And of course, my favorite whipping boy, Gray Davis, is looking like an idiot again:

California Gov. Gray Davis (news - web sites) has paid $100,000 from his campaign account to the American Taxpayers Alliance to cover the group's legal fees stemming from a lawsuit he filed in 2001 over their television ads.



The ads, which ran for about three weeks during the energy crisis, criticized Davis' handling of the state's power problems. The ads referred to California's blackouts as "grayouts from Gray Davis."


The Democrat, facing what looked like a tough re-election campaign in 2002, sued to try to force the group to reveal its financial backers, but lost the legal fight he took to the California Supreme Court.


The alliance then demanded that Davis pay its legal fees. The group provided The Associated Press a copy of the settlement and the $100,000 check, dated May 6.


Roger Salazar, a Davis adviser, acknowledged that there has been a settlement, but said he had no details. Davis feared the impact on political campaigns "if someone can come in and slam a candidate without having to disclose who was doing the damage," Salazar said.

Hilarious. How this guy got elected twice speaks volumes of the attention paid to politics in my former home state.