Salt Lake Crawler

Not the end of the world, yet — God's spectacular warning early this morning that "Utah better straighten up and fly right" was passed off by KSL-TV as a meteorite burning through the atmosphere.

Kicking banker butt — Congressman Jason Chafettz grilled Bank of America board member Charles K. Gifford on conflicting stories of whether he was pressured by the government to takeover of Merrill Lynch. See the gripping video.

Bloody attack — A long-time BYU professor was apparently murdered during a violent robbery of his home in Payson.

'Suck it up' — Lawmakers will be slashing more programs and jobs as it tries to choke down a billion-dollar budget shortfall. Senate Majority Leader Sheldon Killpack isn't sugar-coating it: "More people are realizing we're just going to have to suck it up. The only way you will avoid [cuts] is with massive tax increases, and I don't see that happening."

Goofing up or goofing on? — It's bad enough the federal stimulus fund website teased Utah for failing to get a Fourth Congressional District, but a 68th district? That's just mean.

How refreshing — A Michigan woman has been convicted and sentenced for polygamy — specifically polyandry. That's right, Martha Fleming had two husbands whom she was exploiting.

Congressman Jason Chaffetz is like a heat-seeking missile for publicity. Utah's Third District representative has managed to somehow inject himself into the Carrie Prejean-sex tape scandal. TMZ quoted Chaffetz:

"[Carrie] has the ability to draw crowds and if she has a strong message to go with that, who knows what she can do? She has star power which can open doors.

"We've all made mistakes when we were 17*. [The sex tape] is going to be an impediment, but people are excited about her convictions and her beliefs."

TMZ provided a sizzling headline: Congressman:

Prejean Should Be a Politician

Chaffetz, later complained the TMZ headline was misleading:

"More than a bit of a stretch, especially the headline. They asked if I agreed she 'was the next Sarah Palin?' I said, 'Being the Republican nominee for the Vice President of the United States is a far cry from being in a Donald Trump beauty contest.' I didn't see that quote in the story.

"My quote was '[Carrie] has the ability to draw crowds and if she has a strong message to go with that, who knows what she can do? She has star power which can open doors.' Not exactly 'Prejean should be a politician.'"

Still, you know Jason was thinking, "Hmmm, should I make a sexy tape before I announce for Senate."

*She was actually 20 years old.

First he wowed the Utahns, then the Chinese, now former Gov. Jon Huntsman is working his "aw shucks" magic on the American media. He charmed reporters traveling the Far East with President Barack Obama by confessing that he doesn't know much about China where he just happens to be ambassador.

"Don't mistake me for being an expert, because I've been here for three months,'' said U.S. Ambassador Jon Huntsman, the former Republican governor of Utah who indeed has expertise in foreign affairs and speaks Mandarin.

When a reporter asked Huntsman, who has presidential aspirations, what he thought of the GOP infighting back in the U.S., he replied:

"It's a good time to be in Beijing."

Newsweek offers an extensive profile of former Gov. Jon Huntsman as ambassador to China. It would seem that Huntsman is knocking the out in China just as he did here in Utah. He recently invited astonished Chinese reporters to make themselves at home in his official Beijing residence and to interview Gracie Mei, 1o, his adopted Chinese daughter.

The new ambassador's openness and hospitality presented a stunning contrast to the tightly wrapped style of his predecessor, . . .  In fact that's exactly why Huntsman is in Beijing: to rally Chinese support for the Obama agenda. His skill at drumming up enthusiasm was a big reason that President Obama crossed party lines to choose Huntsman to run one of the most crucial U.S. diplomatic posts in the world.

As the phenomenally popular governor of Utah, Huntsman showed he knows how to work a crowd. And 1.3 billion people is nothing if not a crowd.

Rep. Craig Frank serves on the Governor's Commission on Strengthening Democracy and Other Good Stuff that voted — without dissent — to recommend campaign finance caps. Frank even proposed a bill on contribution limits.

You'll recall that Gov. Gary Herbert, who has been raking in record amounts of special interest dough, doesn't like limits. And the majority party of the Legislature doesn't like commissions telling them what to do.

So, Frank has proposed a second bill that would eschew contribution limits for fast and complete disclosure. You couldn't even see Herbert's lips moving when Frank said:

"I believe that full reporting should happen without limits and people should decide at the ballot box."

Frank blogged that the commission — which he voted in harmony with — has "decidedly left-leaning tendencies."

Today he added a caveat:

. . .  Anything left of me…is left leaning.   Also, I consider the vote on the original Dryer Proposal the benchmark of right and left-leaning positions.  I voted against the Dryer Proposal.  The Dryer Proposal passed the Commission 10-7.   For this reason, I made the assertion that the Commission is “left-leaning.”