Just FYI, bidding has closed at $2,100,100.00. Now we’ll wait and see if it was a real bidder, or of someone was trying to scam the system (a point a commenter made in my last eBay auction post). If real, it’s wonderful.
UPDATE: It’s real! “The winner of the auction was philanthropist Betty Casey.” And Harry Reid is already trying to make political capital of this.
UPDATE II: I’m noticing a surge of traffic as people try to figure out who Betty Casey is. Since you’re at my blog, here’s what I know: Casey is in her late 70s (just shy of 80 years old). She is the widow of Eugene B. Casey, who was a major real estate developer in his native Washington. She isn’t known for matters political, instead being connected with the arts and other more generic philanthropic enterprises. She has donated fairly generously to Barack Obama, but she mostly seems to donate to Republican causes and candidates. Here’s a mini-bio about the reclusive heiress, from a larger story about a lawsuit against her in connection with donations to a medical institution:
Casey grew up poor, but married well. By the time her husband of 31 years, famously tight-fisted Maryland speculator and developer Eugene B. Casey, died in 1986, he had accumulated a fortune estimated at more than $200 million. While he was so cheap that he would turn off the Coke machine when he left his office at night to save electricity, she has become one of Washington’s most generous philanthropists. Among her projects: spending millions on the Washington Opera and $50 million to plant trees.
In a website with information about both Betty and Eugene Casey, you can get more of a sense about the source of her wealth.
She is a 1947 grad of Washington College, and continues to treat the college with great generosity.
She really, really, really loves opera. Also, as an homage to her husband, a D.C. native who loved the City dearly, Casey has contributed large sums of money to City beautification. She’s also been a generous sponsor to the Salvation Army.
She’s also been involved in endless litigation with the town of Rockville, Maryland about a piece property that has an 80 year old house on it. I haven’t delved into the case (that would take too long), but it’s clear that Rockville doesn’t want her to get her hands on the property.
She is, unsurprisingly, a well-groomed, pleasant looking lady, at least if one goes by this 2004 photograph. (Here’s another picture, from 2003.)
And to those of you coming here on the Betty Casey trail, feel free to look around this blog. You might like what you see.
UPDATE III:Â Mark Steyn nicely skewers Reid’s attempt to ride Rush’s coattails, while issuing a challenge (one I’m sure will be unanswered) to the Millionaires Club that makes up most of the letter’s signatories:
Harry Reid’s Rush-and-I-don’t-agree-on-much-but letter makes a small man look even more shriveled. Rush is matching the highest bid for the Reid/Kennedy/Dodd/etc letter, so right now he’ll be writing a personal check for somewhere north of two million bucks. He has invited the Senate smearers also to match the highest bid. Like so many commissars from the people’s party, Harry Reid is a wealthy man. So are Ted Kennedy and most of the other 41 Democratic Senators who signed the letter. If they won’t match it individually, why can’t they pony up 50 grand per?
Well, yes, I know, Senator Reid is the guy who tips his doorman at the Ritz-Carlton with campaign contributions…
Hat tip:Â Wizbang
Filed under: Bits and Pieces | Tagged: 294, 410, 489, 764, 787 |
Bookworm Room (ARCHIVES) 
Harry Reid’s attempt to claim credit for supporting a cause that benefits the children of Marines and law enforcement agents is one of the most dishonest things I’ve seen in my life. He has truly, truly hit bottom.
I don’t know why I waste my time but when I heard what he said on the floor of the Senate today, I wrote him a letter. I’m sure they don’t read correspondence from their constituents, much less from people who aren’t even from their state, but I don’t care.
I couldn’t be more thrilled for the Marine Corps Law Enforcement Foundation!
[…] if you are interested in finding out exactly who Betty Casey is, check out Bookworm. She has got the […]
Hillary Roddam Clinton has agreed to match the winning bid! Of course, the money won’t come directly from her. It will be filtered in small amounts via contributions from several hundred Chinese waiters, busboys, laundry workers, etc.
[…] law enforcement personnel whose parent dies on duty. Rush Limbaugh will match the 2.1 million. Bookworm Room has some biographical information on Betty Casey, who is noted for her generosity as a patron of the arts, opera in […]
This is what is known as “being on the defensive” for the Left. It is much better than our side, meaning for example Bush, being on the defensive, and it is much different as well. You see how they handle a well constructed counter-attack. Essentially the Left makes shat up as they go along, no matter what happens. However, they are still decreased in fervor and efficiency by being back slapped.
If you don’t fight back, the Left will call in the sharks and you’ll be too busy dodging their teeth to worry about how Reid looks. If you do fight back, at least you’ll get folks like Reid more worried about themselves than thinking about ways to hurt people. Because it is guaranteed that when people like Reid feel safe, they will spend plenty of time on figuring out ways to hurt people in their way to ultimate power and wealth.
Don’t let them feel safe. After all, it works against terrorists, why not the Left?
Y, you’re on to something, because in my most recent post, about transgendered people in the workplace, it’s clear that the left makes up its reality as it goes along. It’s sort of the Jacques Derrida, deconstructionist school of politics.
For a more positive tone on things, I recommend Uncile J’s blackfive post.
http://www.blackfive.net/main/2007/10/game-set-match-.html
Deconstruction is notable because the Left cannot really construct, meaning create, anything truly good or even as good as what we have now.
This goes back to the nature of the balance of powers I wrote of before.
People talk about civil liberties. Their idea of securing civil liberties is to be perfect. After all, since nobody can be perfect, the Left cannot then be faulted for failing… now can they.
LIMBAUGH: I — it’s not possible, intellectually, to follow these people.
CALLER 2: No, it’s not, and what’s really funny is, they never talk to real soldiers. They like to pull these soldiers that come up out of the blue and talk to the media.
LIMBAUGH: The phony soldiers.
CALLER 2: The phony soldiers. If you talk to a real soldier, they are proud to serve. They want to be over in Iraq. They understand their sacrifice, and they’re willing to sacrifice for their country.
LIMBAUGH: They joined to be in Iraq. They joined —
CALLER 2: A lot of them — the new kids, yeah.
LIMBAUGH: Well, you —
As Media Matters has also documented, on the August 2, 2005, program, Limbaugh repeatedly referred to Iraq war veteran and then-Democratic congressional candidate Paul Hackett as “another liberal Democrat trying to hide behind a military uniform” and accused him of going to Iraq “to pad the resumé.” On the day of Limbaugh’s comments, Hackett narrowly lost a special election to Republican Jean Schmidt for Ohio’s 2nd Congressional District seat.
from an Iraq Vet
http://armyofdude.blogspot.com/2007/09/real-deal.html
As a phony civilian hoping to be a phony soldier, I tried to enlist in the military after I graduated high school in 2003. In 2002 I had a Nissen fundoplication operation to repair a hiatal hernia caused by severe acid reflux, preventing esophageal cancer later in life. I was immediately flagged on my attempt to enlist because of this surgery, as there was a chance that a physically stressful job such as Army infantry would complicate it. I had to be cleared by the surgeon general before entering the service. As the war kept on, so did I. I waited for a little over a year to get my results back: I would finally be able to join despite the surgery I had two years prior. As Rush found after dropping out of his first year of college at Southeast Missouri State University in 1969-1970, he found himself on draft status. Nothing that a claim of an old football injury or a boil on the ass can take care of, though! The medical deferment he was referring to was a pilonidal cyst, which apparently is a clump of severely ingrown hairs. That barred him from enlistment, and I’m sure he was ecstatic. After all, there was a war on. Here’s a first hand account of the surgery that was done to correct it. She claims that in eight weeks, it was perfectly healed. Rush is willing to sacrifice the lives of Americans in Iraq but not his own ass (literally) in a simple surgery. I waited a year to get in, and he didn’t try. Boy, do I really give an effort at being a phony soldier!
ohh…nice post but really?/?