Jeanine Pirro’s New York press conference yesterday was rare political theater. She was as angry as a wet cat, blasting away at the U.S. Attorney’s office for leaking a story that it was investigating her for illegally wire tapping her philandering husband, Al.
At the press conference and in a CBS-TV interview today, Pirro played the “woman card,” that she is the victim of a double standard. This was a hard stretch, but as a confidante told me. “What other card is she gonna play?” Six weeks from election day, Pirro has no prayer of becoming attorney general. It’s over, but the soap opera continues.

If you want to hear the entire press conference held yesterday by Jeanine Pirro. Click here:

Before there was Jeanine Pirro and Janet Difiore, there was Carl Vergari.
And now word has reached me that Vergari, who was Westchester’s district attorney for many years before stepping down in the early 1990s, is in the intensive care unit at St. Mary’s Medical Center in West Palm Beach, Fla.

A call to the medical center confirmed that today.
It wasn’t mmediately clear how long Vergari has been in the ICU.

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From the Associated Press—
KINGS POINT, NY.—The E. coli spinach contamination affecting more than a dozen U.S. states claimed its most famous victim today as Popeye the Sailor Man succumbed to complications from ingestion of E. coli-tainted produce.

Mr. Sailor Man died at the hospital grounds of the U.S. Merchant Marine Academy at the age of 77, his longtime girl friend, Olive Oyl, adopted son Swee’Pea and friend J. Wellington Wimpy at his side.

Born in 1929, the son of Elzie Crisiler Segar, Popeye the Sailor Man seemed destined for a life at sea from the very start: “Those anchor tattoos on his forearms, they were present at his birth,” recalled Mrs. Segar, who died in 1938, when Popeye was nine. “I just knew he had to be a Sailor Man.”

“I always told him that he couldn’t survive on a Vegan diet,” recalled a saddened Wimpy. “Besides, an all-hamburger diet can be paid for in installments, which you really can’t do with spinach.”

Renowned for his feats of strength, which he attributed to the spinach diet, Popeye, who was never without his trademark corncob pipe, had numerous run-ins with known criminals, such as the Sea Hag and Bluto, who was also a sometime suitor of Olive Oyl—much to Popeye’s displeasure.

During World War II, Popeye set aside his disagreements with Bluto and turned his attention to the Nazis and Japanese, singlehandedly defeating whole armies and navies of the Axis powers. No less than President Franklin D. Roosevelt declared that the Allies would not have triumphed in their fight to save democracy, had it not been for Popeye the Sailor Man.

Popeye’s doctors said that, ironically, it was Popeye’s insistence on maintaining his all-spinach diet that led to his death.

Funeral services are pending. The survivors ask that, in lieu of flowers, mourners bring mixed salad greens to the mortuary.

(CONTRIBUTED TO THIS BLOG BY AVIE HERN.)

It’s interesting that those who favor any plan to alter the Kemper Park War Memorial in Mamaroneck often preface their arguments with something alone the lines of, “I’m grateful for the sacrifices made by veterans but…”
After awhile, it begins to take on a hollow tone, not unlike, “Some of my best friends are black.”

A couple of people who have been offended by my criticism of the Mamaroneck School Board have written letters complaining that I’ve written four columns on the subject, which in their view is a waste of space. You know you’ve drawn blood when they start counting.

Al Pirro clearly has arrived. For a long time now he has been a living punchline for late-night comedy writers, but just when he screws up in some new and zany way and makes us laugh so hard our sides start to ache, HE DOES IT AGAIN!

He keeps giving us fresh material to work with. Alleged mob ties, out-of-wedlock children, tax evasion—holy matrimony! Stop it Al, you’re killing us! You are the undisputed “clown prince” of poliitical spouses.

A day after Al’s wife, Jeanine, the former Westchester DA, gets the ball rolling on her campaign for attorney general, Lead-Foot Al stepped on the gas of his Mercedes Benz and got nabbed in a White Plains school zone. It was the second time this summer he was charged with speeding. He must be in competition with DMX for worst driver of the year.

But here’s the best part. The New York Times quoted an anonymous source in the Pirro campaign, who said Al complained that his shiny black car was deliberately singled out by the cops. In other words, everybody’s doing it…but only Al is getting persecuted.

Now we’ve heard everything. There’s DWI for Driving While Intoxicated. There’s the racial profiling of DWB—Drving While Black. Add DWP. That stands for Driving While Pirro!

Jeanine must be hitting Al with a frying pan. Word has it that some of his old pals have turned their backs on him, And Gov. George Pataki can’t help him anymore.

Maybe Andy Cuomo has an opening. Al can be chairman of Cuomo’s Dirty Tricks Committee.

A picture says a thousand words.

James Fleming, a Larchmont architect, gives his take on the Kemper Memorial Park issue with a cartoon that’s worthy of Bill Mauldin, the late Pulitzer Prize winning cartoonist whose depictions of the bedraggled Willie and Joe dogfaces of World War II were beloved by G.I.s. and civilians alike.

Fleming’s drawing should be incorporated into a logo for the cause of saving the memorial.

Well, well. Looks like I really struck a nerve with the Spitzer For Governor camp.

One of his Kool-Aid drinking surrogates blasted yours truly for daring to criticize the attorney general for his legal opinion backing the Mamaroneck School Board’s quest to destroy the Kemper Memorial Park which was establiashed to honor the 98 men and one woman who attended the local public schools and were killed in World War II.

What patronizing hogwash. It can be found in an Aug. 31 entry of Spitzerblog.com, which carries no identification of the writer.

Who is it? I imagine it’s someone with a great deal of time on his/her hands. Perhaps a pajama-wearing shut-in?

It’s not worth my time to answer in kind. But I will say that it is precisely the sort of answer you would expect from an arrogrant politician who takes the voters for granted.

I know people in power love yes-men, but Spitzer should disavow this brown-nosing blogger.