On Wednesday evening – as part of a separate investigation into the nocturnal habits of S.C. First Gentleman Michael Haley – our founding editor received a call from an exotic dancer in Myrtle Beach, S.C. with some shocking information.
According to the woman – who declined to provide either her real name (or her “stage” name, for that matter) – she gave Michael Haley a lap dance during an August 2009 visit to the Masters Club in Myrtle Beach, S.C.
Obviously that isn’t the “shocking information” we’re referring to – plenty of guys (and some very cool girls) go to strip clubs and get lap dances all the time. In fact, multiple sources have told FITS that Michael Haley is a regular guest (and frequent “VIP room” customer) at one particular Columbia, S.C. strip club – a story we’ve been tracking for several weeks.
But this phone call – which was originally placed to verify another report of Michael Haley’s alleged affinity for nude nightlife – quickly took a bizarre turn.
According to this dancer, Michael Haley wasn’t alone on this visit to the Master’s Club.
“She was with him, you know,” the dancer told us.
Wait … she? As in Nikki Haley – who was then a sitting state lawmaker as well as an announced candidate for governor?
“Yes. I danced for her,” the woman said. . . .
It goes on and on. What’s with this annoying third-person reference to “our founding editor”? Are we supposed to be surprised that Will Folks gets late-night calls from strippers? Are we supposed to be shocked that Will Folks alleges Nikki Haley to be involved in every manner of evil?
Will Folks is going to keep this up until his skull has an “inappropriate relationship” with somebody’s tire iron.
As John [Podhoretz] and Jonathan [Tobin] have already noted, today’s speech at the State Department marks Barack Obama’s emergence as a full-fledged, born-again neocon firmly in the George W. Bush mold. . . .
Obama, like Bush, is a neocon because he has been mugged by events—in his case by the Arab Spring which has exposed the fragility of dictatorships that he once thought, in the fashion of his predecessor’s father, George H.W. Bush, he could make deals with.
Gone now is the apologetic tone of Obama’s 2009 speech in Cairo, where he denied that America was “at war with Islam”; proclaimed, in light of Iraq, that “no system of government can or should be imposed upon one nation by any other”; and even tried to make amends for the U.S. role in the overthrow of the Mossadeq government in Iran in 1953.
Instead today at the State Department he spoke from a position of moral authority, telling Middle Eastern dictators that the U.S. will no longer tolerate a situation where “in too many countries, power has been concentrated in the hands of the few.” He even specifically repudiated the Realpolitik policy he had once favored, saying that “we have a stake not just in the stability of nations, but in the self-determination of individuals.” From now on, he announced, “it will be the policy of the United States to promote reform across the region, and to support transitions to democracy.”
Barack Obama showed up a half-hour late, and once again used the self-promoted White House occasion to say nothing specific, and nothing new. Even in the most specific part of the speech, regarding the American position on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, Obama offered nothing new. The entire speech could easily have been delivered by George W. Bush in its commendable but hardly inspirational cheering of democratization, which foundered on Obama’s decision to task Bashar Assad with leading democratic reform in Syria.
President Obama’s speech on the Middle East represents a watershed in his shift from a destructive and delusional approach to the Middle East, marked by indifference to democracy promotion and solicitude toward tyrants, toward embracing a policy that looks a lot like George W. Bush’s Freedom Agenda.
So that’s three commenters who see Obama’s speech as a shift toward Bushism.
Who knew the National Enquirer had a foreign-policy desk?
UPDATE VII: David Limbaugh asks, where’s the outrage? But the problem is that, according to various commentators, what Obama said about Israel returning to the 1967 borders is just a reiteration of longstanding U.S. policy. If Max Boot isn’t complaining . . .
“Arnold Schwarzenegger has disappointed all of those who put their faith in males, Republicans, politicians or all any combination of the above.”
— Red State Gal, Death by 10,000 Papercuts
That’s rather over-generalizing, isn’t it? Surely, somewhere in America, there must be at least one male Republican politician who hasn’t spawned love-children (yes, it’s plural) by paramours. And yet the innocent are being blamed for the Sperminator‘s sins.
As for Herman Cain, I’m also catching a lot of grief for not discussing him. For the record, what I’ve seen of Cain I like. I certainly respect the guy, though I was less impressed with what I saw of his debate performance than Frank Luntz’s focus group was. And I am far from convinced he’s the right candidate at the right time.
I didn’t mention him, or Michele Bachmann (who, I’d predict, will do better than Cain in the primaries if she enters the race), because they didn’t fit directly into the thesis of the column, particularly given space constraints. I can tell from the comments and e-mail that Cain’s fans are already trying to make support for him into some kind of litmus test. I’m not buying any of that. But I look forward to seeing how he does in the weeks and months ahead.
Corwin also finds herself in the middle of a proxy war between national Republicans and Democrats over Rep. Paul Ryan’s budget. Corwin backs Ryan’s effort; Hochul has tethered her hopes to demonizing Ryan’s Medicare reforms, which she claims would harm seniors.
Democrats, sensing disarray in a deep-red district, would love to pick up the seat, mere weeks after Ryan and his House GOP colleagues promoted the budget at town-hall meetings. Republicans, fearful of that spin, are performing triage, sending organizers and volunteers to Corwin headquarters.
“Democrats are going to try to make the 2012 House elections a referendum on ‘Paul Ryan’s plan to end Medicare,’ which all but a small handful of Republicans voted for,” says Larry Sabato, a political analyst at the University of Virginia. “NY-26 has too many complicating factors for this to fairly be considered a referendum on Ryan, but inevitably that is how many will interpret the election.”
Read the whole thing. At the end, Costa touches on the problem with David Bellavia, who was passed over for the GOP nomination and is now supporting Crazy Jack Davis. Bellavia’s situation and the problems of the New York Republican Party deserve more attention than I can give it here, but it would be an awful outcome if it results in handing Nancy Pelosi a chance to claim victory over Paul Ryan.
Let’s make a few things clear: This isn’t NY-23. Jane Corwin is not Dede Scozzafava; Corwin is ranked the second-most conservative member of the New York Assembly, based on her voting record. And furthermore, Jack Davis is no Doug Hoffman. Davis is a protectionist who ran three times for Congress as a Democrat.
The Tea Party Express, FreedomWorks and other major conservative organizations are backing Corwin.
Strauss-Kahn’s personal Götterdämmerung on Saturday came with stunning swiftness. On Friday he had checked into the upscale Sofitel in the Times Square area, staying in a $3,000 a night suite with foyer, conference room, living room, marble bathroom and bedroom. It was a lavish layout for a personal trip whose purpose is still unclear; an embarrassed IMF stated firmly that he was not on official business.
He was due in Berlin on Sunday to meet Chancellor Angela Merkel, followed by two days of meetings in Brussels to work on Europe’s sovereign debt crisis. He could easily have taken a flight from Washington’s Dulles airport without going through New York. Oddly, when police pulled him off an Air France flight Saturday afternoon just two minutes before it left the gate, the plane was headed not to Berlin, but to Paris.
Indeed, if Strauss-Kahn was en route from D.C. to Berlin, why the extra stops in New York and Paris?
Mr. Strauss-Kahn’s extramarital affairs have long been considered an open secret. But the legal charges against him — which include attempted rape, forced oral sex and an effort to sequester another person against her will — are of an entirely different magnitude, even in France and elsewhere in continental Europe.
In France, meanwhile, it seems that the initial round of America-bashing over the notion that a presumably great man like Strauss-Kahn could get arrested over a maid (sacre bleu!) has given way to a little more honesty. Both National Journal and Time Magazine report today that Strauss-Kahn’s reputation as a womanizer glossed over a well-known cruel streak that didn’t exist with other mainstream French politicians.
This 4-minute video features an interview by Lynda Waddington of the Iowa Independent. But never mind that part: Pay attention to the enthusiastic reaction Herman Cain generates from the grassroots GOP in Cedar Rapids, Iowa:
You see what I’m talking about? People love this guy. He is a people person. And that makes a huge difference at the retail-politics level, which is what the Iowa caucuses are all about. And by the way . . .
