I am strolling through the City of Brotherly Love at midnight than any political promise ever could.”

Well, maybe not.

It’s not the guns governor; it’s the people [Penn Patriot]
Rendell about to pitch for gun-control bills [Inquirer]

Say what you will about the legality of her lobbying techniques, but Leslie Merrill McCombs is coming out swinging when it comes to allegations that she and Gov. Ed Rendell have an “inappropriate” relationship. She made a statement yesterday calling out state Sen. Jeff Piccola for hiring a P.I. to probe into her bidness, and she’s clearly pissed about his sly accusation of an affair:

“Clearly, it is being suggested that I have an inappropriate relationship with the governor. That suggestion is disgusting and insulting, and I am appalled that an elected public official can get away with such slanderous behavior. It is deeply hurtful to me and my family.”

Though Piccola is the one who started the whole mess, it was definitely given a gust of wind by the Daily News’s John Baer, whose Wednesday column, “Guv, the blonde and lobbying law,” certainly played up the notion that Rendell and McCombs were possibly boinking. One of the two photos that appeared with the column — a grainy shot of the two sitting together at a Pittsburgh Pirates game last July — also suggested scandal. The Guv shot that down, telling MSNBC: “That baseball game that was in the newspaper. I was there with her and five other people, and her son was there.”

Fair enough. McCombs seems spooked by all the attention, as does The Talent Guide, a Pittsburgh-based online portal for regional voiceover actors that featured her bio and some of her work samples. The site’s photo of her was used by many local and national stories (including ours) to talk about the controversy. But now it’s mysteriously vanished.

Leslie Merrill McCombs “Appalled” By Talk Over Lobbying [MSNBC]
Hot Blondes Make Even the Lamest Political Scandals More Compelling [Daily Examiner]

PHOTO: Daily News

Daily News columnist John Baer penned a fascinating column today following up on a lobbying flap involving Gov. Ed Rendell that state Sen. Jeff Piccola raised via the online political news service Capitol Wire last week. The nutshell story is that Piccola hired a private eye to investigate whether Leslie Merril McCombs (formerly Leslie Pallotta) illegally lobbied the governor for a $75 million tax break for moviemakers that was passed last month.

However, it’s obvious that what makes the story interesting is the outward appearance of McCombs — a former Pittsburgh anchorwoman, former pageant gal and pot-bellied pig owner — and the “friendship” she has with the governor. Baer writes: “[I]f actress Leslie McCombs looked like actor Leslie Nielsen (”Airplane!” “Naked Gun”), would there be such hot pursuit?”

Great question. The tabloid-y photo of the Guv attending a Pirates game with McCombs certainly seems calculated to imply something salacious, and a Piccola comment in the column helps the implication along:

Asked to comment on the Piccola probe yesterday, Rendell said, “The last person to hire a private detective to look into something in the state Senate got indicted.”

Then Piccola joined the kidding. Told about Rendell’s comment, Piccola said, “I don’t have a girlfriend to spy on.”

The Governor’s penchant for hound-dogging has long been a not-so-secret rumor, and it would appear that Blonde Leslie fits some of the governor’s aesthetic requirements. Baer tells the Daily Examiner that the tone of the column and the questions surrounding McCombs’s “friendship” were intentional: “There is a buzz around him and always has been,” he says.
“This is just continuing the legacy.” So, does Baer, who says he has met McCombs a few times, suspect there’s been some blonde-lobbyist/head-of-state canoodling going on? “You’ll have to ask the Governor.”

Maybe later.

The Guv, the blonde, and the lobbying law [Philly.com]
Leslie Merrill McCombs [The Talent Guide]

PHOTO: The Talent Guide

Last night on Glen Macnow’s weekly “Movie Club for Men,” the WIP host had ubiquitous Gov. Ed Rendell on to help put together a list of the ten best Christmas movies (as the show title indicates) FOR GUYS. Macnow’s nomination was National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation. The Guv’s? Love Actually.

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