I think Scott Ehrisman did this cartoon earlier this year after the Sen. Dan Sutton GropeGate hearings.  But with the filing of the civil lawsuit this week, everything old is new again.  Well done, Scott!

I guess I picked a bad week to give up sniffing glue—and to decide to blog lightly because of, well, life.

First mysiouxfalls.com goes semi-dark.  Then the Sioux City Journal says Union County is a cinch for Gorilla.  Now it’s “Sleepy Time” Dan Sutton, Part Deux. 

The SD War College reports, as it had hinted yesterday, that Austin Wiese is suing State Sen. Dan Nelson in Stanley County for sexual assault and sexual battery. Former Governor Bill Janklow is representing Austin.  This is a civil not a criminal action.  Austin wants money. 

Remember, it’s one of the page scandals at the legislature in Pierre.

• SDWC’s story: Breaking news: It has been filed! Wiese suing Dan Sutton for Sexual Battery
  

• KELOLAND also has the story: Former Page Suing Dan Sutton
  

Oh good.  We get to relive all this sliminess all over again.  What is in the legislators’ water in Pierre?  It certainly ain’t saltpeter.

Now, where is that tube of airplane glue? 

The Argus Leader’s Voices blog has the story.

Now we can move on to more sex, like telling women what they can do with their bodies—again.

I’ve never seen a bunch of people more preoccupied with sex.

But censure is appropriate for what Sen. Dan Sutton ADMITTED he did—slept with a high school page.

Now, bring on Rep. Roger Hunt for a legislative roasting on playing fast and loose with campaign finance laws.

technorati tags:dan, sutton, scandal, page, pagegate, senate, senator, south, dakota

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Today, the state Senate is scheduled to vote on what to do about Sen. Dan Sutton and the Pagegate matter.

Put your money on censure.

Even the grumpy anti-blogger in Aberdeen should understand that it is not appropriate for our legislators to sleep in the same bed with high school pages, clothed or unclothed. We wouldn’t accept this behavior from a high school football or debate coach; we shouldn’t accept it from our legislators.

Then, I suggest, everyone get back to business, including letting Dan go about representing his constituents.

But the warning to other legislators should be clear—don’t touch or sleep with the pages. It’s for your own good.

technorati tags:dan, sutton, pagegate, south, dakota, legislature, pork-pie-hats, scandal

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Regardless of what the S.D. Senate does regarding Sen. Dan Sutton today in the Pagegate allegations, I think we’ve learned the following things:

• The SDBlogOsphere is now a key source of news and information.
• The story broke online on S.D. War College.
• The story developed online on S.D. War College.
• The senate hearing on Sutton was probably best reported online by Denise Ross’s Hog House Blog and the Argus Leader’s Voices Blog.
• The proceedings were available in audio and video online vie SD Public Broadcasting and KELOLAND-TV.
• Adults sleeping with high school kids is considered weird absent exigent circumstances.
• Jim McMahon and Mike Butler are really good lawyers like we thought.
• The legislature can actually behave with decorum and class when investigating an extremely squeamish subject.
• Pierre during the session is not the pristine place that our legislators would like us to believe.  For those of us who have lived in Pierre and covered the legislature, the top is now off of what really goes on there during the session.  At any rate, the citizens should be on notice.
• This investigation over sex overshadowed what should have been a more important investigation over money—Rep. Roger Hunt’s dummy corporation used to fund support for H.B. 1215 during the 2006 election.
• And as Doug Wiken at Dakota Today noted, Sutton violated the first rule of politics: Don’t be caught in bed with a dead girl or a live boy.

Add your own lessons in the comments if you like.

The Argus Leader reports that today is judgment day for state Sen. Dan Sutton.

Read: Panel to rule on Sutton’s fate today

Will it be exoneration, censure, or expulsion?

I wasn’t at the proceedings.  All I know is what I’ve read via the MSM and the blogs online.  From what I’ve divined from that and what I know about the players involved, the process and the politics, here is my prediction.

• Exoneration—10% chance
• Censure—60% chance
• Expulsion—30% chance

I don’t see how the Senate can approve of one of its members sharing a bed with a page.  I think that is clearly a censurable offense.  It does not pass the smell test.  Whether Dan gets tossed depends if the Senators believe Austin Wiese, the other young people, the evidence and whether they think this is sufficient to kick out a member and overturn an election.  That is a big step that I’m betting a majority is not ready to do.

Politics is compromise.  Censure is the compromise position.  Everyone can claim victory.  Put your money on censure today in the S.D. Senate.

If that is all the Senate does, then I think Sutton needs to tell his lawyers, no more appeals or writs.  The sooner this is done and put behind him and everyone else, the better for Dan politically and personally, in my opinion.  But we’ll see.  Dan hasn’t yet done many things in this case that I would have advised.

Stay tuned.

Kudos to Denise Ross at the Hog House Blog for yesterday’s coverage of the Sen. Dan Sutton Pagegate hearing.  While also writing about what went on, she has punctuated the story telling with absolutely outstanding photos of key players at key moments.

See: Sutton hearing, Day 2

Frankly, it is probably one of the best uses of photography to tell a story—particularly a story that doesn’t have a lot of visual context—in any setting or any publication I’ve seen in South Dakota. 

The photo essay is typically just a bunch of barely connected photos.  These photos along with good writing tell a compelling story and a capture not just the facts but the emotions of the hearing.

Bravo!

From this evening’s Argus Leader coverage of S.D.’s favorite soap opera, “As the Dan Turns”:

According to Olson’s testimony and his notes he made that day, Austin described the act as “hand on weiner.”

As I take a break from deposition preparation in my own case here in Kansas, I’ve read the excellent coverage in the Argus Leader’s Voice’s blog.  And something makes me want to go “hmmm.”

It didn’t occur to Sen. Dan Sutton to get another motel room, a bigger room with a couch, or a roll away bed when young Austin Wiese came to bunk with him?

A grown man suggesting, ney, insisting that a high school student sleep in the same bed as him? 

Hell, he could have told Austin to bring a sleeping bag and sleep on the floor if he wanted to be a page so badly (or Dan could have taken the floor).

There were no extra motel rooms in the greater Pierre/Ft. Pierre area?

This one fact alone strikes me as very, very odd.

Important safety tip as the legislature draws up the new rules for pages and legislators: No sleeping with the pages, whether you keep your clothes on or not.  How hard should that be to obey?

Col. Patrick Duffy, “God, I love the smell of pages, I mean napalm in the morning. It’s like victory!”Dan Sutton’s lawyer promised an “apocalypse” should next week’s Senate hearing proceed on the Flandreau Democrat.

In a rather clever story today, the Argus looks at other politicians use of apocalyptic language and sort of comes to the conclusion that what we have here is not “Apocalypse Now” but something more akin to “A Pork Lip Now.”

Read: Apocalyptic pain predicted in politics before; end times never came

An excerpt:

 

Apocalyptic pain predicted in politics before; end times never came

By Jeff Martin

jemartin@argusleader.com

Published: January 19, 2007

“Apocalyptic pain” for everyone was predicted by lawyer Patrick Duffy if a disciplinary hearing for Sen. Dan Sutton takes place Tuesday as scheduled.

But judging from past uses of the phrase, apocalyptic pain may not be as painful as one might think.

And it’s not the first time the warning has been used in politics. The phrase dates back at least 12 years: …

All, I can say is “The horror, the horror, the horror… “
How Sen. Dan Sutton’s lawyers imagine the S.D. Senate after they get through with the investigation?

The Argus is reporting that state Sen. Dan Sutton is not going to resign. The crazy-train is back on the tracks!

Read: Lawyer: Sen. Dan Sutton will not resign

Excerpt:

Lawyer: Sen. Dan Sutton will not resign

By Associated Press

Published: January 19, 2007

PIERRE – Sen. Dan Sutton has no intentions of resigning before hearings begin Tuesday into allegations that he engaged in sexual misconduct with an 18-year-old page, one of Sutton’s lawyers said Friday.

“He’ll be there,” Rapid City lawyer Patrick Duffy said….

With the Johnson health update and now this, this is an extraordinary amount of news for a time of the week that is usually left to taking out the trash media-wise.

My regret? I’ll be in Kansas next week taking and defending depositions in a federal lawsuit and I’ll miss out on all the blogginig fun!

technorati tags:dan, sutton, south, dakota, legislature, scandal, expel

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I just spoke with a very reliable source in Pierre who says it seems legislative life in Pierre has not changed one iota, despite all the attention on Sen. Dan Sutton and his scandal.

My source, who is very familiar with Pierre’s inner workings and what goes on during the session, says the fraternity-like atmosphere of some legislators toward pages and interns of the opposite sex is as rampant as ever.

So much for Dan being a wake-up call for more professional behavior from some of our playboy/horn-dog legislators in Pierre.

Just another thing that makes you want to go “hmmmm.” I don’t think I’ll be letting any of my kids be pages or interns until there are clear rules in place for the ADULTS in how to act toward their younger charges.

Geez!

technorati tags:pages, interns, legislators, scandal, dan, sutton, south, dakota, legislature

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PP at S.D. War College passes on Bob Mercer’s reporting that state Sen. Dan Sutton has left Pierre following the state Supreme Court’s decision that the Senate can proceed with its investigation of him.

Is this for good, for family, or to prepare for next week’s hearings?

Here’s an excerpt of PP’s take (So much for the dogs of war. Sutton leaves the Capitol, possibly never to return?):

So much for the dogs of war. Sutton leaves the Capitol, possibly never to return?

In newspapers across the state this AM, Bob Mercer is reporting that Senator Dan Sutton has left the building (the Capitol building, that is). Possibly never to return.

Senator Dan Sutton left the State Capitol with his wife, Mary Beth, and headed home to Flandreau Thursday evening.

He didn’t plan to return today. The mystery is whether he ever will.

“We’re just going to go back and look at all of our options,” Mary Beth Sutton said.

Asked whether resignation was a possibility, she replied, “He hasn’t ruled anything out right now.”

Read this breaking story it in the dead tree editions of the Pierre, Spearfish, Watertown, Mitchell or Aberdeen Newspaper. 

 
This is major, and alludes to what I’ve been predicting all along. Excepting the bluster and bravado of his attorneys, it seems the handwriting is on the wall, and just remains to be signed or not.

And now the bigger question: how many of you care one way or the other?

And one other reminder?  Who broke this story that had been in the shadows for months?  My pal PP.

technorati tags:dan, sutton, south, dakota, legislature, Pierre, bob, mercer, expel, scandal

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In news that will make a certain grumpy blogger in Aberdeen happy, I am somewhat surprised that my traffic numbers seem to be saying that you, my gentle readers, don’t particularly care about the Sen. Dan Sutton matter.

I’m not sharing my numbers as they are a trade secret, but let me assure you that Sutton stories are not driving traffic to this site.  Other issues do, like abortion, sex education, the Iraq War, Saddam Hussein, President Ford’s funeral, Sen. Tim Johnson news, Sibby, Bob Ellis, Democratic Party news, even the Lalley v. Vilhaur spat (Spat!  What a great word.  Kind of like Splat!).  Even the new Andertoons.  But not Dan Sutton.  It has been that way since this thing broke.

I don’t get it.  It has all the things you want in a great story: sex, politics, Janklow, and history.

But so far, you all don’t much care.

It’s just one of those things that makes you want to go “hmmmm.” 

Now that the Supreme Court has decided that the State Senate can go ahead and investigate Sen. Dan Sutton and the page allegations, is there not any resident of Blogsphere, SD who doesn’t want this crazy-train pulling into town?

Exactly. We all do. It is historic. It is interesting. It is lurid. It could have Janklow. Theatre, they name is the S.D. Senate.

Even Corey Vilhauer’s arch nemisis, Argus’ Voices Patrick Lalley, thinks so.

The Sutton circus is coming to town

OK then, here we go. The Supreme Court ruled today that the Senate can proceed with its hearings into allegations that Sen. Dan Sutton groped a page during the session last year.

I’ve said in private discussions that I don’t think this will everget to the floor. I’m skeptical, though my thesis is certainly beingtested by these developments. I still think someone will blink. Theprospect of three days of open hearings talking about somebody’s sexlife, whatever that may be, puts all of South Dakota into a state queasiness.

Get your cotton candy!

And more news:  

• Argus: Senate votes to appoint committee to investigate Dan Sutton
• KELOLAND-TV:  Sutton Hearing To Start Tuesday
• Dakota Watercooler:Game On!
  

technorati tags:dan, sutton, bill, janklow, expel, scandal, lurid, south, dakota, legislature, law, legal

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