Wonkette

You see what a week at Wonkette has done to me??? A week at Wonkette and 47 hamburgers???

Well, it’s been a fun week, but my fingers hurt, my eyes are bleary, and I can’t get “macaca” off my mind, no matter how hard I try. So, with no more photos to crop, papers to read, or Marines to mock, I’m throwing caution to the wind and cutting out early. Hey, just like I used to do at my last job!

Thanks to Alex for getting my back this week when I was asleep, drunk, or taking a two-hour lunch break (also just like my last job!), thanks to Messrs. Denton and Steele at Gawker Media, thanks to our intrepid tipsters, and a special thanks to The Man Who Won’t Be President for making it easy for me this week. Without your golden tongue, sir, I would have had to write about real news, and nobody would have wanted to read that. Right?

I wish I had a personal blog to point you towards, but I don’t, because blogging’s for nerds. If you must, you can check me out at Polite Magazine (which will be published sometime before my death), or buy my DVD at the Harmony Joyride store. It’s cheap and funny and features a shitload of fake moustaches. I might be back if they stay desperate over here. God, I hope not. Until then, I’ll be spending my days in drunken incoherence. Hey, just like this guy:

Polite Magazine

All This Murky Green | Buy the DVD

With all the hoopla this week about campaign ethics, we thought it’d be an interesting feature to talk to an actual candidate about the mechanics of running a congressional campaign. We wanted to interview an experienced, savvy politician about running for office in the 21st century. Unfortunately, the only person who would talk to us was this guy:

Meet Mike Monroe. He ran as a Republican for DC’s Congressional delegate’s seat in 2004, against Eleanor Holmes Norton. He got 9 percent of the vote. Now, older and possibly wiser, he’s running again, as a Republican candidate for Maryland’s General Assembly in District 16 (Bethesda). He was good enough to answer some questions about campaigning, campaigners, and Macaca. Interview after the jump.

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Looks like that anti-suicide bomber PSA we posted about earlier is pumping up would-be suicide bombers all across the Middle East, not just in Iraq. From Rebecca Sinderbrand: MORE »

And then there was Lincoln Chafee, The Reluctant Senator. From today’s Wall Street Journal:

In many ways, Mr. Chafee’s struggle is of his own making. Besides opposing the war, he voted against some Bush tax cuts, citing deficit concerns. He opposed Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito’s appointment because he was convinced the jurist would be hostile to abortion rights. And he let it be known that he didn’t vote to re-elect the president, writing in former President George H. W. Bush instead.

“I knew this was coming from way back,” says Mr. Chafee, at an outdoor festival in Cumberland. “The president’s agenda, for better or worse, motivates the party base. I’ve been hearing from them for the last five years.”

To stem the damage, Mr. Chafee has been a regular at Republican spaghetti dinners and diner breakfasts. Even so, he isn’t “overly optimistic” that he has persuaded many of them, he says.

Chafee is perhaps the senator least suited for Washington life since Eugene McCarthy skipped roll call votes to write poetry in his office. This from the New York Times last week:

Compared with many colleagues in the Senate, Mr. Chafee, 53, keeps a low profile, and campaigning does not seem second nature to him. Stopping to buy lemonade from a truck, he asks the attendant about the book she is reading. Only after tipping her and turning away does he toss over his shoulder, “Vote Chafee!”

Wonkette proudly presents the first installment of The Secret Lives Of Senators: Lincoln Chafee On The Campaign Trail. Read it after the jump:

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So diplomacy, force, or entreaties aren’t dissuading impressionable, hot-headed young Muslims from signing up as suicide bombers in Iraq. Maybe some Matrix-style bullet-time graphics will do the trick! Word is the Iraqi government spendt about a million dollars producing this anti-suicide bomber PSA. With that budget, they should have gone after Billy Zane, or at least Gary Busey: MORE »

Dear Jim Webb Jr.,

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So some people took exception to our post on Jim Webb Jr. yesterday, calling it “below the belt” to write about

• A candidate’s son
• A Marine
• A Democrat

Like we said originally, we weren’t going after Jim Jr. so much as his hoary Charlie Chan routine. But don’t worry, guys: Dude can take care of himself. After all, he’s a Marine. A porno-loving, China-hating Marine. Check out excerpts from his response after the jump:

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So you say the Democrats don’t have any passion? Guess you’ve been hanging out in the wrong districts, then. An intrepid reader reports on a full-fledged ruckus that broke out Wednesday night at a P.G. County congressional debate: MORE »

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So The Man Who Won’t Be President (TMWWBP) wants to tell his side of the macaca story, and what better way to reach out to the the Internet’s aghast citizenry than a blog? It’s good to see that the tradition of starting fake blogs for public figures continues apace: MORE »

Soon there’ll be nothing left at Cape Canaveral but three mechanical engineers, the decaying corpse of Alan Shepard, and some jerry-rigged TI-82 graphing calculators: MORE »