Wonkette

God, I was having a panic attack until I realized that 64-year-old Kay Bailey Hutchison adopted her rugrats.

All of them must get right with the message of Jesus Christ, renounce the world and return home to diaper their husbands!

It's hard to be funny when much of this "story" tends to suggest that, er, ah, these women are not good mothers to their kids. Sorry, but someone had to say it. Running around Congress with a baby is not impressive. Ignoring your children's illnesses is not impressive. Ignoring your children's questions about school activities is not impressive. Working late hours and missing your kids' activities is not impressive. Working hundreds of miles away from your kids--YOUR KIDS--is not impressive. If you cannot balance your home life and raising your children in a proper way--then don't run for Congress and don't ruin your kids' lives. This whole sordid mess is just ridiculous. Memo to the women in this story: The activities of your kids' lives only occurs once. You better damn well be there--or you'll regret missing these events for the rest of your life.

I would like a roll call of congressional brats 15 and over who are female and goodlooking.

Fuck me, you mean they reproduce?!
That's it, we're doomed!

@heartbreakturnip: Panic attack? No way - Kay Bailey is a MILF (R) all the way.

@thefrontpage: Women! What will they try to do next? Grow penises?!

p.s. Drinking at The Front Page is like sticking my head in a bucket of shit.

@thefrontpage:
Amen.

BTW why the fuck should they ignore the Congressional fathers?

say it with me, Double Standard

Thinking that through since they are congress its probably more like Triple Standard...

Ok more like no standards at all.

Seems odd for this story to garner so much attention now when National Journal ran a cover story on this back in April...The Post must be a bit behind

What a relief. I though that dirty diaper smell was emanating from some of our older legislators. Or David Vitter.

@thefrontpage:

That's just such horseshit. I have two kids, and if you live your life thinking you're going to be able to attend every event, wipe every nose as soon as it runs, and applaud at every little thing that comes out of their mouths, you're in for disappointment and a whole lot of unecessary grief. The kids don't care, either. And, oh, by the way, a child who calls you up at work to ask whether she should get a tankini now that bikinis have been banned is a child who should be told to 1)figure it out for themselves and 2)get off the fucking phone with their infantile bullshit. Grow up, kid.

Fathers need to man up and take care of some of this shit, too. In short, frontpage, get bent.

@David Flores: Good point. We should be encouraging more diaper-wearing and homosexuality amongst our legislators, so that at least there won't be the kind of liquidated gene pool that Santorum (R-Spreading) produced.

@TheFrontPage: Right? So the Male congressmen who've been ignoring their children and/or using them as political props for two centuries are blameless. Because they have external genitalia they're allowed to leave the home?

I havnt't heard arguments like that since the fight for the ERA. And I wasnt even ALIVE during the fight for the ERA.

Don't really have a comment on this story, but I heartily approve of the use of Santorum's family...for this story, or for any other, really. It's just that good.

Frontpage get a grip there. They aren't leaving them with a pack of colored pens and a couple of coloring books locked up in the trunk of their car because they couldn't afford a babysitter. Or taking their kids to work all night cause the babysitter didn't show up.At least my kid learned how to work by example and grew up strong and married well because of it.

What about all the DADDIES in fucking congress missing their children's precious childhood. Child-rearing is not gender specific. Suck my fallopian tubes.

Santorum's kids had plenty of "mommy time" and yet we have the "Little House on the Prairie and the Chamber of Secrets" photo-op above.

How about free government child care for everyone?

@Dave J.:
I totally agree.
That's the best political photo since the Life Mag photo of the Wendell Willkie parade in his Indiana hometown in 1940.
25 years from now, Santorum's daughter will be in Congress, wearing the identical dress, with her daughter wearing that same dress & the damned doll wearing the same dress!
Only problem for Rick is that she'll be their with her lesbian wife!

No Breeder's Rage, please.

@ Homopolitico - Yeah, I was a little stunned by the way the article lumped together husbands and nannies as alternate people who might have to take care of the kids. I don't think leaving them with their *father* is quite the equivalent of leaving them with a stranger - if it is, there's something seriously screwed up in that marriage as it is.

It's this kind of double-standard that's bad for everyone - women take flak while a man who has exactly the same kind of arrangement with his kids and their mother is seen as being a good parent because he *tries* to be there; in the meantime, fathers are treated sort of generally like they can't be *real* caretakers, or are somehow not as legitimate parents as mothers.

I like this tidbit:
--- Republican Margaret Hostetter tried to tap into [women voters' belief that a woman candidate shouldn't put herself over her family] when she ran against Wasserman Schultz in 2004.

A divorced mother of grown children, Hostetter seized on the fact that Wasserman Schultz took notes at a candidates' forum with a peach crayon pulled from her purse. The crayon was proof, Hostetter said, of a "frazzled life." ---

Damn right, bitch! Okay, who stole my peach crayon?

What are the fathers doing that mom has to expose her kid to the perverts and sex-fiends in her workplace?

@Dave J.:
I agree. Santorum had no trouble balancing his duties in Congress with his duties raising four (4) children, including the fat, fatty fat, crying little fatty Amish girl he adopted at some point. Look at him he's not even breaking a sweat.

If Sen. Amy would just take the time to read Wonkette she'd have known to tell her whiny 12 year old to dump the thong and get that nice black number advertised by American Apparel. Lindsey Graham would have heartily agreed, they would have shared a good laugh about kids these days before voting to send more them off to die in Iraq.

Did they ask James Dodson to weigh in on the issue? I'm sure he has some progressive and enlightening views on the matter. Or maybe Frontpage covered for him.

Those "That's Not Funny!" posts are hilarious, whatever the issue.

Did it ever occur to you that the kids are freakin' relieved that their parents are not showing up at every sectional rehearsal of the concert band's 2nd clarinet section? Or every goddamn hockey game? Cripes, whenever I read about parents at sports events, it's sheer mayhem. Parents attacking referees, cops having to break up fights, parents fighting to fatal outcomes in the parking lot.

Please, the kids love sports, love music and all that stuff and they are completely oblivious to their parents when the Sousa's cranking and the ball is flying out to their part of he outfield. This may be hard to handle if you've got a weak sense of self-worth and you're trying to strengthen it through your kids but it's the truth. No matter what you think, after 4 or 5 years old, they own themselves more than you own them.

Read up on middle ages history. You had teenagers running large swaths of Europe. Doing a lousy job of it most of the time, but apparently unconcerned about mummy and daddy helping them tie their shoelaces as they plotted the assassinations of rivals, the defense of the realm from huns and the kidnapping of politically expedient spouses.

@thefrontpage:

So, did she literally SEE Lindsay Graham, or, did she just visualize the young, strapping Sen Graham in her mind ?....someone should warn her, he ain't playing on your team so give it up...

The Washington Post says "Wasserman Schultz is raising the 3-year-old and 8-year-old twins."

Now THAT'S one rough delivery! And does she dress the 8-year-old and 3-year-old the same?

[www.washingtonpost.com]

Motherhood: Last Refuge of Female Scoundrels.

Lonbordin, the WP explained why the article only covered women: "The public will scrutinize and judge the mothering choices these politicians make. It is this that sets them apart from other professional women and their male counterparts in Congress . . ."

See, the Post doesn't HAVE a double standard, it's just trying to gently WARN these women that OTHER people ("the public") have a double standard. Kind of like how Senator Vitter just paid women to diaper him because he wanted to let them know that OTHER people might have a diaper fetish. Public service announcements, people!

@thefrontpage: Hon, you're never funny, regardless of whatever the "story" is.

@heartbreakturnip: Excellent. Considering that thefrontpage's usual are comments "_________ is hot!!!" or a Mark Foley joke whenever something is in anyway gay related, this kind of bullshit isn't surprising.

what's the over/under on when stephanie herseth joins the ranks of lady congressmen with squalling babies?

oh, and, @thefrontpage: phyllis? is that you? great work with the eagle forum. puke.

Sen. Mary Landrieu (D-La.) and her husband, Frank Snellings, built a house on East Capitol Street, about four blocks from the Senate. "It's the only way I can do this job and be a good mother to them," ...I put my children to bed almost every night and they wake up to their mother's voice every morning. Nothing would separate me from that."

Great, Sen. Landrieu, way to imply that fellow legislator moms who are unable to build conveniently-located houses are just not cutting it.

@Speed Ball:

4 kids? Don't we all wish Santorum only had 4. He's had 5 -- 6 if you count the reanimated fetus corpse he drags around.

Thanks Maude for exposing yet another publice service from the Post...
It's what sets them apart from the other news companies.

Lindsay Graham: "Are you hiding a tankini from me?"

@Speed Ball: Not to mention the wacked out vibe his future spree-killer son is giving off. That kid is totally taking a mental photo of each and every person in the room, and will make it his life's work to hunt each of them down.

Lindsey Graham doesn't have any kids--or even a wife. You know what that means...

That's right--he's probably got a pretty good life. Although he's probably afraid to go back home these days for fear that he'll be assassinated for his immigration comments.

I happen to agree with the earlier post about the double standard at work here. Here's an article about bad congressional mothers, but I guarantee you that bad congressional dads outnumber the bad moms by 20-to-1, easy. At least these women are making an effort at parenting--not getting diapered up, assaulting their wives or screwing pages.

@Omnilation: I'm so glad you brought up the Santorum fetus. It's the elephant in the room whenever you see this sad, incomplete family portrait. See how much better non-working mommies are? No way one of those Santorum girls is going to be seen in some indecent tankini! Too busy having "tea," no doubt, with Mommy and the remains of their would-be sister. I can't WAIT for the Santorum juniors to reach adolescence.

@Dave J.:

Yes, Kip Kinkle looks like he is fantasizing about turning the room into a knee-deep bloodbath ala Stephen King's 'Carrie'.

@thefrontpage:

You're right! Everyone in Congress should immediately quit! Right now! Hurry, everyone, hurry!

Oh wait, we're just talking about the WOMEN. I guess that's why you don't mind missing the "activities of your kid's lives" while you sit around posting b.s. on this site?

You'd better go, frontpage. Your little Billy just duct-taped baby sister Lisa to the riding mower again, and you know that last time that happened he made it a good fifty miles down the highway before anyone pulled him over.

@thefrontpage: ...yeah, what they all said. And....where's the snark, rectum head? Go be a troll somewhere else, like wherever Chief Payne wandered off to.

@Omnilation:
Indeedy, wasn't Senator Santorum the proponent of the No Fetus Left Behind Act?

@thefrontpage: Thank Sweet Baby Jeebus there are only 10 people in Congress whose small children are being neglected by their parent.
Oh sorry, right, I forgot it was only women who can ever be held responsible or made to feel guilty for not being there for their kids 24/7. Luckily, no child has ever been fucked up by an absent father.

@NoWireHangers:
Free government child care for everyone?
They already have it in Cuba, chica.

I worry these working moms may be more concerned about stopping the local whining than the global warming.

Debbie Wasserman "Sargent" Shultz said "No matter how good your spouse is, kids want their mom when they're sick."

Does this mean that DW"S"S thinks that the gay men should get kids?

@NoWireHangers: I'm pretty sure they do get government childcare. But then they'd have to leave BFE and move to the second-tier "metropolis" of Washington. The Pentagon, Library of Congress and Smithsonian have a day care centers -- and probably most other Washington agencies, I think that Congress would too.

"Abigail was saying 'I think I can get a tankini' and the next thing I saw was Lindsey Graham. I thought, 'What's wrong with this picture?"

The answer only came to her later: Senator Graham had forgotten his pearls!

@thefrontpage: Next thing you know, those uppity women will be using birth control, driving themselves in cars, voting, and refusing to churn the fmily's butter.

@Dave J.: Amen on the use of the photo. That picture brings me so much happiness. Brother Ken needs to find an excuse to use it at least once a week.