I’ve been watching this Rand Paul story unfold for the past few days, and combined with the Mark Souder news, it mostly serves to remind me of my time as a Hoosier. The Wall Street Journal broke the news gently to its readership, whom you’d think would already be familiar with the type:
Republican candidate Rand Paul’s controversial remarks on the 1964 Civil Rights Act unsettled GOP leaders this week, but they reflect deeply held iconoclastic beliefs held by some in his party, and many in the tea-party movement, that the U.S. government shook its constitutional moorings more than 70 years ago.
Seventy years ago? Visit Indiana, gents! I once heard someone there say, with an expression of delicate pain on his fair brow, that it might have been better for the nation to shake off slavery “naturally,” rather than fight a war over it. In his explanation, the Confederacy would gradually come to its senses, while the invisible hand worked its magic, and little by little, state by state, the south would shed the peculiar institution, and we wouldn’t have had to spill a drop of blood over it. Except for that of the slaves who would have had to stay in bondage, that is.
“So if Mississippi, say, hung on until 1950 or so, that would have been OK?” I asked, wondering for the millionth time what happened to the nice, reasonable Republicans of my youth. Yes, it would be OK. In the long run.
I don’t mean to pick on Indiana. It’s just where I was at the time. I’m sure there are Randites everywhere in this great country. But now they’ve been dragged into the spotlight, and it’s a little unsettling for them.
Libertarians — or constitutional conservatives, or whatever Paul and his ilk are calling themselves these days — aren’t accustomed to this much attention. Generally, they confine their pontificating to blog comment sections, the dinner table and maybe the men’s grille at the country club, where they’re not going to face much opposition. Libertarianism isn’t so much a party as it is a philosophy, and being one means never having to say “so help me God” on swearing-in day, so you’re free to have any old crazy opinion you want. Let’s legalize all drugs! Let’s open the national parks to logging and mining! Let’s do away with zoning! Let’s carry guns everywhere!
Some of these ideas aren’t completely whack. Take the drug thing. I’m certainly in favor of calling off the war on (some) drugs and treating abuse and addiction as a public-health problem, rather than one for law enforcement. But ask a libertarian what we’re going to do with all the junkies, more of which will surely be created when there is no legal sanction whatsoever for using everything from marijuana to heroin, and they wave their hands. Details, details. Not their problem.
I’ve said in the past that being a Libertarian always strikes me as a political version of one of those role-playing games where your capabilities are determined by a dice roll — OK, I’m 10 feet tall, can fly and shoot fireballs out of my fingertips, but I’m allergic to water. Limit the government to police work, military and a few other functions, and nothing bad happens (to them), only good, wonderful, free-market things.
The NYT, Sunday, lays out the problem in a nutshell:
But Mr. Paul’s position is complicated. He has emerged as the politician most closely identified with the Tea Party movement. Its adherents are drawn to him because he has come forward as a kind of libertarian originalist, unbending in his anti-government stance. The farther he retreats from ideological purity, the more he resembles other, less attractive politicians.
In this sense, Mr. Paul’s quandary reflects the position of the Tea Partiers, whose antipathy to government, rooted in populist impatience with the major parties, implies a repudiation of politics and its capacity to effect meaningful change.
Sooner or later, everyone with strongly held opinions about public policy comes up on the hard, unbending truth about how we make it in this country, i.e., politics: It’s always a matter of compromise, of negotiation. The clear, pure air of theory belongs in universities, editorial-board meetings and the men’s grille at the country club, where you can mourn Lester Maddox to your heart’s content.
That NYT story is pretty good. Recommended.
Meanwhile, back in Indiana, Souder the Goober gave his exclusive farewell interview, to the Journal Gazette. It’s an instructive look at the way some people interact with their personal God:
“Subconsciously, was I wanting to get caught? Or was God so frustrated with me he said, ‘I’ve had it. You’re so stupid here I’m going to, in effect, out you.’
“It doesn’t really matter at the end of the day. Because ultimately maybe I was getting – and she was getting – so reckless that it was a way for God to say, ‘You need to get your marriages back together. You need to get your lives straightened out.’ Maybe it was also guilt.
“Or maybe it was just an accident because we were really stupid, and God used it. But at the end of the day, if we get through all this, we’ll be better for having gotten caught.”
This is one reason I found it pretty easy to leave God behind. The Almighty just talks to these folks differently than he ever talked to me. (Or to Jesus, for that matter. As I recall my Scripture, the response to “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” was silence.) Such a micromanager, this God, messing with people’s car batteries and sending DNR officers to interrupt makeout sessions in state parks.
Ah. Well, it’s all over now, baby blue. Back to civilian life with him, and off to my Monday chore-a-whirl for me. Have a good one y’selves, all.
Dexter said on May 24, 2010 at 2:09 am
“Such a micromanager, this God, messing with people’s car batteries and sending DNR officers to interrupt makeout sessions in state parks.”
You’re a scream. That’s funny. That’s stand-up material, and I bet somebody’s gonna latch onto it.
David Gregory kept mentioning how Rand Paul cancelled on him, sort of insinuating that Paul was just to weak to face Big Bad David. I just wonder how long NBC waits before handing Gregory’s job to Luke Russert, who is now doing puff pieces on msnbc, and doing very well. Gregory is the oldest 39 year-old I ever saw, and Luke Russert is only 24, but my crystal ball shows Russert in his late daddy’s chair in just a few years.
Michelle Malkin weighs in on the “weasel Republicans’ God”
http://michellemalkin.com/2010/05/18/the-gop-crapweasel-club/
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Jeff (the mild-mannered one) said on May 24, 2010 at 7:06 am
He’s got a ways to go before he’s hearing anyone clearly, let alone God. Re: “the response to “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” was silence” — read Psalm 22. They weren’t numbered 2000 years ago.
On the other subject du jour, I still recall the general shock and then entire class period spent in Con Law I on the “commerce clause” and the Civil Rights Act with “Heart of Atlanta Hotel v. United States.” And I think it’s fair to say that the general shake out was that on the left, more liberal students shrugged and said “hey, whatever gets you to a fair and equitable resolution,” and the more conservative students resplit into two camps, one group wrestling with how this new doctrine could work and hold however tenuously, and the other arguing that an ideal outcome doesn’t justify a flimsy (or invalid) interpretation.
After an hour, Prof. McLaughlin said “OK, this has been fascinating, but we’re done until one of you re-litigates it to the Supreme Court. Time for ‘Lemon v. Kurtzman’!”
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Linda said on May 24, 2010 at 7:22 am
Libertarianism is not used the the spotlight it is now getting. For the last 30 years or more, it was able to put forward the smiley faced version of itself: the kind opposed to the war on drugs, the kind that said to the public: “you are SO much smarter than government. Why not dump social security and invest your own money.” It was the smiley face predicated on the idea that government is stoopid, are we are all smarter than that.
The frowny face libertarianism, on the other hand, says that you are on your own in dealing with public and private racism, and that if you really aren’t smarter than the guys running social security, you deserve to live out your days in a refrigerator box. And you can redress wrongs done to you by big companies–if you can pick up the freight for lawyers. If not, tough luck. It’s one of those superficially appealing ideas that pop up in American life, if you don’t look at it too long. But the frowny faced size escaped scrutiny for about 30 years.
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Joe Kobiela said on May 24, 2010 at 7:24 am
Ok lets talk about something more important. Is Walter White going completly Mad on breaking bad? Last night, I think showed him to be insane.
Pilot Joe
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coozledad said on May 24, 2010 at 7:45 am
The Confederacy was pretty much what happens when people with libertarian ethics put together a sham state to advance their economic interests. There are indications that Davis and company wouldn’t simply have propped up the institution of slavery, but if they’d achieved a negotiated end to the Civil War, they were planning to undertake an imperial war against resource rich nations in South America using their barefoot cracker idiot army.
This presupposes that their staggering incompetence at the most rudimentary forms of governance wouldn’t have bitten big chunks off their ass before they got the first boat loaded up with buck-toothed pants-shitters.
Didn’t Lincoln say somewhere that he felt compelled to prosecute the war because the institution of slavery had artificially elevated the worst lowlifes to positions of authority? Sometimes I wish the North had just kept kicking ass until there wasn’t anything left to kick.
The only thing I think you left out, Nancy, was T-Bogg’s tag for all his Libertarian posts: Libertarian is poli-sci for asshole.
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Lex said on May 24, 2010 at 7:58 am
The problem with Rand Paul isn’t that he outed the more unsavory side of libertarianism. The problem is that he outed the more unsavory side of the GOP. At least half the damn party is and always has been opposed to the 1964 Civil Rights Act (enactment of which led a boatload of Southern Democrats to cross the aisle). And THAT is the elephant in the room that no one has wanted to talk about for the last 40 years.
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Jim said on May 24, 2010 at 8:30 am
I think the elephant is bigger than that, Lex. At the heart of it, many of the Libertarians/Tea Partiers are sorry the Union won the Civil War. They wish they could turn the clock back to a pre-1860 America. They won’t admit that, but when you probe deep and pin them down, the truth reveals itself.
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nancy said on May 24, 2010 at 9:08 am
Ross Douthat identifies this crowd today as “paleoconservatives,” and honestly, I haven’t done enough spelunking in their caverns to speak with his authority on the subject — he lives there, evidently — so I’ll take his word for it. Funny that he mentions Joseph Sobran, the worst of the bunch, a man too crude and offensive for even William F. Buckley (but not The News-Sentinel of Fort Wayne, Indiana!).
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brian stouder said on May 24, 2010 at 9:16 am
You guys are pulling my finger….
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brian stouder said on May 24, 2010 at 9:25 am
It is worth noting, in response to the fellow who told Nancy that he thought it would have been so much better if slavery had gone away “naturally” rather than by war – that the war was initiated and driven – very precisely – by the effort to SPREAD slavery, and not by any effort to extinguish it.
President Lincoln started off, in his first inaugural address, by reaching out to the ‘bitter clingers’ of his day, and he assured them both publicly and privately that he had no intention of touching slavery where it already existed; he simply (and inalterably) opposed the spread of slavery.
The so-called Confederate States of America started the shooting war at Fort Sumter, because they hated the election of a president who they feared; a president who was heavily criticised by activists on his own side at the time (and even still, by some folks) for being too conservative, too accommodating to the other side, too ready settle for half a loaf (now that sounds vaguely familiar).
Also, let’s not forget “bloody Kansas”. Left in its natural state, slavery expands. Over time, slave owners move here and there, and bring their slaves with them. For a full decade before Lincoln’s election, a bloody insurgency (aka war) was raging in Kansas over slavery.
By way of saying, if slavery ever could have gone away “naturally”, it would have. But “the Slave power” zealously guarded their political control of the US government (remember that “3/5″s clause, wherein states got apportioned congressional seats – and presidential electors – based on their population, including 3/5’s of the total number of people “held to service” in their state?), and they viewed the election of a president that they did not control as simply unacceptable, even despite that that president was quite conservative at the outset, and pledged to leave their ‘peculiar institution’ alone where it already existed, with the oft-expressed belief that slavery, thus contained, would in time wither and die away naturally.
And indeed, the president tried again and again to float a “compensated emancipation” scheme (sort of a 19th century “bail out” for an institution too big to fail) to very little effect
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del said on May 24, 2010 at 9:35 am
“Libertarian is poli-sci for asshole.”
Coozledad / T-Bogg win the thread!
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moe99 said on May 24, 2010 at 10:32 am
Heart of Atlanta was a 1964 case, Jeff tmmo. The shock over the decision was done with by the time I entered law school in 1973. I can’t believe that you are that old?
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basset said on May 24, 2010 at 10:49 am
Cooz, have you read any of S.M. Stirling’s “Draka” series? Over time, Revolutionary War British loyalists, Boers, and defeated Confederates build a new, racist, virulent, highly aggressive nation (“Drakia” after Sir Francis Drake) in South Africa and do their best to take over the world, enslaving as they go? “Marching Through Georgia” would be a good one to start on.
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LAMary said on May 24, 2010 at 11:22 am
I don’t think racism ever went away but I am amazed at how it’s surfaced in the last year and a half. I’m sure having a black president is the what stirred things up.
If I have a youngish applicant for a job sometimes I look at their Facebook page to get an idea of what they present to that world. Two weeks ago I looked at my younger son’s page. I was ticked off about him joking about ganja and I can’t say if I believe him when he says he was only joking or if he is actually smoking weed and bragging about it publicly. Then I looked at the pages of his cousins aged 20 to 22, living in a rural part of New York. I didn’t feel so bad about the ganja. The cousins, male and female, throw the N word around a lot. There’s a feature in Facebook called “bumper stickers.” One of my nephews has about fifteen of those, all racist. His sister contributed four of them. They have friends who pile on with similar opinions about minorities. It’s pretty sickening.
Give me a few remarks about blunts any day. It’s only illegal, not immoral.
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Jolene said on May 24, 2010 at 11:39 am
Re God as micro-manager, I’m always fascinated by the narrow focus of people who see God’s hand in every event. Just recently, I heard a post-tornado news report in which a man described his grandchildren being torn from their father’s arms as he ran for shelter, a report that was immediately followed by a woman saying that she’d been able to save her child by lying on top of him. She said, “God blessed me. I know some weren’t so lucky.” That is, she seemed to know about the two children who’d been killed. Apparently, the reporter didn’t think to ask her why God was more interested in her child’s fate than that of her neighbors’ children.
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Julie Robinson said on May 24, 2010 at 11:40 am
Using the N word is considered cool by too many people who are not of color. Listening to gansta rap doesn’t give you license to repeat its language.
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LAMary said on May 24, 2010 at 11:42 am
Julie, these kids are not gangsta rap fans. They listen to country western. They list their favorite music on their facebook pages and it’s all Lady Antebellum, Carrie Underwood, Rascal Flats.
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Jeff (the mild-mannered one) said on May 24, 2010 at 11:55 am
Moe, it was in ’79, and there wasn’t any “shock” over “Heart of Atlanta” per se, it was just the legal basis of it. And that’s been a libertarian commonplace ever since, that too much has been balanced precariously on the “commerce clause.” I’m more of a conservative, in that sense, with a willingness to confer certain authorities and responsibilities to government, but I would cop to a love of subsidiarity, which is a potential middle ground between libertarians and mainstream conservatism . . . and I think, if you listen to the whole interview, that’s what Paul was trying to ask for — could there have been federal pressure on state legislatures to do the right thing, rather than make it a federal mandate to fix in on that level.
Having sympathized with that reading, I’ve apparently tagged myself a racist and hiney-hatter, plus I find God to be peculiarly micro-managey sometimes, not that I claim to understand what the pattern behind that personal involvement is. Hope to find more discussion on subsidiarity here when I get back from this next loop on the road this afternoon, but I’m not optimistic . . . on the other hand, I think you could make a case for federal intervention on this stuff quite easily — http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/10_22/b4180056325806.htm — but I don’t expect the Republocrats or Democrapublicans to get around to it anytime soon. The evil twin of casinos & gaming, IMNSHO.
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paddyo' said on May 24, 2010 at 12:10 pm
Maybe, maybe, maybe . . . at the end of the day (to quote the undistinguished non-gentleman from Indiana) . . . that dickwad congressman is just another GOP crap-weasel. Works for me. Good riddance, jerkoff.
Meanwhile, Pilot Joe, Walter White certainly seems to have had a psychotic episode, hasn’t he? I have no idea what to make of it, beyond noting the ruminating and apologies and such that seeped out of his addled mind in the last 15 minutes or so . . . but sometimes, crazy is just barely over the line from brilliant, no?
Last night’s “BB” certainly was disturbing, and sometimes as annoying as that damned fly. Very effective, if disconcerting. I also think that after about four straight episodes of bloody and cathartic mayhem of one sort or the other, the writers needed to, uh, cleanse their palate before moving on with the drug-lord-fast-foot-chicken-man story arc.
Or maybe ol’ Walt just dropped some acid . . .
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moe99 said on May 24, 2010 at 12:23 pm
Corporations and other business entities are basically government creations, Jeff tmmo. They are not only created via government action, they are sustained through government action: roads, police, fire, utilities, all contribute to their upkeep and well-being. So to impose a nondiscrimination requirement on them if they serve the public, does not seem to be to great an imposition. Regardless of whether it is through the aegis of the commerce clause or otherwise.
I wonder if the country club where Rand Paul held his victory party is integrated or not. Doesn’t have to be if it is private. Look at that golf club that sponsors the Masters which still does not admit women and was only forced to deal with the black question when Tiger Woods won. So we don’t have complete integration in our society yet.
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Mark P. said on May 24, 2010 at 12:46 pm
The South would have eventually given up slavery? That’s perfectly stupid. It took federal troops (or federalized troops) to get blacks into Southern state institutions a hundred years after the Civil War ended.
I am from the South, but I have nothing but contempt for the politicians of 150 years ago and those of today who worship at the same altar (and that’s just about every Southern republican I know of). I have trouble not feeling contempt for the ignorant idiots who do their dirty work. These morons are the ones who would have been cannon fodder for the politicians and the rich who were gulling them into protecting an institution that hurt not only the slaves, but also the poor.
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Sue said on May 24, 2010 at 1:27 pm
The fact that so much engineering knowledge has been thrown at the BP disaster with not only no effect but weird glitches all along the way is a clear indication that God is really mad at the way the US lets those gay people get away with naughty behavior.
Or something, but anyway it’s obvious He’s mad.
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Jeff Borden said on May 24, 2010 at 1:30 pm
I remain a bit puzzled about the South and its political ways.
When I lived in Charlotte for more than four years, I rarely met anyone who was from the region. Everyone was from everywhere else: Ohio, Illinois, Nebraska, Michigan, New York, Pennsylvania, Minnesota. I figured all the Yankees moving into Atlanta, Charlotte, the Research Triangle, etc. would move the needle further left on the political scale. (The few natives I did meet included one sour good ol’ boy who was always mouthing off to those who missed something from their home state by saying “Then why don’t you get your fucking ass back up there.”)
I guess the newcomers are not that liberal or they are still outnumbered by the bedrock conservatives. Anyhow, my thesis was shot to hell.
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Dexter said on May 24, 2010 at 2:21 pm
paddyo’ & Pilot Joe: I remember live plays on teevee in the 1950s, GE Theater and Playhouse 90 were a couple, and I believe Sunday’s Breaking Bad was homage to that genre. The only thing missing was a black and white show instead of color.
Basically one set, just Jesse Pinkman and Walter White, trying to get it right.
To further cement the idea of a tribute to those 50s plays , I think Jesse Pinkman was dosing Walter with Sominex tabs…now, I remember Sominex from teevee ads in the 60s, but I haven’t heard of them for 45 years.
YEP! It was indeed Sominex. Check out this old ad…and the bottle…same one Jesse used on Sunday’s Breaking Bad show. (and from a YouTube ad, I found out that Sominex2 was sold in the 1980’s.)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aYqNVQIKHyo
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brian stouder said on May 24, 2010 at 2:48 pm
I was struck by Mary’s FB observation. Selfish admission: I don’t miss (at all) those stabbing little jolts* one always risks receiving, when one views their sons’ (and soon enough, daughters’) FB page. This is exceedingly piggy of me, given that Pam still stands watch – and occasionally says “Come see this”. ‘Course, she’s already absorbed any number of lesser prods, before coming to a larger one – and then I can swoop in and say something like “hmmmm. Well, let’s ask him about that”
As much as anything, that perpetual “back of the school bus” milieu at FB just did me in.
*We should invent a name for that sensation – which must be universally felt by all parents
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paddyo' said on May 24, 2010 at 3:08 pm
Dexter —
I can’t access YouTube from work, but I can still hear the old Sominex ad jingle in my head that I heard through too many childhood years of TV watching in the late ’50s and the ’60s (“Take Sominex toooo-niiiiite, and sleeeeep / Safe and restful sleeeep … sleeep … sleeeep”). The homage-to-classic-live-TV angle completely escaped me, but it makes sense where little else did. And that fleeting last image of the fly, silhouetted on the blinking red light of the (smoke?) detector, had just the right blend of artsy-fartsy and ominous warning.
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4dbirds said on May 24, 2010 at 3:24 pm
God blessed her because the tornado didn’t kill her kid? How ’bout god not sending the tornado in the first place. I get irked when some overpaid football player gets down on one knee to thank god for his touchdown. Excuse me? Didn’t God just kill several hundred thousand people with a tsunami and you think he gives a shit about your touchdown?
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Sue said on May 24, 2010 at 3:26 pm
Breaking Bad discussion: I haven’t watched it at all this season and not much last season (remember I mentioned it’s become too intense for me). I saw about 15 minutes last night and what struck me more than anything is how Jesse has changed. Where’s the lack of confidence and the reflexive stupidity? Jesse’s a MAN now. And the actor portraying him showed it so subtly, just in his look more than anything – I wish he’d finally get his Emmy for this. So, my question for you is, what kind of man has he become – he always had that undercurrent of gentleness, is he still a good person basically?
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Joe Kobiela said on May 24, 2010 at 4:20 pm
4birds,
God doesn’t send tornados to kill people, they just happen,When Adam and Eve sinned in the garden of eden it unleashed evil in the world. We don’t know why these things happen they just do. God probably dosn’t care about touchdowns, but when you see someone kneel after scoring, I think its just the way that player is giving the honor to god.
We as humans or Christians have to have faith in God that he knows what He is doing.
Pilot Joe
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Sue said on May 24, 2010 at 4:32 pm
Ted Nugent’s coming to the Waukesha County Fair; shall we get a group together?
http://www.waukeshacountyfair.com/index.htm
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JC said on May 24, 2010 at 4:39 pm
God is also not an auto insurance adjuster, something I very nearly told my cousin via FaceBook a few weeks ago. He’d just posted something to the effect of, “Don’t know how God pulled it off, but insurance paid more for our totalled car than we paid for it.” Cousin, your dad manages the car dealership where you bought the car, so you got a sweet deal, plus, he probably made you buy the gap insurance. He should be saying “Praise be to Dad.”
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4dbirds said on May 24, 2010 at 4:41 pm
Joe K. I’ve heard it all before. If it’s good then god blessed you, if it’s bad then it’s god’s will. What I was trying to say, badly I guess is that there is no god.
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brian stouder said on May 24, 2010 at 4:44 pm
Reminds me of the old joke about the dyslexic atheist with a sign that reads “there is no dog”
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beb said on May 24, 2010 at 5:41 pm
I like the line from Futurama regarding God’s involvement in the world. To act and therefor prove that God exists robs man of faith, so the best thing to do is to act in such a way that no one can be sure G od did anything at all. “If you do it just right, nobody will know that you did anything at all.”
That sure conforms to my sense of god in the world.
It was amazing to watch Rand Paul on the Rachel Maddow show because all she did was ask if you believed that a restaurant should have the right to refuse to serve a Black customer. And Paul tried everything he could think of to avoid answering that right. He tried to change the subject, he tried to run out the clock and so on. And Rachel just kept coming back to that one question, until it became obvious that the problem with Rand Paul was that he couldn’t support his own beliefs. It was devastating, and it was entirely his own fault for not answering.
On the BP oil spill. People are starting to complain that Obama hasn’t done enough, has been to differential to BP and so on. I think that a lot of this is true. But also think people haven’t considered that perhaps FEMA has never come up with a plan to deal with an oil spill, or that the Army Corps of Engineers have no expertise in dealing with leaking oil well because these have never been things they’ve had to deal with before. While it’s become clear that BP has few ideas how to deal with the well I suspect they are pretty much the only people in the game who have ever considered how to seal a leaking oil well over a mile under water.
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Dave said on May 24, 2010 at 6:14 pm
I never understand the athletes and their praises. Why, I always wonder, does God want their team to win, as opposed to the other team, who maybe didn’t pray intensely enough, or something. We don’t know, do we.
Our three children are all on FB and our youngest son started us a page so, he said, we could see what he was up to. Surprised us greatly, we didn’t really think he’d want us to know too much (IU senior when school starts again). I’ve not seen anything too bad on there for any of our children but some of the people at work, oh, it’s surprising what they post.
Had Lincoln not been assassinated, I’ve always wondered how Reconstruction would have gone differently. Perhaps it made no difference at all, in the long run. Certainly can do a lot of what if’ing, though.
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Connie said on May 24, 2010 at 6:43 pm
Yo Paddyo, as soon as I read the word Sominex that jingle was jingling in my brain, nice to know I’m not the only one.
I have said before, I know all the words to all the songs. Or at least old pop, anything MItch Miller sang along with, and hymns. This is not always a good thing.
My husband set up a facebook account three years ago when our kid spent a semester in Europe and was posting her photos. I’ve been logging in as him, but have finally been convinced to set up my own. One of these days. Ever since then we’ve said the reason for parents to be on facebook is to stalk their own children.
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Jeff Borden said on May 24, 2010 at 6:47 pm
Well, even if Honest Abe had not been shot down, South Carolina would still be one of the weirdest states in America.
Has anyone else seen the latest from the Palmetto State? A Republican blogger, who formerly worked for Mark “Appalachian Trail” Sanford, announced today that he had an “inappropriate physical relationship” with the Republican woman who is running for governor. The candidate has fired back, saying she has never been unfaithful to her husband in their 13 years of marriage.
Ironically, one of the people who have endorsed and campaigned for this woman is Jenny Sanford, the wronged wife of the penis monster who currently holds the governor’s post. Not ironically, this candidate also has been backed by Our Lady of Wasilla.
What in the name of vinegar-based barbecue sauce is with South Carolina? How can a state so small have so many political sex scandals?
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Scout said on May 24, 2010 at 7:21 pm
My favorite cozzledad nugget for the day is this:
“This presupposes that their staggering incompetence at the most rudimentary forms of governance wouldn’t have bitten big chunks off their ass before they got the first boat loaded up with buck-toothed pants-shitters.”
Friggin’ poetry, it is.
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LAMary said on May 24, 2010 at 8:05 pm
When I am considering hiring nurses who are fresh out of college I look at facebook pages. When I talk to college students I tell them that recruiters look at facebook pages.
There is also the issue of stupid email addresses. They don’t look good on a resume. My fave is drunkenmonkeyface@….
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Bill said on May 24, 2010 at 9:32 pm
Mary, my granddaughter who is entering college this fall has as her e-mail address, blonderthanyou@—-
We and her parents have lobbied for change.
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Joe Kobiela said on May 24, 2010 at 10:51 pm
4birds,
If thats the way you feel so be it. I am not in,nor will ever be in a position to judge you on what you belive or don’t believe, I just don’t feel the same as you do, I belive in a loving God, can I prove it? Not at all, that is where faith comes in. I have had my faith tested, my wife is a cancer survivor, I wasn’t mad at God,I don’t belive He gave her cancer, but I belive he gave the doctors the knowledge to heal her and i had the faith to accept that what ever happened to her was all part of the big picture, I dont profess to understand everything that happens,good or bad. I just think there is a higher power.
Pilot Joe
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alex said on May 24, 2010 at 11:03 pm
God doesn’t send tornados to kill people, they just happen
Oh, tell me it ain’t so, Joe. I’ve been praying for one to smite evildoers.
Sometimes God answers in the strangest ways, though. For instance, He made a good-looking woman boink Mark Souder. He enticed Sarah Palin away from any hope of holding public office with the lure of money. And He made Pat Robertson into the brand name for “fool” by playing him like a marionette and making him talk gibberish that even nutty people cannot abide.
Sir, I congratulate you. I believe you have restored my faith in the almighty.
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brian stouder said on May 25, 2010 at 9:29 am
Have you noticed how often Nance’s headlines become more meaningful as a day goes by? Take the one at the head of this post – “Be Reasonable”.
And on the other side of the world, North Korea is in a succession struggle(?) of some sort, and fires a torpedo at a South Korean naval vessel for some reason (or no reason), thereby killing 47 South Korean sailors; and now an actual war – and possibly a nuclear war – looms. I’ve always thought that if the world is to end by war, it would be triggered by one of these silly blind-side incidents that occur from time to time. And then, in the aftermath, Nancy’s short film of a few months ago will become a documentary.
If only people could ‘be reasonable’, indeed.
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