CRACK WHORE JEANNE SCHMIDT TAKES A DUMP ON THE HOUSE FLOOR. OHIO NEEDS TO BE MORE CAREFUL ABOUT WHO THEY SEND TO CONGRESS

I was up in the Bay Area for the last couple of days. What a great place! And thanks to Republican greed, selfishness, and anti-environmental policies-- in the form of global warming-- the weather is absolutely amazing! KGO is the biggest radio station west of the Mississippi and my first night up there I heard a bizarre reference to a member of Congress. It was on Gene Burns' show, a guy you may not know as a talk show host but you may remember as a 2-time candidate for President of the United States for the Libertarian Party. The epitaph that intrigued me-- even more powerful than Marion Berry's reference to Florida congressional wingnut Adam Putnam as a Howdy Doody-looking nimrod-- was made by a caller revealing that tightly-wound Ohio rightist Jeanne Schmidt is a "crack whore."

Having watched her campaign against Paul Hackett closely I am very aware of many-- and there are many-- of Congresswoman Schmidt's shortcomings. But it took KGO to inform me-- and I am grateful-- that she is a crack whore. I was on planes and on ridiculous lines at the disastrous Oakland Airport and in meetings and at dinners and I missed the whole episode of the crack whore, dressed, as my fashion-critic friend Jim pointed out, in an American flag tablecloth, losing her mind in the House well. And although she was forced by an embarrassed-- see you thought nothing could embarrass them-- GOP leadership to have her wild crack-induced remarks ("send Congressman Murtha a message, that cowards cut and run, Marines never do...") stricken from the public record, you can check the whole disgusting episode out on MSNBC by clicking here (if you have QuickTime).

The video pretty much tells the story. (The crack whore incident comes at the very end of the clip.) The NY TIMES covered the whole sordid mess which was basically just a cheap Republican ploy that made a mockery about the concerns the vast majority of Americans now have about how Bush's occupation of Iraq is proceeding. Even conservative GOP Senator John Warner told his Republican colleagues that they should be ashamed of themselves. They were already embarrassed by a crack whore. What's it gonna take to make them feel ashamed?