Steven L. Taylor makes a good point about the birther-fluffing Arizona Secretary of State Ken Bennett. Obama isn’t on the ballot for the general election in Arizona, his electors are. And he’s not on the ballot in the primary–primary voters vote for delegates. (Though, as we learned earlier today, Obama’s delegates must get 100% of the primary vote or he’s in trouble). So when Bennett writes teabaggers telling them “My oath of office is to uphold the Constitution and laws of our State and country, and I’m going to do that by following the law.” he doesn’t know what’s in either of those.
Bennett backed down yesterday and Hawaii gave him the proof he was after, but not before fucking with him by sending a “Google it yourself” email. Secretary of State is a stepping stone for higher office, and I don’t see how this little gambit helped Bennett, but maybe it makes him a rockstar in a state that elected Jan Brewer.
Where I grew up, we’d call Bennett’s stunt a case of pulling out your gun and shooting yourself in the dick, but that probably doesn’t give the proper respect to the sober Oakeshottian sentiment behind Bennett’s effort to discharge his duties.
J
OT, but Atrios has more evidence of Alexandra Petri’s supreme brilliance!
http://www.eschatonblog.com/2012/05/villager-life.html
Wag
Birtherism is a nocturnal emmission from the fetid swamp of the GOP Id.
c u n d gulag
GOP POV:
“He didn’t shoot himself in the dick!
It was the Communist/Fascist/Socialist/Atheist/Muslim’s followers in the foreign country of Hawaii that shot the AZ SS* in the dick before he could even draw!
They ‘Colt-cocked’ him with a .45!”
What this means is that he was a victim of the nefarious Liberals, and needs to get higher office, and then Wingnut Welfare for life?
*And doesn’t seeing ‘AZ SS’ scare the living shit out of you?
And I don’t mean this clown, or Social Security, either.
Stuck in the Funhouse
They can’t help themselves, MM. They want what they want, and when they don’t get when they want, the tiny gears go in motion to change the pair-a-dime, one spazz at a time. Or, if we can’t beat Obama on the pol field of play, let’s just ban him from the game.
bk
While this is a circus, the bigger issue is that a Secretary of State is co-chair of Romney’s campaign. We saw how well such a blatant conflict of interest worked out in Florida in 2000.
Linda Featheringill
Unanticipated consequences.
I suspect Mr. Arizona Secretary of State is surrounded by people who think like he does and doesn’t realize that the rest of the world disagrees with him.
If his mamma didn’t raise a fool, he will use this experience to teach himself to look at things from more than one angle before he publicly does something stupid.
Of course, I don’t know his mother. She probably did the best she could with what she had to work with.
Cacti
Bennett is positioning himself for a run for governor. Here in sandland, you have to be a toxic combination of racist and bugfuck crazy to out-wingnut the competition.
MattF
I just wonder… does Bennett really think that there are votes on the margin that would be swayed by his sending emails to Hawaii? It seems to me to be a Politics 101 mistake, but what do I know?
amk
Loved that Hawaii kept on yanking on this stupid fuck’s chains till he went public with stupid threat.
Corner Stone
Reason #37 I am glad I did not grow up wherever you grew up.
jibeaux
@MattF: If there were, they’re pissed as hell that he changed course. It’s all or nothing once you start down that road, there’s no respite for the birther-curious.
gene108
What’s sad is in our political climate being a politician, who doesn’t know the laws he’s supposed to be upholding isn’t going to be viewed as a negative by many, because he displayed his ignorance in an attempt to fuck with the President.
balconesfault
Dude probably just earned himself hundreds of thousands of bucks on the wingnut welfare speaking circuit, next time he wants to pack his bags and speak to Rotarians in Omaha and CCC meetings in Mississippi.
Villago Delenda Est
@gene108:
Mind you, his supporters are the people who claim to revere the Constitution above all things.
Of course, they also think the Constitution was divinely inspired.
Like a bunch of Deists would be divinely inspired.
But then again, the ignorance of these people knows no bounds.
Even with Obama in the White House, I fear for my country. Benjamin Franklin’s cynicism about this experiment in self-governance seems to have been well founded.
Cacti
@balconesfault:
Fix’d.
Corner Stone
@Villago Delenda Est:
A wingnut friend of mine brandished a pocket copy of the Blessed Constitution pretty much every time I saw him back during the second Clinton term. I didn’t see that little book for 8 solid years but it’s made a triumphal return to much fanfare.
I’m pretty sure he never actually read a word of it, but he sure did find it powerful.
Older_Wiser
I’m sure there are plenty more skeletons in Mr. Secretary of State’s closet:
Found this (which was enough) but there are other places to google, also: http://www.azcentral.com/12new…
It appears that the Mormon church may have had a word with the prosecutor over these sexual assault charges, too, I think. I think the LDS are more influential in that area of the west than most people think, and when they say jump, you say how high…
“They [Bennett’s lawyers] described Bennett as an honor student and active member of the
Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, planning to go on a mission
in September. “A felony conviction for assault will make his desire to
complete his mission impossible,” they wrote.
People caught with a joint served more time than those criminals: http://azdailysun.com/news/sta… (Anyone notice that Bennett is almost a dead ringer for James O’Keefe?)
If Bennett had not been a “nice Mormon boy”, headed for LDS priesthood, it would have been called sodomy. What a hotbed of sexual perversion, extreme ideas of punishment, and off-the-wall rationalizing of crime the LDS seems to be. As long as you have money and influence, all is forgiven.
Those young criminals, after all, were just victims themselves and did nothing wrong, according to LDS logic. But these are the kind of “morals” that are reprehensible to the rest of society.
Villago Delenda Est
@Older_Wiser:
Well, outside of the red beanie brigade, sure.
aimai
I don’t understand why Bennet’s response to requests to verify Mitt’s citizenship is that he will “do it if Michigan has a law like Hawaii’s?” He didn’t have to request verification from Hawaii because of Hawaii’s laws–he requested it because he didn’t accept the birth certificate certification they had already offered. He hasn’t asked Michigan because he hasn’t asked for Mitt’s Birth Certificate, which MItt hasn’t released.
I mean, I get that this is all of a piece with (as the Taylor article points out) the complete misunderstanding of what gets verified by who at the State Level but it is also kind of just jaw droppingly stupid. Why not pro-forma request verified birth certificates for all candidates on the ballot? Why pretend you were forced to do something partisan instead of doing something above board and professional?
aimai
Villago Delenda Est
@aimai:
Mainly because one does not put the non-ni*CLANG*s through this sort of bullshit. It’s just not done. You can see they’re actual Americans by looking at them, you know.
gene108
@Villago Delenda Est:
The Constitutional Convention of 1789 was divinely inspired, which means Amendments 1-10 were the product of divine will.
The other 17 amendments therefore don’t carry as much validity and can be ignored, if needed to preserve the original Constitution.
Cacti
@Older_Wiser:
The east valley of the Phoenix area has the highest concentration of Mormons outside of Utah.
They wield enormous influence in AZ State and local politics.
NotMax
Bennett just another exemplar of the widespread ‘Leave no stupid behind’ trope of today’s rabid GOP/Tea Party/Paulists in general.
So much for his Warholian 15 minutes in the limelight.
Cacti
@gene108:
Particularly divine was that second one that says…
“No one shall make any law abridging the unfettered, individual right to carry a handgun.”
Villago Delenda Est
@Corner Stone:
I think your wingnut acquaintance is a Yang.
zzyzx
I was praying that he would do it. I can think of few things that would guarantee an Obama victory more than that.
Older_Wiser
@Cacti: And I suppose we can imagine how much Myth Rmoney has been protected and promoted by the LDS all these years, too, no matter where he located.
Villago Delenda Est
@Cacti:
CCC = Concerned Citizens Council.
The “respectable” political arm of the KKK, if you will.
Cacti
@Older_Wiser:
Of course.
The Pratt-Romney family are Mormon royalty (to which John Huntsman also belongs).
Take the example of Mitt’s missionary years. He spoke the truth when he said that Mishies often live in spartan accomodations. However, he got tabbed as one of the two assistants to the Mission President. They live in fancy digs and get to travel all throughout the mission to train other Mishies.
On my own Mormon mission, one of the assistants to the president was the grandson of the #2 guy in the whole church at the time. Family connections rule the Mormon church.
Older_Wiser
Sorry I screw up those links: http://www.azcentral.com/12news/news/articles/0404bennett0404-CP.html and http://azdailysun.com/news/state-and-regional/article_0ce55b69-8810-5533-98ea-827de63d0a01.htm
Those should work.
Forum Transmitted Disease
Hate to interrupt the self-congratulatory circle jerk here, but Hawaii’s response is weak fucking sauce.
Had the roles been reversed, Arpaio would have arrested Hawaii’s investigators as they landed at the airport for interfering with their local election laws. Hawaii did nothing but throw down a couple of delays and then comply with all of AZ’s totally insane and completely unjustifiable requests.
Hardball. A sport Democrats still don’t know how to play.
Cacti
@Older_Wiser:
Also too, if you want an insider’s look at how the Mormon church treats its blue bloods vs. ordinary members, read the stories of Steve Benson, ex-Mormon, pulitzer prize winning political cartoonist, and oldest grandchild of former Mormon prophet Ezra Taft Benson.
Allan
In Arizona, they call it a case of anally raping little boys with blunt objects and getting away with it.
ThatLeftTurnInABQ
@gene108:
__
The 14th in particular is one of the Satanic Verses of our Constitution as it were…
ThatLeftTurnInABQ
@Forum Transmitted Disease:
__
Given the media climate today, Dems are well advised not to play old school hardball in response to this nuttery. Go read Perlstein’s Nixonland. The essence of Nixon’s political technique was to make some bullshit attack in order to provoke his oppenent into a harsh reaction, and then to play the innocent victim when the target of his attack responded back hardball style. It worked, it worked really well at garnering sympathy from low info voters who are the low hanging fruit of our electoral system.
__
Dems have struggled for decades figuring out how to respond effectively to these tactics, increasingly so over the years as the news media have tilted ever more rightward. The secret of Obama’s success is that he found the key to unlocking the Nixonland trap, which is to redirect these attacks so the attacker looks childish and ridiculous rather than responding to them in anger.
ThatLeftTurnInABQ
@Forum Transmitted Disease:
__
Given the media climate today, Dems are well advised not to play old school hardball in response to this nuttery. Go read Perlstein’s Nixonland. The essence of Nixon’s political technique was to make some bullshit attack in order to provoke his oppenent into a harsh reaction, and then to play the innocent victim when the target of his attack responded back hardball style. It worked, it worked really well at garnering sympathy from low info voters who are the low hanging fruit of our electoral system.
__
Dems have struggled for decades figuring out how to respond effectively to these tactics, increasingly so over the years as the news media have tilted ever more rightward. The secret of Obama’s success is that he found the key to unlocking the Nixonland trap, which is to redirect these attacks so the attacker looks childish and ridiculous rather than responding to them in anger.
ThatLeftTurnInABQ
Sorry about the duplicate post.
ThatLeftTurnInABQ
Sorry about the duplicate post.
Mnemosyne
@Forum Transmitted Disease:
Knowing Arpaio, he probably would, but his allies have been disbarred for doing that shit because it’s fucking illegal.
Villago Delenda Est
@ThatLeftTurnInABQ:
I do believe that the site is having one of it’s hiccup things atm.
Schlemizel
I remember once eating a couple of green acorns as a kid, I had a sober Oakeshottian experience myself.
I Oakeshottian all over the woods.
Forum Transmitted Disease
@Mnemosyne: Arpaio will never see a day in jail. You know it, I know it, we all know it. So some guys lost their law licenses? So fucking what? They knew they could and fell on their swords with a smile and a sieg heil.
We don’t have that, we run away screaming from it, insisting on the high road, and man, when these guys decide to go to war for real, it’s going to be like the buffalo hunters going after the buffalo herds, nothing but slaughter while liberals are bawling to the courts to save them. The courts will do nothing, of course, unless you’re a billionaire or a corporation, as those apparently are the only two kinds of people who have rights any more.
TaMara (BHF)
@ThatLeftTurnInABQ: That is probably the best response I’ve seen to all the “let’s hit back hard” nonsense. You are absolutely right.
And all you have to do is look at how Obama played Trump with the birther nonsense to see how it’s done. That was a thing of beauty and I have the mug to prove it.
Mnemosyne
@Forum Transmitted Disease:
Uh, you should probably keep up on current events if you don’t think Arpaio is running scared. He’s losing allies left and right, there’s a federal investigation and an ongoing grand jury investigation.
Read the fucking link — the reason those two lawyers were disbarred is because the Arizona bar (which all of the judges who will hear their case belong to) found that they probably committed felonies. You really think that Arizona judges are going to give them a free pass after those same Arizona judges disbarred them? You think that Arizona judges are going to force themselves to reinstate those law licenses by finding them innocent of the charges?
I know cynicism is fun, but pay attention to reality every once in a while.
ETA: The Republican establishment in Arizona has decided that Arpaio is a liability and they’re throwing him to the wolves to protect themselves. This is where it gets fun.
Mike G
@Linda Featheringill:
If his mamma didn’t raise a fool, he wouldn’t be a Repuke Secretary of State in Arizona. You don’t get to such a position without possessing chronic blinkered ideological stupidity.
You can’t spell crazy without AZ.
James E Powell
It’s a smart career move for Bennett. Until now, who knew his name? I’m sure most people in Arizona, or any other state, would have trouble naming their Secretary of State. It’s like Joe “You Lie!” Wilson.
The 27% don’t care what’s true or good; they have beliefs about the world and certain people and they want those beliefs to be represented. Loudly! Normal people may see Bennett as an idiot, but to the 27%ers he is one of a few people who have the balls to stand up to that N! in the White House.
Joe K
Having read the emails in the tpm article from Bennet to his teabagger constituents, it does seem to me that he’s trying to do his lawful duty. he’s probably biased, but he does flat out say to the nutbaggers that O being excluded from the ballot isn’t his goal, his goal is to uphold the constitution. I think the whole affair is crazy, but I think Bennet might not be a total loon. Just sayin’.