I hesitate to say this now because it won’t be in writing until tomorrow, but I’ve just verbally accepted a job offer from another university here in America’s Wang™. And the best part is, I don’t have to leave my current residence, so America’s Glans™ is stuck with me (and I with it) for the foreseeable future.
Guess the Undisclosed Location Blogging worked out okay …
Looks like Fred “Crumpled Paper Bag” Thompson’s presidential candidacy is about to wash up on the rocks of scandal.
Seems he’s closely tied to another, even more infamous Fred: Fred Phelps of the appalling anti-gay Westboro Baptist Church in Topeka, Kan.
Members of the anti-gay Westboro Baptist Church are urging Fred Thompson to support their stance on homosexuality — a position on which they say the Republican presidential candidate once “saw eye to eye” with them.
Thompson was hired for a mid-1980s legal case in Kansas on the recommendation of Margie Phelps, daughter of Westboro founder Fred Phelps.
The Topeka, Kan.-based church is now best known for protesting at soldiers’ funerals, claiming their deaths are retribution for the nation’s acceptance of homosexuality.
[...]
Church members released an open letter to Thompson this week, saying he had discussed his views on homosexuality with them while handling the case of a woman who had sued the state’s Republican attorney general for sexual harassment.
“We know what your position used to be on the homosexual question — and it was wonderful, and we saw eye to eye,” church members said in the letter to Thompson.
That statement appears to conflict with comments made by Margie Phelps to the Journal-World of Lawrence, Kan., in June about her interaction with Thompson.
“I’m quite confident he would’ve completely disagreed with everything about my faith,” she told the paper.
Phelps’ sister, Shirley Phelps-Roper, said in a phone interview Wednesday that while Thompson might disagree with the church today, he didn’t disagree then.
And yet, Phelps-Roper said, “He wouldn’t dare stand up and say that when he’s running for president.”
No, I don’t suppose he would. But, like fellow GOP candidate Mitt Romney has had to flip-flop on his own pro-gay rights positions, Thompson definitely has some ’splainin’ to do.
(h/t Tennessee Guerilla Women)
If Larry Craig (R-3rd stall on the right) were any farther in the closet, he’d be an overcoat:
Throughout the NBC interview with Lauer, Craig maintained his innocence and said he was a victim of profiling when an undercover police officer arrested him on June 11 for lewd conduct in a Minneapolis-St. Paul airport men’s room.
Craig also had harsh words for the treatment from his Senate GOP colleagues — what he referred to as “gladiator politics.” Craig had the harshest words for Romney, the former Massachusetts governor who had tapped Craig as his congressional fundraising co-chairman. Romney condemned Craig’s behavior and dropped him from the presidential campaign within hours of Roll Call’s scoop about Craig’s arrest. Craig told Lauer that he was “very proud of my association with Mitt Romney.”
“I’d worked hard for him here in the state,” Craig said. “I was a co-chair of his campaign on Capitol Hill. And he not only threw me under his campaign bus, he backed up and ran over me again.”
Hmmm … where have we heard that campaign bus line before? Oh, yeah:
Speaking of Romney, another source points out that Craig might be taking his talking points from a sworn enemy of his party: MSNBC’s Keith Olbermann.
In the NBC interview, Craig said that Romney “not only threw me under his campaign bus, he backed up and ran over me again.”
That’s not unlike what Olbermann said on his “Countdown” show Aug. 29: “Thrown under the bus by Mitt Romney, now Romney has backed up the bus to run [Craig] over again.”
Craig also told Matt Lauer yesterday that he doesn’t use the Internet.
When Lauer asked Craig whether he knew about the Minneapolis airport bathroom’s reputation as a “hot spot” for gay trysts, Craig said: “Matt, you won’t believe this. But I don’t use the Internet. I don’t have a computer at my desk. I’ve never used the Internet. It’s just not what I do. I e-mail with my BlackBerry. No, I did not know that. I had no reason to know that.”
That’s interesting, in light of the following:
» In an op-ed he wrote this summer on the SCHIP health care program, Craig refers to doing a Google search on the term “mission creep.”
» He’s a member of the Congressional Internet Caucus.
» He co-sponsored a bill designating June 2007 as National Internet Safety Month.
» He was presented with the 2007 Internet Keep Safe Coalition Award.
» On his Web site, he lists as a top accomplishment a Silver Mouse Award given to his site in 2003 and 2006 by the Congressional Management Foundation in 2003 and 2006.
» When he endorsed Mitt Romney for president, he did so on YouTube.
Larry Craig is truly the scandal that keeps on giving.
A couple of weeks ago I told you the story of Richard Roberts, the president of Oral Roberts University (and son of its namesake), whose profligate spending and whose wife’s antics have led to a lawsuit by three university professors.
Today, Roberts asked for a leave of absence from the presidency:
“I don’t know how long this leave of absence will last, but I fully trust the members of the Board of Regents,” Roberts said in a statement released by the university. “I pray and believe that in God’s timing, and when the Board feels that it is appropriate, I will be back at my post as president.”
He will stay on as chairman and CEO of Oral Roberts Ministries, presumably because he believes Jeebus will forgive him more readily than will ORU’s Board of Regents.
Now, kindly caption this photo of Roberts fils:
As if you needed additional incentive to despise Rudy Giuliani, here’s a quote from Texas Gov. Rick Perry (R-batshit crazy), who endorsed the Rudemeister yesterday.
“The one (issue) that I wanted to hear him give me an answer and look me right in my eyes was that issue of who can I expect, what type of individual can I expect on the Supreme Court,” Perry said at a news conference with Giuliani.
“He clearly said … you can look for people like Scalia and Roberts and Alito. Let me tell you, I can live with that,” Perry said, referring to conservative Supreme Court Justices Antonin Scalia and Samuel Alito and Chief Justice John Roberts.
In other words, more of the same shit we’ve had for seven years.
But what about 9/11?
Well, the Gore Watch can stand down, it appears. Al says he doesn’t plan to run for president in 2008, according to a Norwegian television interview aired earlier today.
Former U.S. Vice President Al Gore says winning the Nobel Peace Prize has not pushed him into entering the 2008 presidential race.
“I don’t have plans to be a candidate again, so I don’t really see it in that context at all,” Gore told Norwegian state broadcaster NRK in an interview broadcast Wednesday. “I’m involved in a different kind of campaign. It’s a global campaign. It’s a campaign to change the way people think about the climate crisis.”
I’ve hoped for a long time that Gore would enter the race, but the more time has passed, the less it appeared likely that he would run. Indeed, I guess if I were him, I wouldn’t run, either. What’s the point? The MSM already hates him and the wingnuts have vilified him and the Nobel committee for his Nobel Prize. Why subject himself and his family to that crap again?
But, if you’re keeping score at home, Al Gore is just 59 years old. In other words, he’d be 64 in 2012 — plenty of time to mount a campaign then if he so desires (and assuming there’s not a Democratic incumbent running for reelection).
So, let’s work with what we’ve got: Hilarbarajohn Doddardson or whoever …
