Author: Moe_Lane

Day Two of the Etheridge Incident.

I’m not particularly surprised that the Etheridge Incident is perturbing the Beltway. It has all the elements that one needs:

  • A genuine, newsworthy scenario (Congressman attacks cameraman);
  • An easily-accessible narrative (Congressman attacks cameraman);
  • A clear video record (note: two cameras, with footage spliced together);
  • A hint of scandal (Was the Congressman drinking?);
  • And a hint of conspiracy (Was the Congressman set up?).

Plus, of course, there’s the barely-veiled outrage that if the Congressman was set up then he was done so in a manner that Left-activists have been trying to do to Right-politicians since George Allen’s so-called ‘macaca’ moment.  Republicans have been dealing with this kind of game-playing for four years, now: which is another way of saying that we’ve had four years to learn how to do unto others as they have been enthusiastically doing unto us.
Continue reading Day Two of the Etheridge Incident.

Red to… well, Blue to Red, and maybe one of them will flip back.

Not a catchy title, I know.

There’s a good deal of laughing going around about the DCCC’s latest quote-unquote ‘Red to Blue’ announcement, mostly because it’s fairly clear that they’re kind of doing it wrong.  Generally speaking, it’s not really considered newsworthy that you’ve managed to find a candidate for a seat that you’re already holding, but the current officeholder is abandoning like a scared little puppy; and yet the DCCC has seven of their eleven new ‘challengers’ doing precisely that.  The list is below:

Race Notes
AR-01 Open (D)
AR-02 Open (D)
IN-08 Open (D)
MI-01 Open (D)
WA-03 Open (D)
WV-01 Open (D)
WI-07 Open (D)
HI-01 Tossup R
MN-06 Likely R
PA-06 Likely R
MO-08 Safe R

Continue reading Red to… well, Blue to Red, and maybe one of them will flip back.

Dammit, the soccer thing is perfectly understandable.

Ace and Allah and Stacy* to the contrary.  The real reason why Americans don’t watch or particularly want the damned game is simple:

You can’t use your damned hands to play it unless you’re the damned goalie.

Remember that movie Victory? Yes, the supremely silly one* about the WWII Allied prisoners of war that had a match with the Germans?  Remember how they had to give Sylvester Stallone the goalie position?  And do you know why they did that ?  Because Stallone was an American action hero at the time, and the audience would not accept an American action hero that did not have the use of his hands.

This is just the way that it is.  Soccer is a perfectly fine sport.  For other people.

Moe Lane

*Look, I’m sorry, but shoehorning Pele into that plot was an egregious assault on historical accuracy in a WWII film that was only approached by… well, pretty much everything in U-571… twenty years later.

I should write a children’s book.

I just subjected myself to reading one in particular.  It that was written by a favorite film star of mine; an actress who is obviously clever, very skilled at her craft, still alluring, and who cannot write a rhyming couplet that recognizes any consistent rules of either grammar or scansion.  It was so bad that my firstborn climbed out of bed and pulled out the next book on the queue; I tried to tough it out, but gave up three pages later when two sentences more or less collided in a fireball.  Pretty, it wasn’t.

Now all I need to do is figure out a suitable subject.  Preferably something not political; those never end well.  More importantly, they usually don’t sell well, either.

#rsrh Bob Etheridge (D, NC-02) sorry he got caught.

That’s the charitable conclusion.

Made an interesting Kinsley gaffe there, too:

“I have seen the video posted on several blogs,” says Etheridge. “I deeply and profoundly regret my reaction, and I apologize to all involved.

Bolding mine, and via Hot Air. Unless I’m mistaken, this video was shot on June 9th (there was a DCCC fundraiser that night involving Pelosi) – almost a week ago – and only now Etheridge is getting around to apologizing? Does he even remember what happened? You’d think that he’d remember assaulting someone: I don’t know what would be worse, him trying to hide it – or that he had, I don’t know, blacked out or something…

#rsrh Rasmussen: Haley/Sheheen 55/34

These numbers look pretty solid:

The latest Rasmussen Reports statewide telephone survey of Likely Voters shows Haley picking up 55% of the vote over Democratic State Senator Vincent Sheheen, who earns 34% support. Five percent (5%) would choose some other candidate and six percent (6%) are undecided.

Congressman Gresham Barrett earns 46% support over Sheheen’s 38%. However, 10% of voters would vote for some other candidate in this match-up and six percent (6%) are not sure.

…and I would like to note that Barrett’s support since the December 2009 poll has apparently not increased.  Couple that with the way that people are significantly more willing to vote against Rep. Barrett… look, I honestly don’t want to force him out of this race; he’s earned the right to participate in the run-off.  But is this really best for all concerned?

Moe Lane

Bob Etheridge (D, NC-02) attacks student.

[UPDATE] Welcome, Instapundit readers.  Note that I don’t expect actual violence before, say, the end of August.

This is why you need to have two cameras. The first one, to record being assaulted by a sitting Congressman (Bob Etheridge, D, NC-02):

…and a second one, to record the person recording being assaulted by a sitting Congressman (Bob Etheridge, D, NC-02): Continue reading Bob Etheridge (D, NC-02) attacks student.