This Is Not a Scandal!

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Newsreal contributor Susannah Fleetwood attended BlogCon, where she was kind enough to pose with  sidekick Smitty:

Earlier today, Smitty highlighted Mrs. Fleetwood’s latest column and, in an e-mail thanking us for the linkage, she mentioned remembering that someone had taken a photo like this. However, concerned that perhaps Frau Smith might share Mrs. Other McCain’s (unjustified) suspicion that BlogCon was a crazed saturnalia of New Media debauchery, I had previously refrained from publishing this picture.

That is a lanyard around Susannah’s neck, not Mardi Gras beads.

Besides, Smitty and I have our excuse ready: Blame Tabitha Hale.

Or maybe Da Tech Guy.

Is it our fault that the fedoras are irresistible?

Pro-Fellatio Coalition to Gather in Boston

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Bill Clinton will campaign Sunday for Barney Frank and never have two more famously fervent advocates of oral sex shared a stage at a political event — not even in Boston!

And what is the occasion for this Bill and Barney reunion?

Well, you see, back in January, a guy named Scott Brown got himself elected to the Senate, and suddenly Massachusetts Democrats realized that maybe taxpayers were serious about this “tea party” stuff. And Barney is obviously afraid that his bloated, saggy self might be rejected in favor of a handsome young Marine named Sean Bielat:

Hoping to turn a weekend campaign appearance by Bill Clinton on behalf of Barney Frank to his own advantage, Republican congressional candidate Sean Bielat is pointing to the former president’s arrival as a sign that the race is tightening.
“He wouldn’t be bringing in Bill Clinton if he weren’t in the position he is right now,’’ Bielat said. . . .
Bielat, who is furiously trying to nationalize a race long considered a reach for Republicans, is hoping the visit helps demonstrate to GOP donors around the country that he is mounting a credible campaign against Frank. A 35-year-old ex-Marine from Brookline, Bielat won the Republican primary last week. . . .
Frank’s campaign had more than $1 million on hand through the last week of August. . . .
Lisa J. Barstow, Bielat’s communications director, said he had about 700 to 800 volunteers. He is also running ads on radio and the Internet.
Bielat had raised $232,000 through Aug. 25. The campaign says the pace of its fund-raising has picked up in September, though aides did not have an updated total. . . .
Tory Mazzola, Northeast regional spokesman for the National Republican Congressional Committee, said it was too early to make funding decisions, but that the party was keeping its eye on the race.
“Sean Bielat is running a great campaign and I think he’s proving momentum is behind him,’’ Mazzola said.

The Republican challenger has certainly stirred up a storm of interest in his campaign. Too bad the Bielat campaign rejected my idea for a bumper-sticker slogan: “Barney Sucks.”

SEAN BIELAT for U.S. CONGRESS

UPDATE: Of course, my Bielat slogan suggestion wasn’t the only one rejected by the campaign staff:

Sean Bielat For Congress
When he’s not killing terrorists,
he’s building fuckin’ robots.

That was suggested by Ace of Spades, who will probably get so excited about the latest Bielat campaign internal poll, he won’t notice if I borrow another shtick from him.

Christine O’Donnell, Right Again!

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“And you can tell that Britney Spears is struggling with who she is. I think she has a team of agents and managers who are saying, yes, push the envelope, kiss Madonna, take off all your clothes. And she’s doing that because she doesn’t want to sacrifice this enormous platform that she’s built. But at the same time, she is sacrificing herself and you can see that in her eyes when she talks.”
— Christine O’Donnell, 2003

This quote was among those featured in a New Republic collection of the “the craziest statements Republican Senate candidate Christine O’Donnell has made in public.”

Once again — as I first pointed out when Rachel Maddow was mocking O’Donnell’s statements about masturbation — liberals seem to believe that such statements are self-evidently absurd. All they have to do is to quote this stuff and roll their eyes and everyone gets the joke.

Excuse me, but what it so wacky about what O’Donnell said about Britney? In fact, I dare say O’Donnell was prophetic in discerning that Britney was “struggling with who she is” and “sacrificing herself” in a desperate effort to live up to her sexualized hype.

O’Donnell said she could “see that in her eyes” in November 2003. It wasn’t until 2007 that the emptiness of Britney’s life became disastrously apparent, when she suffered the most spectacular public meltdown in Hollywood history. How empty was Britney’s existence? She was (allegedly) reduced to exposing herself to her bodyguard in a pathetic attempt at seduction.

Why, then, do the editors of The New Republic presume that their readers will find O’Donnell’s 2003 critique of Britney Spears utterly laughable?

I mean, it’s not like I don’t get it: Just as with her quotes about “dabbling into witchcraft,” all this stuff is supposed to suggest that O’Donnell lacks the dignity and gravitas necessary to fill the Senate seat once occupied by Joe “Big F–ing Deal” Biden.

This is merely an attack on O’Donnell’s biography. She was someone whose commentaries on sexuality and pop culture were, for many years, much sought by those seeking the perspective of a young female Christian conservative on those issues. It was not her job, in that role, to comment on tax rates or  other issues that are at the center of her Senate campaign in Delaware. 

Liberals seek to highlight O’Donnell’s early career as a distraction from the issues that matter to Delaware voters, because tax-raising Democrat Chris Coons can’t defend his own record on those issues. And liberals think the voters are too stupid to see through this tactic.

CHRISTINE O’DONNELL for U.S. SENATE

UPDATE: Now a thread at Memeorandum and Moe Lane at Red State says:

I’ll start caring about her social attitudes when she starts introducing them as legislation, thanks. Until then, I’m much more concerned about the Democrats’ social attitudes, which are frankly already starting to raid my wallet.

But Moe, don’t you think that social issues and economic issues are related? Christine O’Donnell tried to warn that excessive masturbation could lead to premature baldness and tax increases, but Chris Coons obviously didn’t listen:

And, in related news: Barney Frank sucks!

If Stupidity Was Illegal, Slate Would Be In Trouble

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by Smitty

Volokh links to Dahlia Lithwick expressing an opinion of Jane Curtin proportions.

Isn’t it a court’s job to determine whether or not something is, in fact, constitutional?

Dahlia darling, you’ve just captured succinctly the not-my-problem view that has led to the current crisis.
The Progressive doctrine of judicial restraint, abetted by a snoozing court of public opinion, is directly responsible for the Constitutional weakness of our times.
No, Dahlia, the situation where Congress passes whatever comes out of the printer and tosses it over the hedge to clobber the economy is not a proper state of affairs. The parade of clowns who are five weeks off of getting kicked to the curb have sworn an oath, at which they scoff, to support and defend that Constitution.
It’s a decadent, unsupportable situation in which we find ourselves. Your attention is drawn to Amar’s book, you ignorant . . .

Waiting to Exhale in Chicago

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Our recent encounter with a certain bikini-clad blonde was good for blog traffic — thank you, Professor Reynolds — and elicited some mirthful commentary about D.C. cocktail hostess Giovana Huidobro‘s services to Rep. Jesse Jackson, Jr. (D-Corruption). But Chicago Sun-Times columnist Mary Mitchell isn’t laughing:

What’s going on with U.S. Rep. Jesse Jackson Jr. is the kind of thing that gives a black woman a migraine. . . .
Despite the embarrassing headlines, until now Jackson’s Republican challenger, Isaac Hayes, might as well have been a ghost candidate . . .

(Ooh. Did you catch that? Isaac Hayes might be the kind of Change that Mary Mitchell could believe in.)

[W]hat I find preposterous is Jackson’s characterization of the blond and comely Giovana Huidobro as a “social acquaintance.”
Really? Is that what they call women who hook up with another woman’s husband these days? . . .
While Jackson is hiding behind a privacy veil, his mess has put black women, particularly, in an awkward position.
Once again, a high-profile, married black professional has been caught dallying with a white woman he plucked from the ranks of restaurant hostesses.
But God forbid if a black woman points out Jackson’s choice of Huidobro mimics Tiger Woods’ preference for women of the same ilk — she’d be the racist. . . .

(Note that Mitchell anticipates the accusation that she, a black woman, is “racist” for resenting Jackson’s evident preference in extramarital action.)

In Jackson’s case, his relationship with Huidobro is even more curious.
After all, he has campaigned as a pro-black politician, and cut his teeth in the company of some of the country’s greatest civil rights leaders.
He, better than most, knows the self-esteem issues that black women have had to deal with when it comes to black men dating white women. . . .

Ah, here is the nub of it, you see? Jackson was ostentatiously “pro-black,” and it was on that identity-politics basis that he enjoyed the support of Mary Mitchell and many others. Now, however, Jackson has not only disgraced himself in the sordid Blagojevich scandal, but his affair with Ms. Huidobro has undone the entire “pro-black” rationale of his career and damaged the self-esteem of many of his constituents.

This kind of Waiting to Exhale factor is a subject upon which even Mary Mitchell must tread lightly. The taboos of political correctness trump all other taboos in 21st-century America.

Yesterday, I interviewed Isaac Hayes for an upcoming American Spectator article. Hayes had no comment on the Blonde Factor in Jackson’s scandal, although I got the impression that many voters in the 2nd District have not hesistated to comment about it. Certainly, it has created new interest in Hayes’ candidacy, and lots of Chicago-area media are now seeking interviews with the Republican challenger.

Hayes is a minister in the Apostolic Church of God, which is Pentacostal. 

You know, like the Wasilla Assembly of God.

Just sayin’ . . .

John Cornyn’s Gay Leadership Recognized

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The senator from Texas is chairman of the National Republican Senatorial Committee, which has supported such political hermaphrodites as Arlen Specter, Charlie Crist, Lisa Murkowski and Mike Castle.

Unfortunately, Cornyn was so busy Wednesday evening that he was unable to attend the Log Cabin Republican event where he was presented with a leadership award. Pete Sessions of the Dede Scozzafava-backing National Republican Congressional Committee was also honored in absentia.

Tucker Carlson, who had been announced as keynote speaker for the Log Cabin gala, was likewise a no-show, explaining that he had a “scheduling conflict.” IYKWITMAITYD.

CLARIFICATION: We apologize for any confusion resulting from our use of the word “gay” to describe Senator Cornyn’s leadership. Some might have been incorrectly led to believe that we were saying that the senator is homosexual. Of course, Senator Cornyn is a married father of two, and we have no reason to suggest that he is part of Larry Craig’s Wide Stance Caucus.

Rather, what was intended was to say that Cornyn’s NRSC leadership has been “gay,” in the sense young people now use that word to mean ineffectual, hapless or ridiculous — i.e., a complete joke.

Worship Teaching Friends About Heavenly ObamaCare

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by Smitty

Interesting, given our separation of church and State that the State is comfortable asking churches to spread the word, as reported in Politico, via Hot Air.

“Get out there and spread the word,” Obama told leaders from across the religious spectrum on the conference call, organized by the Health and Human Services Center for Faith-Based and Community Partnerships…

Obama instructed faith leaders to treat the new law as settled fact and use their perches of power to convey that message to congregants and friends.

An oddly asymmetric tack. Were the pulpits to come out against the un-Constitutional political colonoscopy, past behavior indicates that, say, those zany Southern Baptists might get something other than the Bible thrown at them, yeah, verily, even as much as the tax code iteslf.

The chutzpah on display is astounding, given the substantial legal questions unresolved.

Some think that Woodward’s new book will spell his Waterloo. Others that the PantherGate coverup could be a Little Big Horn moment. I think that the dread of the November election, itself, will devastate the President like the Japanese did the Russians at Tsushima. Yes, it’s an obscure reference, but, if you study the event, you’ll see how like that Russian fleet these Democrats are. So hapless as to border on pitiful, without meriting pity.

October surprise?
Thoughts tantalize.
Truth scrapes away falsehood,
Like beard below eyes.
Burma Shave