Meg Whitman REALLY wants to be a governor

Who among us can whip out the checkbook at one sitting and sign away $15 million? California Republican gubernatorial candidate Meg Whitman can. And that comes just one month after signing over a $13 million check, making her personal total in the race $119 million, the most ever spent by a candidate in a single American election.

Former eBay CEO Whitman is pursuing the top job in a state in quasi-bankruptcy. Looks like the populist sentiment of downsizing government doesn’t apply to politicians’ campaign spending. Which does beg the koan (with apologies to Zen master Hakuin Ekaku): "Two hands waste millions and there is victory; can same hands handle taxpayers’ money?"

And now a word from the sniveling press ……

Neil Abercrombie, never known to be at a loss for words, swallowed a few of them in his interview The Washington Post published yesterday.

Venting obvious frustration with the Star-Advertiser’s endorsement of his opponent Mufi Hannemann, he started to describe its editorial board: "The sniveling … " he began, before press aide Jim McCoy shushed him. "Well, you know."

My, my — such words, coming from someone who’s been extolling the virtues of pono. Over here we would love to know how that sentence would have ended.