The charges here are being treated as misemeanors which he'll get off with a slap on the hand, but I can only hope that this may lead to his other crimes while in office by this GOP crook.

http://www.boston.com/news/nation/articles..._to_be_charged/

Prosecutor: Ohio governor to be charged

By Andrew Welsh-Huggins, Associated Press Writer | August 17, 2005

COLUMBUS, Ohio --Gov. Bob Taft will face misdemeanor charges for not reporting golf outings paid for by others, a prosecutor said Wednesday.

Taft, a second-term Republican and member of a distinguished U.S. political family, would be the first Ohio governor to be charged with a crime. If convicted of the four misdemeanors, he could be fined $1,000 and sentenced to six months in jail on each count, though time behind bars was considered unlikely.

Taft will be charged later Wednesday, said City Prosecutor Stephen McIntosh, who declined to comment further pending an afternoon news conference.

The governor will respond publicly on Thursday and is not planning to resign, spokesman Mark Rickel said.

Investigators have looked for weeks at Taft's alleged violation of a law requiring officeholders to report gifts worth more than $75 unless the donor is reimbursed. He had announced the problems involving reporting of golf outings in June but said any errors were inadvertent.

The allegations about Taft, 63, grew out of a scandal that began with revelations of problems with an unusual state investment in rare coins.

The investment was handled by coin dealer Tom Noe, a top GOP donor. Noe has acknowledged that up to $13 million is missing from the fund, and Attorney General Jim Petro has accused him of stealing as much as $4 million.

Taft released records Aug. 5 showing he accepted invitations to 21 golf outings since 1999. They included a 2001 outing with Noe.

The records released earlier this month did not indicate who paid for the outings. Taft's golf partners included John Snow, then the head of transportation company CSX Corp. and now the U.S. Treasury secretary; and Tony Alexander, president and chief executive of Akron-based FirstEnergy Corp.

Some partners have said Taft paid for the golf; others have said they picked up the tab.

In a speech given in May, the governor had stressed the importance of ethical behavior for public employees.

"Public employees can enjoy entertainment, such as golf or dining out, with persons working for a regulated company, or one doing business with the state, ONLY if they fully pay their own way," he said in the speech at Xavier University.

Taft's former chief of staff Brian Hicks pleaded no contest last month to failing to report stays at Noe's million-dollar Florida home. He was found guilty and fined $1,000 after entering the plea.

The charges against Taft are another blow to the GOP in the Republican-controlled state that won President Bush re-election. Democrats have found hope for the next election in the investment scandal and surprisingly close race this month for an open seat in southwest Ohio's 2nd Congressional District, a GOP stronghold that the Republican candidate only barely managed to win.

Taft's great-grandfather was President William Howard Taft -- who later was chief justice -- and both his father and grandfather were U.S. senators from Ohio.

Other Ohio governors have come under investigation, including Republican George Voinovich, investigated for unproven allegations he laundered campaign money, and Democrat Richard Celeste, whose connections to a contributor who owned the failed Home State Savings Bank were examined.

I'm waiing for Bushco to come to the aid of his fellow Repub.

Yeah. Right.

Here in N.E. Ohio, many of the newspapers are slicng and dicing Taft like they were making cole slaw.

The clamor is for him to resign, NOW.

This article is one of many .

Taft's stupidity plea has the ring of truth
Sunday, August 21, 2005
Dick Feagler
Plain Dealer Columnist
You could make a lot of bucks printing a bumper sticker that reads: "Don't Blame Me, I Voted For Hagan."

But the red part of the state voted to re-elect Bob Taft as their governor. And now we all have to live with that.

I was out and about the other day when Taft pleaded no contest (the legal term for "guilty") to a couple of cheesy little crimes.

When he had a chance to speak to the judge, his mitigating circumstances were that he was a moron.

I buy that.

Every time I stopped at a store, the storekeepers wanted to talk about Taft. They all said the same thing: "Here we go again, making fools of ourselves on national TV."

Before his conviction, Taft had been voted the least-liked governor in America. Up here in Cleveland, that was a nasty overlay to the recent announcement that we are the poorest city in the country.

If it were up to me, I'd put the new convention center on hold.

Taft was told he had to apologize to the citizens of Ohio. Since that included me, I tuned in to his apology. It was the apology of somebody in denial.

First, he took full responsibility for his actions. Then he said that freebie golf games with high rollers had eluded his ethics radar screen. Several of those golf games were with Tom Noe, a Republican fund-raiser who invested $50 million of our Bureau of Workers' Compensation money in rare coins. These funds may be short by $13 million.

Boiling it down to the sap, the governor is a sap.

He's the kind of sap who maybe doesn't know what goes on around him. He pleaded guilty to chump change. The kindest thing that can be said of him is that he is the chump who took the change.

I'd like him better if I thought he had connived for this. But I don't think he is mentally equipped to connive for anything.

He is the scion of a long line of Ohio Tafts. And maybe he felt it was just his turn to sit down there in Columbus and let the rest of the world go by.

I interviewed him once while he was running against Tim Hagan. At that point, he was touting something called the Third Frontier. It was obviously a catch phrase his keepers had invented for him.

I asked him what the Third Frontier was. I mean, when you go beyond the slogan, what's the definition?

He said, woodenly, all the right things: Ohio has to entice new businesses here. We have to be aggressive. The schools have to be better. Blah, blah, blah.

I thought he was an empty and tedious man. But I know my state. In Columbus, the empty-and-tedious mixture rises in the legislature like lazy bubbles in a stale drink. It's all flat down there. Nobody has had a sparkling idea in Columbus in the 40 years I've been paying attention to the Statehouse.

Taft gave his apology to the state of Ohio. It was a normal con's apology - I did it, but I didn't really do it.

Don't you scorn people who want it both ways? If he violated his trust, he ought to step down. He'd hardly be missed - either up here or down there, in a legislature where chaos is king.

We have our own chaos up here. The people who play games with our tax money view it as Monopoly. We are on the verge of a scandal that may make Taft's look like the pocket change it was.

Taft, a dope, had nothing more to offer us than his integrity. And somewhere along the line, he sold even that. He ought to step down, but he won't. The Republicans he answers to won't let him. And he'll cave in to them, as he always has.

When he gave his press conference and talked about the embarrassment he had brought to his family, his eyes teared up. His wife, Hope, with a face like a plaster cast, sat behind him in the courtroom.

He is going to be the last of the Tafts in politics. The honorable end to the dynasty would be to leave with honor. But he won't. Dynasties don't.

Contact Dick Feagler at:

dfeagler@plaind.com, 216-999-5757




© 2005 The Plain Dealer
© 2005 cleveland.com All Rights Reserved.

I enjoyed your words and article AB. I'm so on the same page with you... with this author.

What jumped out was his question to Taft.... what's this 3rd Frontier? Of course, he gave his republican show pony answer.... and I thot.... the republican takeover and control of this country.... that there my friends... is the 3rd Frontier that he was speakign about. The GOP rule by hook or crook.... and dominance by force backed by HUGE corporate support. We are a nation now dividied into sections (states) with it's many little Hitlers.... and SS officers.... all working for the same GOP Dictator. That is the newly forming 3rd Frontier.