Let Them Cake

Needless to say, the gloom and doom pervading the Republican HateFest in St. Paul-- and their opportunistic hand-wringing over Gustav-- means they get out of having to tie themselves to Bush and Cheney and to too much of their own awful congressional representatives. I mean, how much of Mitch McConnell does anyone want to see lisping away about how he was able to obstruct reforms for the last two years but might not be able to with the re-election for all the Republican Senate candidates who are hiding under their beds this week-- from Susan Collins in Maine to Pat Roberts in Kansas to Gordon Smith in Oregon? But as far as the corporate parties... hey, the hell with New Orleans when it comes to where the lobbyists make the deals and pass out the goodies! As ABC-TV pointed out today, "As residents of New Orleans were fleeing Hurricane Gustav, top Republican party officials donned pink boas and swigged vodka shots at a wild whirl of corporate and lobbyist-paid parties this weekend in Minneapolis-St. Paul."

Many corporate sponsors and their lobbyists carried through with plans for lavish entertainment of GOP lawmakers and others despite calls from the campaign of Sen. John McCain that Republicans should tone down the convention festivities. [...]

Yet last night lobbyists for the National Rifle Association, Lockheed Martin and the American Trucking Association put on a raucus six-hour party at a downtown bar featuring music by the band "Hookers and Blow." There was no evidence of any actual prostitutes or cocaine.

Maybe the reporter should have looked a little harder. A non-sexual prostitute, McCain lobbyist-in-chief asked the corporate whores to tone it down a little and not ruin McCain's whole strategy of concern trolling.

Steve Benen at the Washington Monthly sees right through the ploy and realizes the right wing attitude first ascribed to Marie Antoinette-- "qu'ils mangent de la brioche" (in English "Let them eat cake")-- is very much on display in St. Paul. "House Deputy Whip Bill Shuster (R-Penn.) said he was praying for the people of the Gulf coast, but saw no need to curtail corporate parties. Wisconsin delegate Jeff Larson agreed, telling ABC News, 'Everyone goes through hard times.'

ABC also described another gathering "where waiters wore pink wigs and guests danced through the night as they wrapped themselves and their partners with pink boas." Asked about the appropriateness of the gathering, one Republican guest "hid his face from cameras, wrapping a pink boa around his eyes and nose."

You think it was Patrick McHenry (R-NC) who was handing out the pink boas? Watch this: