"The Crime Beat" - Commentary by Tony Seton

The Crime Beat

We just love our criminals, don’t we? ‘Cause they’re all over the news. To wit...

A man suspected of murdering five people whose bodies were discovered in his backyard escaped from jail by climbing 60 feet down a rope made of bedsheets. Said his attorney, "If he turns himself in, I think we could get back to defending this case. I would just urge him to contact me, and urge him to surrender himself immediately, not to do anything stupid." Too late.

Also on the lam, 40 former Taliban prisoners, including a number of commanders, who tunneled out of captivity from a prison in southern Afghanistan. At least until this recent decline in its rolls, it was referred to as a high-security prison.

Still free is Philadelphia’s mayor, though his campaign for re-election hit a bump when bugs of the electronic variety were discovered in his office, installed, as it turns out, by the FBI, which is investigating corruption. They seem to have trouble finding honest pols in The City of Brotherly Love.

Perverting the notion of brotherly love, the Vatican is claiming that the priest problem here in the U.S. has been overblown. They used the word overstated. Said the Pope’s top dog, "There are thieves in every country, but it's hard to say that everyone is a thief." One, it ain’t about theft, unless you’re talking about stealing the innocence of a child. And two, it was their denial and cover-up that worsened and even eclipsed the molestation scandal.

Speaking of scandal, how ‘bout the fact that anyone still listens to Pat Robertson. This shameful imposter as a man of god, he just abhors things like peace and those who would promote it, especially even our State Department. Said the fraud recently, "If I could just get a nuclear device inside Foggy Bottom, I think that's the answer....We've got to blow that thing up." God bless.

Choosing a hospital over a prison, at least while he has the choice, Rush Limbaugh is going into rehab to break his addition to painkillers. There’s probably more to this story than has made the papers so far, fueling speculation that this might have been a preemptive strike, before the investigators filed charges. Though hypocrisy is not illegal.

And finally, but only finally because of space limitations, Tommy Chong has started serving his nine month sentence for selling bongs and other paraphernalia on the Internet. Half of the mildly funny, smoke-filled Cheech-‘n-Chong act, he said he’d given up grass and now wanted to help people stay off drugs. His lawyer is appealing his sentence.

And that’s SetonnoteS...I’m Tony Seton.