Saturday, October 28, 2006

Democrat Meltdown?

Go watch this RNC ad against Tennessee Dem senate candidate Harold Ford. I'll wait until you come back.

…Finished? Okay, here’s my question: Which part of that ad did you think was the funniest? Personally, I laughed out loud at the old man who drawled, "Canada can take care of North Korea – they’re not busy." They say humor can be the most devastating political weapon, and the Democrats long ago lost their collective sense of humor.

What’s that, you say? What about the floozy who squeals that she met the silver-spooned n’er-do-well "at the Playboy party"? She’s white and Ford is black and her breathy invitation to "call me" implies interracial sex and that’s "racist"? This is Willie Horton 2006?

You’re kidding, right?

Apparently not, if this Limbaugh montage is any indication:

Now, listen to this last night. This is a montage of Susan Estrich, Paul Begala, Tim Russert, and Mike Barnicle.

ESTRICH: I showed my current students the old Willie Horton ad and then I showed them this ad. My students looked at me as if the 1988 Willie Horton ad was kid's stuff.

BEGALA: It's scurrilous, it's worse than Willie Horton.

RUSSERT: It makes the Willie Horton ad look tame. BARNICLE: The spot resurrected visions of the racially charged Willie Horton ad.

Except, of course, that the 1988 Willie Horton ad was not about race, it was about crime and how then-Democrat presidential candidate Michael Dukakis was as soft on it as every penis within a country mile of Hillary Clinton. Horton, a convicted rapist who was released on weekend "furlough," you’ll recall, attacked a Maryland couple, raping the wife after first castrating the husband, stuffing the man’s severed genitalia in his mouth, tying him up and making him watch. That Horton also happened to be black was not the point, except to the real racists of the American political firmament, the Democrats – who, you’ll also recall, had no problem with using the Horton incident when Al Gore did so in that year’s Democrat primaries.

What incensed the Donks about the Horton ad was that it was effective – devastatingly effective.

Is the RNC’s Harold Ford ad that effective? Probably not. But it does convey the entirely accurate message that Ford is not a serious man or serious candidate and that the only reason he isn’t pumping gas for a living is because of his family name. Kind of like Ted Kennedy minus forty years and a hundred pounds.

Is it racist? Only if you have a problem with the idea of interracial "fraternization." Apparently the Democrats do.

As well as effective ads against their silver-spooned, n’er-do-well candidates, of which they have an evidently bottomless supply.

~ ~ ~

As so often happens with the scandalous, it started with a press release:

Kay James, mother of three, former cabinet secretary for Governor George Allen and appointee to the Virginia Board of Education, issued the following statement through the Allen campaign today:

"For the past several months – we have heard Jim Webb describe himself as a novelist, as a writer. He’s mentioned it on the campaign trail, and now in his TV ads. But when his record of authorship is reviewed, a disturbing theme is clearly evident. Throughout his writings, both fiction and non-fiction, there is a pattern of demeaning treatment toward women.

"Women are consistently depicted in a negative and disrespectful light. In several thousands of pages of writings, you would think there would be a few positive female role models. But there are not.

"How can women trust Jim Webb to represent their views in the Senate when chauvinistic attitudes and sexually exploitative references run throughout his fiction and non-fiction writings? More importantly, what type of mind commits these thoughts to paper – in such graphic detail?

"Most Virginians and Americans would find these passages shocking, especially coming from the pen of someone who seeks the privilege of serving and representing us in the United States Senate."

I guess this is Senator Allen still pursuing the "Jim Webb is a misogynist’ angle. It never particularly impressed me, but then (1) I don’t live in Virginia and (2) even if I did, my demographic isn’t the one at which he’s aiming. And besides, the Webb campaign slipped the tracks of maturity, sanity, and good taste what seems like years ago.

Still, what could Mrs. James have been referring to? Dean Barnett took a look:

"A shirtless man walked toward them along a mud pathway. His muscles were young and hard, but his face was devastated with wrinkles. His eyes were so red that they appeared to be burned by fire. A naked boy ran happily toward him from a little plot of dirt. The man grabbed his young son in his arms, turned him upside down, and put the boy’s penis …"

What the HELL??? That’s DISGUSTING!!! This is a FAMILY blog, not DailyKos or the Democrat Underground!!!

Well, maybe it was just an isolated lapse. Or part of the surrounding context. The latter’s what Webb tried to claim in a damage control radio interview. So there couldn’t be any more of this sewage in Webb’s writings, could there?

Well….

"Fogarty watched a young naked young stripper do the splits over a banana. She stood back up, her face smiling proudly, her round breasts glistening from a spotlight in the dim bar and left the banana on the bar cut in four equal sections by the muscles of her vagina."

Imagine what the naked young stripper would have done to the penis of the happily running naked boy. Webb makes it sound like she’s packing a pencil-sharpener in her crotch.

You start getting the feeling that there’s a lot more of this stuff in Webb’s novelizing, not unlike zits in Hershey, Pennsylvania.

Oh, man, why did I have to mention "Hershey"?

"[He] could see Jawbone and Ashley Asthmatic [two guards at a Vietnamese prison camp] napping together in the grass. They faced inward, their arms entwined. It looked like they were masturbating each other. It didn't surprise him … It was common to see men holding hands, embracing, playing with each other.

"Some of them [the guards] had wanted him. He could tell in those evanescent moments between his bao cao bow, the obligatory deference when a guard entered his cell, and the first word or blow that followed it… Quick, grinding voices, turgid with repressed passion. An exploratory reaching of the hand near his groin…"

To borrow a phrase from Ron White, that resides in the realm of things that make you go, "Br-r-r-r-r-r-r-r". Or "EWWWWWWWWW!!!!!"

Why does this matter to James Webb’s senate candidacy? Well, does he practice any of these, um, "exotic" activities himself? Not that I’ve seen or heard. Yet, anyway. Does he give hearty approval to them when practiced by others? Apparently, since the above quotes were all from "historical fiction" novels of his. It’s one thing to report on such things, another to actively include them in a story narrative. Or, as an old literary saying goes, you write what you know, and what’s in your heart. If this is the sort of turpitude that clutters Jim Webb’s heart, does he really belong in the U.S. Senate as Teddy Kennedy’s designated driver?

Besides, just look at Webb’s attempt to laugh off the incestuous homosexual fellatio depicted in the first quote:

That was something that I actually saw as a writer in a slum of Quong Tuih (sp) in Bangkok, Thailand. It was not a sexual act. It's being characterized as a sexual act. [emphasis added]

Boy, does THAT sound familiar. "I did not have sexual relations with that woman…" Other than Monica Lewinsky taking Bill Clinton’s banana into her mouth and peeling it with her tongue while simultaneously serving as his personal humidor. Personally when I greet my son, he’s not naked and I just give him a brief hug or tousle the hair on his head. But then again I’m also a "religious right fundie Bible-thumper Repugnican obsessed with sex," so what do I know? Other than that Jim Webb sure looks and sounds like an authentic contemporary Democrat – which is to say, he’s an arrogant, hypocritical, morally-confused prick, and has run the campaign to prove it.

~ ~ ~

I told you that story to tell you this one. Fast-forward to Lynne Cheney on CNN yesterday with our old friend Wolf Blitzer. The Second Lady was appearing to promote her new children’s book, The 50 States – or so she thought. After tangenting off on the Enemy Media's "torture" canard based upon her husband’s "dunking" comments earlier in the week (and getting his ass handed to him by Mrs. Cheney in the process - BLITZER: "Of course, is we want the United States to win." MRS. CHENEY: "[T]hen why are you running terrorist propaganda?"), Wolfy baby, had still another topic he wanted her to discuss:

WB: Democrats are now complaining bitterly in this Virginia race. George Allen using novels, novels that Jim Webb, his Democratic challenger, has written, in which there are sexual references. And they’re making a big deal out of this. I want you to listen to what Jim Webb said today in responding to this very sharp attack from George Allen.

LC: Now do you promise, Wolf, that we’re going to talk about my book?

WB: I do promise.

LC: Because this seems to me a mighty long trip around the merry-go-round.

She didn’t know the half of it; Blitzer was just getting started.

WB: I want you to respond. This is in the news today, and your name has come up, so that’s why we’re talking about it. But listen to this:

JAMES WEBB: There’s nothing that’s been in any of my novels that in my view, hasn’t been either illuminating the surroundings, or defining a character, or moving a plot. I’m a serious writer. I mean, we can go and read Lynne Cheney’s lesbian love scenes if you want to, you know, get graphic on stuff.

LC: You know, Jim Webb is full of baloney. I have never written anything sexually explicit. His novels are full of sexually explicit references to incest, sexually explicit references…well, you know, I just don’t want my grandchildren to turn on the television set. This morning, Imus was reading from the novels, and it’s triple X rated.

If Mrs. Cheney had been more like Webb, she’d have used a coarser word than "baloney." And if Blitzer had been paying attention in this railroad job of an interview, he’d have beat a hasty retreat back to talking about her book as he had originally promised.

Instead, he launched into DNC talking points:

WB: Here’s what the Democratic Party put out today, the Democratic Congressional Senatorial Campaign Committee. Lynne Cheney’s book featured brothels and attempted rape. In 1981, Vice President Dick Cheney’s wife, Lynne, wrote a book called Sisters, which featured a lesbian love affair, brothels, and attempted rapes. In 1988, Lynne Cheney wrote about a Republican Vice President who dies of a heart attack while having sex with his mistress. Is that true?

LC: Nothing explicit. And actually, that is full of lies. It’s not…it’s just absolutely not true.

WB: But you did write a book entitled Sisters.

LC: I did write a book entitled Sisters. This description…

WB: And it did have lesbian characters.

LC: No, not necessarily. This description is a lie. I’ll stand on that.

WB: There is nothing in there about rapes and brothels?

LC: Wolf, Wolf, could we talk about a children’s book for a minute?
Good Lord, the man sounds like he's projectile-salivating. Double-H should start up a campaign to get "There is nothing about rapes and brothels?" etched on Blitzer's eventual bust in the broadcasting hall of fame. It's SO emblematic in SO many ways.

WB: We can talk about the children’s book. But I just wanted to…

LC: I think our segment is like fifteen minutes long, and we’ve now done ten minutes, so…

WB: I just wanted to clarify what’s in the news today, give you a…

LC: Sex, lies and distortion. That’s what it is.

WB: This is an opportunity for you to explain on these sensitive issues.

LC: Wolf, I have nothing to explain. Jim Webb has a lot to explain.
I can just see what got edited out:

WB: Okay, Mrs. Cheney, we'll talk about your book now. Isn't it true that you graphically depict orgyistic pederasty below the Mason-Dixon Line, and most of the scenes take place on church pews? Oh, I'm sorry, we're out of time. Mrs. Cheney, thank you for coming.

LC: [redacted]

God, what a train wreck. For Wolf Blitzer, CNN, and James Webb, that is, all of whom are remarkably open about never having read Sisters. Blitzer’s supposed to be a reporter, a journalist, for heaven’s sake; wouldn’t you think he’d have a staffer actually check Mrs. Cheney’s book to see if there was anything remotely as carnal as Webb’s perverted rhetorical frolicking before trying to pull a "gotcha" trap like this and making twice the ass of himself that he already had with the "torture" detour?

But of course not; just as it was somehow incumbent upon House Speaker J. Dennis Hastert to quit Congress altogether over Mark Foley’s "funny" IMs and emails, so Lynn Cheney is expected to answer both for Jim Webb’s dirty mind and "lesbian scenes" she never penned. And she blasted it right back in both of Wolf Blitzer’s faces.

Webb does indeed have some ‘splainin’ to do. Or would if his septic tank of a campaign hadn’t already beat him to it. As Dean Barnett put it in his linked post above:

I get the sense that the electorate is getting a little tired of its elected officials being a tad, shall we say, eccentric. With the widespread dissemination of this passage, Webb now has both feet planted in the eccentrics’ camp in the electorate’s eye. And there’s nothing he can do to change it.

All George Allen and Kay James did was pour in the cement.

~ ~ ~

Moving on to the next Democrat self-defenestration – The Michael J. Fox Spastic Multi-State Stem Cell Smear – Michael Steele, Maryland Lieutenant-Governor and GOP senate candidate, had a walk-off grand slam of a retort to his third-rate Donk opponent Ben Cardin’s foolish leap onto that despicable bandwagon.

Watch the ad here. The transcript follows:

STEELE: I’m Michael Steele, and I approve this message.

TURNER: I’m Dr. Monica Turner.

Congressman Ben Cardin is attacking Michael Steele with deceptive, tasteless ads. He is using the victim of a terrible disease to frighten people all for his own political gain.

Mr. Cardin should be ashamed.

There’s something you should know about Michael Steele. He does support stem cell research, and he cares deeply for those who suffer from disease.

How do I know? I’m Michael Steele’s little sister. I have MS, and I know he cares about me. [emphasis added]
That thump you just heard was Cardin collapsing, Wile E. Coyote-like, as another "Wellstone funeral moment" blew up in his face.

He should, indeed, be ashamed, and not just for wallowing in the disgusting stem cell hoax, but his cowardice as well. He’s even ducking NAACP-sponsored debates with Lieutenant-Governor Steele, citing the pathetic excuse of "scheduling conflicts."

Stick a fork in Ben Cardin. He’s done. And ditto Harold Ford and Jim Webb and Claire McCaskill and li’l Bobby Menendez and the cluster-[bleep] of roaring iniquitous idiocy the entire 2006 Democrat campaign effort has become. They’ve reached the ultimate depth a minority rump party can sink: They are beyond parody – and nationally unelectable.