Dumbass

Weekend before last we Netflixed the Anthony Weiner documentary, and it was everything you'd expect -- a full portrait of a talented but deeply flawed man, someone who fought diligently for his constituents, even as he pursued a needless and self-destructive private life.

So it makes sense that Weiner's self-implosion continues unabated, in the midst of a hotly contested electoral contest that finds Weiner's spouse as the right-hand woman of the Democratic contestant. I suppose that's part of the psychopathology of it all, whether "they want to get caught" or whatever.

But the doc is a reminder of how passionate an advocate Weiner could be for the things he seemed genuinely to believe in.  Whatever his problem is, like with Eliot Spitzer before him, it has cost untold potential in terms of the good he might have been able to do.

Ordinarily you could make some cheap point about IOKIYAR, how guys like Weiner get their careers derailed even though they never actually have physical contact with anyone, while scumbag pigfuckers like Scott DesJarlais do far worse and keep getting re-elected. But the difference is that most of these Gooper douche-nozzles are transparent in their desire to accrue money and power and notoriety; they make no pretense about "public service" or some such nonsense.

Weiner really did and does come across differently, not just in the documentary but in countless interviews and media appearances over the years, he has unfailingly conveyed a presence of intelligence, confidence, integrity, and a genuine desire to improve the lives of his constituents. It's unfortunate that his demons keep getting the best of him.

When Harry Met Mitty

Gotta me-too the Boggster here. As "honey badgers" go, Harry Reid is more of the Casper W. Milquetoast strain, but as TBogg notes, he knows what he's doing here in going after Rmoney with (so far) unsubstantiated allegations. Reid is a fellow Mormon, a former boxer, and understands his place in the food chain.

Besides, as the song says, is it irresponsible to speculate? It would be irresponsible not to.

If Reid is proven correct -- and it stands to reason that he will be, if for no other reason than that this is simply too high-stakes a game to be lobbing these sorts of assertions with no basis in fact -- Reid may very well turn out to be a better poker player than a boxer. As Bush's own war marketeers once sagely opined, you don't drop a new product in August.

You do it right before/during/immediately after your opponent's convention. Look for the necessary "put up" (to appropriate Mittford's hilarious tough-guy bluster) right about then, when it will have the most impact. In fact, done well enough, it could very well demotivate an already disheartened base, and damage the down-ticket races.

Fuckin' strategy, how does it work?

Coupled with Mittington's terrible, awful, no-good-very-bad last couple of weeks, where he managed to piss off our closest allies, hold a $50k/plate fundraiser with the swindlers and chiselers who have literally been caught rigging the global economic system, and the biggest endorsement he picked up along the way, aside from Clint "I don't like paying taxes either" Eastwood, was from a past-her-prime cum dumpster. (Said endorsement could actually be a way of making Rmoney look bad, not that he needs any help, but who knows? More to the point, who cares?)

Porn to lose, indeed.

The Democrats are annoying as all hell, with their inability to counterjab even the most ham-fisted guff from baldfaced, smirking liars just daring you to call them out. They need to get their shit together, and big time, which is made all the more difficult by the simple fact that they are rented by the exact same folks who rent the Republicans. It's the ultimate hedge fund.

But the Republicans just need to go, period, end of sentence. This is a party that has outlived its usefulness, and while every nation needs at least two viable parties, this grotesque cabal of snake-handlers and grifters, pandering to the farm-animal intellectual level of a certain swath of 'murkins, has no practical use anymore, except as a cautionary tale.

Rmoney will still probably manage to pull 45% of the vote, because the perpetual campaign industry needs the illusion of a horse race. But he is clearly positioned to be the worst GOP nominee since at least Bob Dole, and at least Bob Dole actually put his skin on the line for the country, and has a solid record of accomplishment over the years.

Reid does need to back up his assertions, and I'd put my next paycheck on him doing just that, when the time is right. But with people distracted by the Olympics, or watching evangelist gastropods waddle to the chicken shack for another box of Freedom Sammiches®, congratulating themselves on their brave defense of the beleaguered First Amendment, it would be forgotten before Labor Day.

Stay thirsty, my friends. Hilarity is about to ensue.