Bikini mud-wrestling, DC style!

As a loyal member of the party that is best known for infighting among its own members, I can imagine all too well what the House Republicans think about this...but I have to hand it to Rep. LaTourette, what a comeback!

Rep. Dean Heller, class of 2006:

The Republican Party lost its majority in the House of Representatives in 2006, and is likely to lose more seats in November, but Nevada Republican Dean Heller says he doesn't think that's necessarily a bad thing.

"I'm of the position that we really need to clean house in this Republican Party, and I think the next couple of election cycles are going to do that," Heller said.

Republicans who should be swept out, in Heller's view, include some from the historic class of 1994, which gave the GOP a majority in the House for the first time in 40 years.

"It's an old mantra: they came to change Washington, and Washington changed them," Heller said several weeks ago. "I think we got to the point where the majority of Republicans were trying to change America and tell (Americans) what they wanted instead of listening to ... what they need."

And in response, Rep. Steve LaTourette, class of 1994:

The fact is, the Class of '94 created the longest serving Republican majority in recent history, and we didn't lose it until Dean showed up.

Eeeeeyow!

There ain't no voices louder than the one inside your head

In a decade or so of spending almost all my time in consciously international settings (even if they're only "international" to me), I've run into a couple of recurring oddities. One of these is Canadians bearing tales of how excessively friendly other people suddenly become when they say they're not Americans. I don't doubt that it really does happen now and then, but seeing as I have never been treated rudely for being American while I was elsewhere in the world - that's right, not a single time - I have a hard time believing it happens as frequently as they seem to think it does.

I ran into another incidence of that tonight, with a Canadian woman I had dinner with after a supply chain conference. (Yes, the conference was just as boring as you're probably thinking. But a job's a job, and I ate and drank for free!) We got to talking politics, of course, and when she gave me the usual snide remark about how Americans will never elect a black man president (and became even more skeptical when I said I expected Obama to name Gov. Sibelius of Kansas his VP nominee - "There's no way America will elect a black man and a white woman!"), I bet her $10 that Obama would win.

The story only begins there. You see, after we shook on the bet, we got to talking about the election in more detail, and only then did she discover how closely I follow politics. She could have picked up on it earlier if she'd paid a bit more attention; I mislead nobody. Perhaps feeling a bit insecure now that she realized the bet was a fairly informed one on my part, she delved into some personal anecdote about somebody, somewhere, sometime, who had asked if she was American and, on finding she wasn't, gushed about how wonderful that was. Which took away any sympathy I might have felt earlier on toward her for entering into a bet with someone who knew a lot more about the issue at hand than she did. "I'm sure you know you're not very popular in the outside world," she chirped, in response to which I explained that I've lived overseas for four of the past five years and have never been mistreated by anybody who knew where I was from.

Like I said, I don't doubt that it does happen, but does it happen that often? I have my doubts. For what it's worth, I've been on the receiving end of the same reaction once, when a guy at a bar in Paris found out I was American. He asked if I was English, and on finding out I wasn't, he let loose with a tirade about les rosbifs and then paid my bar tab.

I took the snotty comment as a compliment in disguise, though, because really, my rattling off of a dry list of statistics about states that haven't gone Democratic since 1964 where Obama is now ahead in the polls rounds out my trilogy of the best comebacks ever.

The others? One of them featured almost exactly the same dynamic, actually: during the Monica Lewinsky mess, a Canadian gal I knew remarked that "Hillary ought to be running the country, but Americans aren't ready for a woman president. Jerks." All I had to do was say "Kim Campbell" and, well, I've never seen anybody bus her tray and disappear quite that quickly. The other involved a guy at a party who overheard me say I was a Jimmy Buffett fan..."Oh yeah?" he asked incredulously, "Name three of his songs!" The printed word can't do justice to his tone, which made it clear that he was certain I would name "Margaritaville" and maybe "Cheeseburger in Paradise" and then get stuck. Instead, I rattled off three extremely obscure songs, one of which has never even been released officially, and of course he accused me of making them up. I got as far as explaining the story behind two of the three (if any parrotheads are reading this and wondering, they were "Don't Bring Me Candy," "Richard Frost," and "Peddlers and Pushers") before the guy suddenly remembered he needed another beer and never returned.

Careful who you question, folks!

You can't make this stuff up!

During the Monica Lewinsky mess, there was a lengthy list of right-wingers who supported the impeachment and who also turned out to have infidelities in their past. Those of us who followed the impeachment closely can probably still recite the list. Henry Hyde was the favorite of many: he claimed "youthful indiscretion" as the justification for an affair he'd had in his mid-forties. (A few years later, he admitted what a lot of Republicans still haven't: that the real motivation for the impeachment was getting even for Watergate.)

In the years since then, I know some folks on the right who will immediately recite "I did not have sexual relations with that woman..." as an excuse for anything Bush et al are caught doing. In response to that, a lot of us on the left will say we miss the days when there was even time to worry about politicians' sex lives, as opposed to major cities being destroyed and illegal wars and such.

Lucky for us, those days aren't gone completely:

WASHINGTON -- U.S. Sens. David Vitter, R-La., and Larry Craig, R-Idaho, have signed on as co-sponsors of a proposed Marriage Protection Act that would amend the constitution to declare that marriage is a union between one man and one woman.

What is there to add to that? I am going to miss seeing Mr. Wide Stance in stories like this, but at least we'll have Diaper Dave to kick around for another two years or more.

Quote of the Week

"The federal government should not be in the public education business."
-Jason Chaffetz

Who is Jason Chaffetz? He's a gadfly, insurgent candidate who ran for Congress in Utah this year, challenging a six-term incumbent in the Republican primary. As an underfunded longshot challenger to a longtime incumbent, he didn't surprise too many people with his extreme rhetoric. That happens all the time in primaries with incumbents. The loon gets 10-15% of the vote and is soon remembered only by people who buy those books of dumb quotations by politicians of the party they don't belong to.

Except in today's Republican party, if the incumbent doesn't hate immigrants.

That's right, Chaffetz won. The Utah 3rd is the single most Republican district in the country (Bush got 77% of the vote there in 2004), so next January we are all but certain to have Chaffetz come to DC to share pearls of wisdom like that for at least two years. Given how conservative the area is, I guess it's not too big of a shock, really. Rep. Chris Cannon barely survived the last two primary seasons as well, because he ran afoul of immigration hardliners in his district. (This is politically incorrect, but I am honestly pretty surprised immigants aren't more popular in rural Utah. More Mormons just waiting to be converted, after all.)

I don't feel too bad about the outcome, really, for three reasons. First, the Dems have been doing the same thing with mushy-middle representatives in safe Democratic districts (most recently in Maryland in February) and I've been a big supporter of that, so I don't feel I should complain now with the shoe on the other foot.

Second, Cannon won the seat in the first place in an anti-environmentalist protest vote in 1996. (The area was, amazingly, represented by a Democrat back then; Cannon won the Republican nomination when it looked worthless, but then Clinton declared much of the district off limits to development that summer. Cannon ended up with 51% of the vote because he had an R after his name.) While Chaffetz will probably be even worse on environmental issues, at least he won't be the area's congressman specifically because he opposes keeping beautiful Southern Utah beautiful.

Third, if there are going to be places that are that deep red on the Congressional map, I'm all for them being represented by the most extreme right wingers the GOP can possibly dredge up. It'll make it that much dicier for the likes of Chris Shays and Dave Reichert to explain why their moderate-to-liberal constituencies should be sending them back to DC when that amounts to putting guys like this in the majority.

Okay, four reasons. That quote is really funny, and I'm looking forward to many more like it. Utah has long been a great source of such things. I've written before about my work for Rep. Jim Moran's first campaign when I was in high school...shortly after he took office, I recall reading in the newspaper that he was involved in a fender-bender on the way into DC. The driver of the other car was a woman who worked for one of Utah's senators (I can't recall which one offhand), and Moran said later that she joked about how the accident was a hint from God about Moran's support for abortion rights.

It is an amazingly beautiful state. "This is the place" indeed.

And now for something nonpolitical (and I hope funny)

I am currently a party to an ongoing online discussion of made-up terms. When it started, my first thought was that I didn't have any, except the occasional political one. But as the thread has worn on, I've come to realize I actually have quite a few. I've been thinking I ought to write them all down so I'll have the list to refer to next time around, and some of them are pretty amusing. You'll notice that many of these are based on people's names...rest assured that I won't be referring to anybody there's any risk of my crossing paths with again. Nor do I particularly care if any of the people I do refer to here happen to read this (which they almost certainly won't) and recognize themselves (which is even less likely).

Pulling a Wilda - Criticizing somebody for doing a lousy job on something when in fact they did a fine job, and you're reaping the rewards of their work without even realizing it. Wilda was an ex boss of mine who once gave me a lecture about how I shouldn't have rearranged the mail flow in our office because everybody was used to the old method. As she was hassling me about this, she filed a stack of letters in about half the time it would have taken before I made those changes she hated so much. You might not think this happens often enough to warrant a term of its own, but there is a reason why Dilbert and The Office have been so popular for so long.

Don't be a f***, bring it back! - A cry of frustration in hopeless situations. Inspired by an incident in college where I left a slice of pizza in the dorm refrigerator and of course it disappeared before I came back to collect it. Just to be funny (and let people know there was a moocher in our midst), I put up a sign on the fridge: "Whoever the f*** took my pizza Sat night, don't be a F**K, bring it back!" Various girlfriends have since found this uproariously funny, or have used it as an excuse to tell me to get a life, or both.

The Suzanne Dance - (I didn't make this one up; I just used it rather frequently with those who did.) Stand with your legs apart, bent at the knees, and wiggle back and forth looking agitated and uncomfortable. Swing your arms one by one up against your forehead, slapping yourself gently with the back of each hand, and say things like "Oh! My life is over! Oh no! I'm ruined!" in a high, tragic voice. That's the Suzanne Dance. I would like to explain Suzanne to you all, really I would, but I can't. If I told you even one of the numerous illustrative anecdotes about her, you'd just insist that I must be exaggerating or that she must have been joking. Those who knew her could tell you otherwise, but they don't need me to tell them anything about her.

Something in the Mail - A euphemism that hides its meaning too well, so that nobody knows what you really mean and you end up embarrassing yourself more than you would have if you'd just said the real thing out loud to begin with. "Getting something in the mail" was my ex's favorite euphemism for her period. The first time she used it with me, I thought she was hinting at a credit card bill she didn't want to have to see or something like that.

Itsplaining - Trying to smooth over hurt feelings without actually apologizing, in a situation where you know you really should just apologize but won't do it for whatever reason. (This happens all the time in DC, not surprisingly.) This one comes from an office meeting I sat in on just before Thanksgiving several years ago. A newly married colleague mentioned that she and her husband were staying in town for the holiday rather than going home, but she wasn't looking forward to cooking dinner and maybe they wouldn't have one. She lived in the same neighborhood I had lived in back when I first came to DC, and there was a great Mexican restaurant just a few blocks from her building which had been a T-Day tradition for my friends and me. I told her about it and suggested it as a possible alternative, but she rolled her eyes and said, "Oh, I hate that place!" Realizing a second too late that she'd been rude (which happened a lot with her!), she quickly added, "I mean, it's plain. Don't you think it's plain, Dave?" Naturally, I didn't answer. She knew perfectly well that I didn't think it was plain, otherwise I wouldn't have recommended it!

Missed by an enchilada - To just miss something very unpleasant. This one comes from the same Mexican restaurant mentioned above. One Thanksgiving, I went to a big group dinner at an estate out in Maryland. When we got back to DC, three friends and myself decided to go to said restaurant for a midnight snack. (It was the only open restaurant in the neighborhood; even McDonalds was closed.) Everybody else who had been to the estate for dinner got food poisoning, but the four of us were fine.

No-trayers - People who ask for something without really knowing what it is, and who then get upset when they get exactly what they asked for. This one goes all the way back to Arby's. I probably got at least three customers a day who, when I asked if they wanted their food "for here or to go," would answer "to go," but when I presented their food in a bag, they'd snap, "What, no tray?!" Another example of no-traying at that job was people who ordered a Super when they really wanted a Giant. That was even more common, but I never came up with a pithy term based on that one. Supering? Nah. My own determination to never be a no-trayer is such that I ate a raw steak once in Luxembourg, having ordered it by accident. It was actually pretty good.

Can't-do-everythinging - When you call a co-worker on his or her failure to complete a job on time and the response is "But I can't do everything, when the real problem is that s/he hasn't done anything. That's can't-do-everythinging.

Gina bad - Gina was a colleague of mine from when I was teaching. She had a real mean streak, and the kindergarten kids were terrified of her. When a kid misbehaved, it was standard procedure to send hir to a different classroom for a time-out, but we didn't send them to Gina's room unless they had really been way out of line. Talking out of turn, not finishing your lunch quickly enough, not sharing the toys...these were minor infractions, and they deserved only a mild punishment if that. But if somebody hit another kid, threw food, yanked up a girl's dress, etc., well, that was being Gina bad.

A Jeff apology - In honor of my ex-best friend/roommate from hell. A Jeff apology is essentially, "I'm sorry it happened, but it's really your fault and there's nothing I can do about it now anyway." (He actually said that to me once after locking me out of our room when I was in the shower.)

Rachelisms - Extremely lame excuses for not doing your homework, i.e. "I meant to do my part of the group project that's due today, but there was this party I just had to go to, and I got back at 4:00." The Rachel who inspired this one was not the one I knew in DC or the one I worked with in Taiwan, so if you knew me during either of those periods, it's not who you think. Interesting, though, that I knew these three different yet like-named women in the space of less than six years and they were all incredibly irritating in one way or another.

I see your true colors...

Reportedly for sale at the Texas GOP convention:



Can't wait for November!

Doesn't anybody ever remember anything in politics?

I know I'm reaching the age where I can't really say I'm "young" anymore, but really, 1990 wasn't that long ago. Every now and then, though, I'm reminded that for people who depend entirely on the Internet for political news and history, it might as well be 1890.

I just experienced one such moment when I read about this on Daily Kos. Ol' Claytie Williams and his "rape joke" were huge news at the time. How on earth could that have escaped the attention of everybody in the McCain campaign who could have put a stop to it? I don't get it. Some of you are probably expecting me to argue that Republicans in general must not find rape jokes offensive, but my opinion of the party overall isn't as low as my friends tend to think. They're not all that bad. Which makes me wonder how they could have let the ball drop on this one. But that link has McCain's spokesman saying the campaign "was unaware" of the notorious remark.

Sadly, I do find I can believe that McCain himself wouldn't find Williams' "joke" all that bad. He might not have really said "At least I don't plaster on the makeup like a trollop, you c**t" to his wife in public (I admit I find it suspicious that word didn't get out for sixteen years and then three people were willing to come forward at the same time), but then he might have. He did make that tasteless joke about Janet Reno being Chelsea Clinton's father about ten years ago (and, to his credit, he apologized...but still, he said it). This fits that pattern all too well.

By the way, another thing I remember - but which that link fails to mention - is that Williams' loss to Ann Richards was not because of the rape joke. He continued to lead in the polls for months after making the joke, and Richards pulled ahead of him only after he refused to shake her hand at a debate. Apparently it was okay to make light of violence against women in general in Texas, but you still had to treat an individual lady like a lady. That makes it just a little bit easier to understand why their next governor after Richards was who he was, doesn't it?