By Hanlon, on September 9th, 2009 at 05:54 PM
By Hanlon, on June 29th, 2009 at 12:07 AM
 This may come as a shock, but the avalanche of Republican sex scandals is not something I particularly like seeing. Really, no one should. Watching someone’s personal life laid bare for the world to mock and tear apart, plus the havoc it wreaks on their generally innocent family members, is not that much fun.
However, it should serve to remind us that the “common wisdom” in American politics that Republicans stand for strong, stout moral values while Democrats stand for hedonism is an artificial categorization with nothing in reality to prop it up.
Affairs happen, people are imperfect. As George Carlin once said, “you’re all diseased.” It’s an absolute shame and represents a downright terrible failure of judgment, but it does happen and fairly often. I do not believe there is one person that saw of these stories who was not closely affected by infidelity in some manner, be it their own relationship or that of a relative or close friend.
Read More ->
This may come as a shock, but the avalanche of Republican sex scandals is not something I particularly like seeing. Really, no one should. Watching someone’s personal life laid bare for the world to mock and tear apart, plus the havoc it wreaks on their generally innocent family members, is not that much fun.
However, it should serve to remind us that the “common wisdom” in American politics that Republicans stand for strong, stout moral values while Democrats stand for hedonism is an artificial categorization with nothing in reality to prop it up.
Affairs happen, people are imperfect. As George Carlin once said, “you’re all diseased.” It’s an absolute shame and represents a downright terrible failure of judgment, but it does happen and fairly often. I do not believe there is one person that saw of these stories who was not closely affected by infidelity in some manner, be it their own relationship or that of a relative or close friend.
Read More ->
By Hanlon, on June 24th, 2009 at 06:00 PM
By Hanlon, on April 22nd, 2009 at 11:15 AM
By Hanlon, on December 24th, 2008 at 01:01 PM
 The fact that Bristol Palin’s baby is now roughly five days overdue completely slipped my mind here, thank you Plunderbund for reminding me.
Most of the reports were pegging the due date as the 18th, but the New York Post is saying the 20th. I don’t have a source on this but I’m willing to bet all the outlets waited until the 18th and then noted a sudden change in due date. Regardless we’re still four days over.
This isn’t monumental or anything, my sister was five days overdue. So I’m not out to start formulating big theories on why Bristol Palin’s baby hasn’t come out yet. Hell for all I know they’re forcing her to “hold it in” until the 25th so they can have a Christmas Baby and name him Eli. I just know that it’s one of a thousand hilarious stories surrounding the family lately. Sorta like Bristol’s baby’s daddy’s mama and her drug charges.
It’s like an episode of Springer, but it’s on CNN. “We know that ain’t really YOUR baby!” “Yeah well your mom’s in jail!”
By Hanlon, on December 16th, 2008 at 06:40 PM
 Wow. I just… wow.
A congressman who acknowledged being mentioned in a criminal complaint against Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich has been sharing information about public corruption with federal investigators for years, a spokesman said.
Kenneth Edmonds, a spokesman for U.S. Rep. Jesse Jackson Jr., told The Associated Press that the congressman had spoken about Blagojevich and others.
Edmonds wouldn’t give details of those discussions Tuesday, but WLS-TV in Chicago reported unidentified sources as saying Jackson had told investigators Blagojevich wouldn’t appoint Jackson’s wife as state lottery director because the congressman wouldn’t donate $25,000 to the governor’s campaign fund.
Jackson has acknowledged being the “Senate Candidate 5″ referenced in a federal complaint against Blagojevich that accuses the governor of trying to sell the Senate seat being vacated by President-elect Barack Obama.
I know the amount of schadenfreude conservatives were getting from Jackson’s downfall must have been epic. Any time the name Jackson, Sharpton, Clinton, or Kennedy ends up embroiled in a scandal you can bet the Limbaughs of the world are ready to hop on their self-righteous steeds and harp about the awful soulless liberals, so my sympathies to anyone who had the wind taken out of their sails just now.
By Hanlon, on October 14th, 2008 at 01:48 PM
 When the Troopergate scandal first hit, I must admit I thought it would be an albatross for the Republicans, but I didn’t see it as anything monumental. My understanding was it would turn out to be like the attorneys firing that hit us earlier. You know the drill: political official fires someone for ostenstibly personal reasons, big kerfuffle, nothing really ends up happening.
Once the actual report came out though, we found in it a damn near perfect encapsulation of everything, everything that is wrong with the 2008 Republican Party. This is not what’s wrong with being a Republican, this is what’s wrong with the current state of the Party.
First, the details of the firing went so much deeper than anyone anticipated. Most were under the impression that Sarah Palin had pressured Monegan to fire Wooten and when he wouldn’t do it, she got mad and fired Monegan instead. Not so. Far more than just a “Fire him” “No” “Well then you’re fired” exchange, we have a damn near crusade, with Sarah at times directly involved or indirectly involved by letting Todd do the dirty work.
Read More ->
When the Troopergate scandal first hit, I must admit I thought it would be an albatross for the Republicans, but I didn’t see it as anything monumental. My understanding was it would turn out to be like the attorneys firing that hit us earlier. You know the drill: political official fires someone for ostenstibly personal reasons, big kerfuffle, nothing really ends up happening.
Once the actual report came out though, we found in it a damn near perfect encapsulation of everything, everything that is wrong with the 2008 Republican Party. This is not what’s wrong with being a Republican, this is what’s wrong with the current state of the Party.
First, the details of the firing went so much deeper than anyone anticipated. Most were under the impression that Sarah Palin had pressured Monegan to fire Wooten and when he wouldn’t do it, she got mad and fired Monegan instead. Not so. Far more than just a “Fire him” “No” “Well then you’re fired” exchange, we have a damn near crusade, with Sarah at times directly involved or indirectly involved by letting Todd do the dirty work.
Read More ->
By Hanlon, on October 9th, 2008 at 06:46 PM
 Now that we’re less than 24 hours from the release of the Troopergate report release, the McCain camp is in full-on panic mode. Not only are both McCain and Palin showing up on FOX to yammer about William Ayers (hint: FOX viewers already think he’s a terrorist, you don’t need to convince them), but now Todd Palin is basically diving on the grenade for Sarah.
“Todd Palin’s statements may help provide the Governor some degree of cover in the probe,” said CBSNews.com senior political editor Vaughn Ververs, “but the level of his involvement here will probably raise even more questions and this continues to be a political distraction to the McCain campaign.”
“I have heard criticism that I am too involved in my wife’s administration,” Todd Palin wrote in his affidavit. “My wife and I are very close. We are each other’s best friend. I have helped her in her career the best I can, and she has helped me.”
The problem is that it doesn’t really explain anything. Palin was in the dark, but she just happened to fire Monegan over something unrelated? She didn’t know what was happening, it was just good fortune that he needed to be fired? I’m not buyin’ it.
By Hanlon, on October 6th, 2008 at 02:50 PM
 I’ve got a feeling the McCain campaign figured Obama’s camp would be treating the Keating 5 issue the same way they themselves were working on Ayers and Rezko: make sound bytes in ads and bring it up as a quick blurb in stump speeches and interviews. The last thing they were expecting was a massive assault that laid all of McCain’s sins bare.
So you can understand why they’re in damage control mode now, absolutely flailing to try and cover his ass. A conference call with the media today basically pulled the rug out from under his own Straight-Talk Express, claiming the whole investigation was a “witch hunt”.
In Halperin’s account, McCain lawyer John Dowd described McCain’s “former relationship with Charles Keating as ‘social friends,’” and called the situation a “classic political smear job on John.”
Dowd also “thinks that the committee went too far in suggesting that McCain’s intervention with regulators was poor judgment,” Halperin writes.
McCain’s “reformer” image is largely built around his “mea culpa” concerning the “poor judgment” he showed in the Keating Five scandal. Americans love a good story about someone admitting their sins and turning a new leaf, that’s why we watch stories about drug addicts and alcoholics who kick their habits and turn into community organizers or schoolteachers. McCain’s image came from that. And now he’s claiming he did nothing wrong.
Now remember he admitted, on numerous occasions, to involvement on some level and sought to apologize and learn from his errors. I’d say his new tack means he was lying at some point. Either he’s lying now, or he wants us to believe he pretended to be more involved than he was just to play up the “I’m sorry, America” angle.
Obama’s got McSame up against the ropes here, I wonder what the retaliation will be.
By Hanlon, on September 12th, 2008 at 09:00 PM
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