Republicans Desperate For New Leadership But... Gary Sinise?

A new generation of Republican leadership?

The GOP is so desperate for a fresh new face-- especially with patience for Newt Gingrich, Rush Limbaugh and Dick Cheney, the party's top spokesmen, growing extremely thin-- that they'll take almost anything. Earlier today Chris Cillizza put forward dull party operative Mitch Daniels, a former Eli Lilly corporate hack, who managed to overcome the handicap of having best arrested and jailed for drug use (just pot), went on to become the spectacularly failed OMB director for Bush and is currently the Governor of Indiana, famous as a state producing particularly undistinguished governors from both sides of the aisle (apart from territorial Whig governor William Henry Harrison, appointed by President John Adams).

Cillizza, a long time Daniels booster, was smitten with Daniels' condemnation of Baby Boomers recently. It was a thinly-vieled-- he makes a gratuitous attack on Obama as a way of showing his right-wing bona fides to Limbaugh-- condemnation of the Bush Regime, which he was part of, and of the Republican Party.

"As a group, we have been self-centered, self-absorbed, self-indulgent, and all too often just plain selfish."... Daniels went on to offer a sweeping indictment of his own generation's financial and moral selfishness, concluding: "It's been a blast; good luck cleaning up after us."

Keep lookin'.

Yesterday Roland reminded me when the California Republican Party had settled on low-grade hustler (and thug), Mike Carona, dubbed by the Republican-owned media "America's Sheriff," as the future of the party. He would be Arnold Schwarzenegger's political heir. And as Republicans became less and less happy with Schwarzenegger-- and then all but wrote him out of the party entirely-- they couldn't wait for Carona to take over. Indicted on federal corruption charges and convicted for witness tampering, he is currently serving five and a half years in prison.

Earlier Republican wunderkind Ted Bundy was seen as a rising star in the GOP. His political mentor, 3-time Governor and one-term U.S. Senator Dan Evans (R-WA), frequent also-ran in the Republican vice-presidential sweeps, appointed him to the Seattle Crime Prevention Advisory Committee. At the time he was a habitual petty thief. In 1973 he moved up and became assistant to Ross Davis, chairman of the Washington State Republican Party. A year later young women started disappearing wherever Bundy was-- Washington, Oregon, Utah, Colorado, Florida-- and after years in prison the once rising star of the GOP was electrocuted early in 1989, as a huge nonpartisan crowd outside the prison cheered.

More recently, it looked like Joe the Plumber would be the salvation of the GOP-- until he quit the party in disgust-- only to be followed by a Miss America runner-up and sore loser, Carrie Prejean, who tickled the GOP's fancy by embarking on a career of gay-bashing-for-Jesus. It was then discovered she had lied about having been a soft core porn model and is no longer participating in any Miss California events.

With RNC Chair Michael Steele disqualifying Mitt Romney as too flippy-floppy and too Mormon for Republicans and with Dick Cheney writing the most popular Republican in the country, Colin Powell, out of the party, the GOP is desperate to find an acceptable leader.

And desperation has led to... Gary Sinise? Who? Don't ask me; I don't get out much. I just know of a smarmy, wormy-looking actor named Gary Sinise who had a part in Forrest Gump and then played George Wallace on TV, but they couldn't mean him. Could they? Maybe it's a plot to make Sarah Palin look good.

Ben Nelson and Carrie Prejean-- A Story Of Corruption, Greed, Bigotry And Tragedy

My original plan for this morning was to do a post on where the most reactionary Democrat in the Senate, Nebraska shithead Ben Nelson, gets all the money to finance his career. It wasn't difficult, since his hysterical-- almost Republicanish-- opposition to health care reform offered some pretty glaring hints. But it turns out our friends at Public Campaign did a really thorough job calmly making the connection between Nelson's positions and Nelson's unparalleled corruption. Short version: Nelson, a former insurance executive himself, sold his ass to the insurance and "health" care industries for a couple million bucks. His office has one of the worst records of revolving doorism when it comes to predatory insurers and "health" care lobbyists. The paymasters have nothing to complain about when it comes to their investment in Ben Nelson. In fact, his health care plan is a virtual carbon-copy of the insurance industry's proposal. So I decided to leave it at that and go to on to something more people seem interested in. Everyone just seems to say "leave it-- it being everything-- to Barack; he'll do what's best. So I just move don to TMZ.com.

I didn't realize that TMZ covered serious news; I thought it was a fan site for Republican congressional closet queens. But, was I wrong! It turns out they do track down real news as well. And do they ever have some sad news about what turned Miss American pageant sore loser Carrie Prejean into a homophobic bigot! See, people aren't born that way; they're made that way by a bad environment, like being in the Mormon cult or something horrible like that.

In Prejean's case it was the trauma over her parents' "absolutely hideous" divorce. TMZ speculates that it was the divorce that turned her into the hatemonger she's decided to offer the GOP as a face for their anti-gay hysteria.

Carrie's parents filed for divorce in 1988 and the divorce and custody fights went on for more than a decade -- it was a divorce filled with homosexual allegations hurled by both sides.

In one of the docs, Carrie's dad describes a confrontation he had with her mom in 1996, in which he recounts an argument in a restaurant parking lot, where "Ms. Prejean accused me, in front of our daughter, of homosexuality."

The papers also quote a court-appointed doctor who said "The mother questioned [within hearing of the girls] whether [her father] was a homosexual or had a homosexual roommate."

Carrie's mom says the "gay" allegations went both ways. In court papers dated May 16, 2000, a report from the court-appointed counselor says "The mother also alleges the father told the girls their stepfather was gay, that all men with mustaches are gay." The father's response: "The father acknowledges talking with the girls about the stepfather's brother being gay, not the stepfather."

Also in the docs-- a handwritten letter from Carrie's older sister, in which she recounts a weekend stay with her dad: "One time my sister & I went in the hallway of my dad's apartment, & his roommate's door was open all the way & we saw [the roommate] in bed with another man. I don't think it's right for my sister & I to have to live that way."

Prejean, who lied to the Miss California pageant about having been a pornography model is on the verge of being stripped of her crown after half a dozen not-for-prime-time photos were published on the internet. That's what happens-- you grow up around all this bigotry and hatred and you turn into a porn star, a homophobe, a religionist nut... and Lord only knows what else is going to come bubbling up from the sewers about this person!

Of course in Wingnuttia she's a hero of the counterrevolution:

She's young, she's beautiful, she's famous and, one way or another, she'll soon be very rich. Her future's so bright, she's got to wear shades. She'll get a book contract for at least a million dollars, and the publisher will pay a ghost-writer $75,000 to actually write the book. There will be speaking engagements, magazine interviews and TV appearances. She'll fly around the country first-class, stay in five-star hotels and eat at the finest restaurants, all of it at someone else's expense.

And good for her, right? OK, so a bunch of grouchy gay militants are calling her ugly names, but they call me ugly names, too, for which I have not the consolation of either beauty or wealth. (You can help remedy the latter by hitting the tip jar, by the way.)

And what else matters in the land of Hatred and Greed?

A New Republican Star Is Born-- Carrie Prejean Goes On An Anti-Gay Jihad

Remember a couple weeks ago a little tempest in a teacup when Miss California wasn't picked to be Miss America and she tried claiming it was because she was perceived as a bigot? She even threatened to sue. Well, after lawyers told her there was no case there, she found an even better way to cash in on her notoriety. She's now shilling for anti-gay groups and getting a cut of whatever money she can bring in for them. Here's a video one of the Republican Party hate groups has started running:



I bet Trump is pissed off he bought Prejean new breast implants. The Miss America pageant doesn't go for this divisive kind of stuff she's dragged the pageant into with her religious jihad against gays.

The organization paid for Carrie’s breast enhancement prior to her competing in the Miss USA pageant, which was held in Las Vegas, almost two weeks ago.

“It was something that we all spoke about together,” Shanna said referring to herself, Carrie and Keith Lewis, Shanna's co-executive director. “It was an option and she wanted it. And we supported that decision.”

Shanna, a former Miss USA herself, defended the Miss California Organization’s decision to pay for the elective surgery.

“Breast implants in pageants is not a rarity. It’s definitely not taboo. It’s very common. Breast implants today among young women today is very common. I don’t personally have them, but you know-- they are,” she added.

Shanna supported Carrie’s plastic surgery, however, she had a hard time standing behind Carrie’s opinion against gay marriage in her answer to a question from Perez Hilton during the Q&A portion of the Miss USA competition.

While the Miss California organization is trying to figure out if they want to fire her or not, Prejean has run off to DC to help launch a campaign against same sex marriage for the Republicans. Some want her on the townhall tour McCain, Romney and Jeb Bush are launching in their quest for new ideas.

The 21-year-old says that marriage is "something that is very dear to my heart" and she's in Washington to help save it.

By opposing marriage?

Here she is with Matt Lauer this morning:

Imagine If Someone As Ignorant And Bigoted As Carrie Prejean Were Running Around The World Representing Our Country

Pretty on the outside

You may have thought DWT would be the one blog where you would be absolutely safe from having to hear about Carrie Prejean and her quest for Miss Americadom. Miss Dumb America, for sure, but thank goodness this ignorant, empty-headed bigot won't be representing our country in anyway that could embarrass us and remind people overseas about the past 8 years of clueless Americans. So why is that video looming below? Well if you haven't seen this bimbo making a fool of herself on national TV, you should take a look before I share my little story:



Forget for as moment that Fox and the Republican Party are struggling to turn this poor dimwit's loss into a cause célèbre for the Neanderthal base-- and even a law suit. She's a victim now. Always on the right the bigots are the victims. And the rest of society's put upon victims will claim her as their own.

This morning I was hiking around Los Feliz with one of my neighbors. She had paid more attention to the Miss America kerfuffle than I had. She said it reminded her of something that happened at her sorority. A very attractive and popular girl, a cheerleader, pledged and everyone was enthusiastic about having her join. Except one person. That person blackballed her. She told her sorority sisters that if they accepted the pledge, who is Japanese-American, none of the fraternity boys would come to their house parties. My friend was thunderstruck and she and several other sisters argued with the racist. But she was unmovable and they had to reject the pledge. That happened here-- in Los Angeles, California, USA. It's what Republicans are all about; it's part of the essence that makes someone think of themselves as a member of that rapidly shrinking political party.

Now wash that ugliness away with something beautiful:




UPDATE: Alabama Speaks

It probably won't surprise you to know that the state of Alabama has, once again, endorsed bigotry and prejudice in it's hundreds of years of unblemished endorsement of bigotry and prejudice. Go 'Bama! Jay Love was the wingnut who lost last year's congressional election to what is now the worst right-wing Democratic slug in Congress, Bobby Bright. But Love proved today that his name doesn't go further than his nose. The Alabama House approved a resolution he proposed to "support" Carrie Prejean's ignorant bigotry.