Wonkette Weekette! July 31, 2008

Monday

Obama Has a Massive Staff, Wokka Wokka

Barack Obama’s campaign has more employees than a small nation and a larger budget than France. If you took every Obama staffer and laid them end to end, they would wrap around the earth and blot out the sun. The Obama campaign is such a massive operation that it will take 17 times the GNP simply to keep it afloat, and if any more people start to work for Obama in any particular state, that state will sink into the earth’s crust simply from the accumulated weight of so many workers. This is why Barack Obama has to raise $300 million post-haste.

Obama’s whole “50-state strategy,” it turns out, requires humans in every state in America, and those humans have to be paid. At last count, the Obama payroll stood at 900, not including 500 part-time workers on stipends. The hope is that by setting up operations all over the place, Obama may win states that Democrats haven’t even attempted in years. This would allow him to ignore states like Florida and Ohio, which arise from the ether every four years to give the rest of America a solid fucking in the ass.

John McCain, on the other hand, is targeting swing states and spending a lot on television ads. So where’s all of Barack Obama’s money going, besides salaries and benefits and advertising? Fish pedicures, probably. –Sara K. Smith

NYT to McCain: Your Writing Sucks, Too

Stylish wordsmith Barack Obama had an op-ed in The New York Times last week, which is kind of a big deal. He could be the next David Brooks or Bill Kristol or even Maureen Dowd! So then Grampa Walnuts McCain was all, “Argghhh, I should get a column in The New York Times, I was tortured,” so the Times is all, “Okay, submit one, we guess?”

According to Drudge or wherever he got this from, Op-Ed editor David Shipley cold rejected McCain’s submission because, instead of being an op-ed for the NYT, it was just some rehashed campaign talking points against Obama. –Ken Layne

Tuesday

Andrea Mitchell Angry That Press Wasn’t Invited to Obama’s Basketball Game

The Obama campaign is all about IMAGE CONTROL these days and GOOD OPTICS, which is why nobody can wear a green Hamas shirt around the candidate. Now Barack Obama is stone cold ignoring the press on his Middle Eastern Hope ’N Basketball Tour, leaving it to some military nobody to hold the camera while he shoots three-pointers when really such hard-hitting news coverage should be left to trained journalistic professional nobodies.

Is it kinda lame that Obama dragged all these traveling press people halfway around the world only to ignore them while he canoodles with the locals? Absolutely! On the other hand, if he opened every visit to the press they’d be bitching about what a cynical publicity stunt this whole thing was. (Plus, security concerns etc.) Barack Obama can make this whole problem go away by penciling in 20 minutes of “balling” with Andrea Mitchell. –SKS

John McCain Has Several Hollywood Friends!

Oh sure, the stylish basketball star and Ivy League lawyer Barack Obama is loved by all the Hollywood celebrities (and world leaders and leading billionaires and Bob Dylan and all the voters), but even weary old rape-humorist John McCain can claim a little bit of L.A. glitter. Do you remember the hit ’70s surfing sitcom Magnum P.I., about a crusty old Englishman and his mustachioed boy toy? No? Well, that guy (Tom Selleck) is one of, uh, four forgotten Hollywood starlets who have donated some money to McCain’s Titanic. Also on the Celebrity Donation List: Tom Selleck’s wife, who shares both his last name and a love for John McCain’s war heroics. Let’s see, who else? Oh yes, the maker of terrible blockbuster movies in the ’80s, Jerry Bruckheimer, he donated $5,000 to Walnuts! Their friendship goes back to the “golden age” of cinema, when Bruckheimer made a hit movie about McCain crashing a plane into Hawaii back in World War II. The other celebrity who contributed to the campaign is infamous cocaine lunatic Kelsey Grammar, teevee’s “Kramer.” –KL

Wednesday

Alleged John Edwards Mistress-Baby Scandal!

Oh man, weren’t we done with this guy? When did everybody know he had affairs and mistresses? We knew in October — if by “knew” you mean we posted some crap that the National Enquirer “reported” and the Huffington Post repeated. But now, suddenly, it seems there might be a pretty good prime-time speech slot open on probably Tuesday at the Democratic Convention, because John-John’s got (an alleged) love child!

The important question is not “Why is John Edwards cheating on his wife who had cancer?” We know that answer: He’s a Democratic politician. They have affairs with ladies. The important question is “Why do we have to hear about this again now?”

The answer is “Because a tabloid caught him with the mistress and the baby at a hotel!” A love child? Jesus! Bill Clinton must feel a million years old tonight. Joe Klein, too.

Details, according to the National Enquirer: Edwards was in L.A. on Monday, to do some homelessness event with cheating L.A. mayor Antonio Villaraigosa. Then Edwards was spotted that night sneaking into the Beverly Hilton, supposedly where his mistress had two rooms rented. Then he tried to sneak out, at 2:40 a.m. Tuesday morning. And the tabloid reporters chased him into a restroom, and the security chased off the tabloid reporters, the end? –KL

Kwame Kilpatrick Maybe Sex-Texted Other Hot Ladies!

The Great Romancer of Detroit, Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick, may not have confined his sex-LOLs to former aide Christine Beatty. Now the prosecutor in his perjury case, Kym Worthy, has changed the wording in criminal charges to suggest that he was whoring around on women besides Beatty and his wife. In response, this comical doofus said that Worthy was just hoping to use “the racism of this region” against him.

According to the Detroit Free Press, “Prosecutors said they have obtained thousands of still-undisclosed text messages, including some that reveal his intimate relationships with women besides Beatty and his wife.” [:O OH NOES!! LOLZ!--Ed.]

At least one criminal defense lawyer was dumbfounded. “The only white guys are the lawyers working for the mayor. It leaves me a little confused,” Gail Benson told the paper.

The most hilarious part of this reliably entertaining Freep article comes at the very end, when it is suggested that Kwame Kilpatrick lies about absolutely everything, including kissing his wife:

Kilpatrick said he is continuing to do his job amid the controversy.

“We’ve been able to deal with a $300-million problem in the budget, so I’m just thankful to God to still be able to wake up in the morning, kiss my wife, hug my children and do my job,” he said.

His wife, Carlita Kilpatrick, has been living recently at the family’s home near Tallahassee, Fla., with the couple’s three sons, according to a Detroit News report.

Kwame Kilpatrick should be appointed Attorney General. –SKS

Hit and Run: Bob Novak Smashes Pedestrian with Black Corvette

Already known as the worst, meanest driver in Washington, this morning Robert Novak was caught by witnesses driving into a pedestrian and speeding away from the crime scene. Novak was racing down 18th Street through the K St. NW intersection when he hit a much younger man, a 66-year-old who was using the crosswalk and had a green walk signal.

The man flew over the hood and over the windshield of Novak’s black Corvette before rolling off to the street. Novak sped away, but was chased by a lawyer on a bicycle.

[David] Bono said the pedestrian, who was crossing the street on a “Walk” signal and was in the crosswalk, rolled off the windshield and then Novak made a right into the service lane of K Street. “The car is speeding away. What’s going through my mind is, you just can’t hit a pedestrian and drive away,” Bono said.

The assault was also witnessed by “a WJLA-TV crew and reporter,” according to the Politico.

The cops got him and threw him in jail forever. Ha ha, not really. They gave him a ticket for “failing to yield” and let him go. The unidentified 66-year-old victim is in the hospital.

Novak once told The Washington Post that he hated “jaywalkers” and wanted to run them all over. –KL

John Edwards Denies Having Sex or Whatever

We’re having trouble getting into this latest iteration of the John Edwards/Rielle Hunter/Love Child story, probably because, um, who gives a shit about this loser or his bastard? For what it’s worth, however, he offered a curt denial today in Houston, where he was talking to a low-income housing aid organization: “That’s tabloid trash … . They’re full of lies. I’m here to talk about helping people.” Oh ho ho, so now Mr. Altruism over here thinks that helping poor people is more important than his ubiquitous boner, hmm? –JN

Barack Obama Secretly Runs Senate Banking Committee!

Here’s our pal Barack Obama, saying that the Senate Banking Committee — “which is my committee,” he says — passed some bill about something. Problem is, he’s not actually on the Senate Banking Committee at all. Maybe he meant to say he’s on the SENATE LIARS COMMITTEE where he passed a bill about MAKING SHIT UP. This is significantly more important than John McCain saying the Surge caused things that happened before the Surge. –JN

McCain Tricks Obama into Massive Global Win

Like so many McCain campaign disasters — choosing Phil “Poor People Suck” Gramm as financial adviser or announcing a press conference on an oil rig during a hurricane — it probably seemed like a terrific idea at the time: Harass Barack Obama into embarking on an international fact-finding mission thing, which would obviously provide so many embarrassing gaffes and make Americans scared to death of the Boy Muslim President.

Instead, Obama has turned the world into an exciting and hopeful background for his candidacy. Here’s what we’ve noticed, so far:

• The U.S. troops in Afghanistan endorse his plans there.

•… Where he also made a three-pointer from way downtown on his first try.

• The Iraqi government endorses his plan over the Bush/McCain non-plan.

• He struts around without body armor, a foot taller than everybody else — in painful contrast to Ol’ Walnuts looking like a Kevlar burrito wearing an old lady’s sun hat.

• The hawkish Israelis say, “Hey, this fellow will let us nuke Iran, too. We like him fine.”

• The saner Israelis say, “Hey, maybe this guy isn’t such a one-note warmonger and might actually accomplish something over here.”

• The Jordanians say, “Welcome, Mr. Cool. Our king will drive you around and you guys can figure everything out.”

• Germany’s Angela Merkel pronounces him “well-equipped — physically, mentally and politically.”

• The Palestinians make him a bagel!

Meanwhile, McCain has bumbled and stumbled from one fuckup to another. He doesn’t know where Iraq is, he doesn’t know when his precious Surge started, the magic sheiks his polices protected were murdered by Al Qaeda a year ago, he whines about the media following Obama’s epic trip, the trip McCain forced Obama to make.

Meanwhile, the NYT says “no thanks” to McCain’s crappy op-ed while his idiot staffers book him atop an offshore oil platform during a hurricane and cancel his one serious press conference of the week. It is all frantic and weird. –KL

Thursday

Alaska Gov. Palin Embroiled in Trooper-Non-Firing Scandal?

So apparently Sarah Palin, our favorite Alaskan governor, has a sister, and her sister was married to a state trooper named Wooten until they went through a “bitter divorce.” And then Palin and her husband and various others talked to Wooten’s boss, the public safety commissioner, and said … Well, nobody knows what they said, but the public safety commissioner felt PRESSURED to FIRE WOOTEN. But he didn’t! And then mysteriously he got fired instead.

So the question is, was Public Safety Commission Walt Monegan fired because he didn’t want to get rid of the governor’s sister’s ex-husband, or was he fired because he kept stealing people’s Cokes out of the fridge? Anyway, now people want a big investigation into this scandal, because the fired boss doesn’t know why he was fired.

God, these state-level scandals are SO BORING when there’s no sex involved. Somebody wake us up when the drug-addicted prostitute shows up with John Edwards’ love child and runs over the state of Alaska in her black Corvette with expired tags. –SKS

Obama Lies About His Foreign Language Skillz

That Barack Obama is a such a compulsive prevaricator that he cannot admit he speaks an exotic foreign tongue until he’s hanging out with a bunch of reporters. Remember how he very unpatriotically admitted feeling “embarrassed” that he doesn’t speak a foreign language? Well that was just a bunch of lies because he does speak some language, one that many people have not even heard of. Is it Klingon?

No, it is something called “Bahasi Indonesian”! On his plane from Tel Aviv to Berlin, Obama was hanging out in steerage with all the reporters and he let this slip:

“My German is not real good … I can speak Bahasi Indonesian but I don’t think … there would be a lot of appeal to that.”

Of course, when he says he can “speak” this language he probably means he can say things like “please” and “where’s the toilet” and “I would like two tickets to the madrassa,” but whatever. When will Barack Obama admit that he would prefer to deliver his Berlin address in Indonesian? –SKS

Pennsylvania’s Beauty Queen/Fake Job/Cigar Store/Car Sex Scandal

Hey, here is a sexy state scandal while we wait for Hopey to set up his podium ’n stuff! Pennsylvania State House Majority Leader H. William DeWeese might have to resign because his chief of staff allegedly hired some youngster he (the chief of staff, Michael Manzo) was banging to do pretty much nothing for $30,000 a year. Because all these people are Democrats, it’s a boring heterosexual affair, and while this story could be improved if the gal had been making, oh, ten times that pitiful amount, we’ll work with it. Here are the hilarious details!

• Angela Bertugli, the woman in question, was Waynesburg’s Miss Rain Day 2001.

• Ah, hmm, what else. This, from tipster “Mike”: “He met the young woman in a bar and after screwing her in his car, he put her on the state payroll.” (This is a good tip because it rhymes, and it is about car sex.)

• Oh yowch this from the grand jury: “In a retrospective review of the above-described events, Bertugli concluded, with certainty, that Manzo hired her because she was having sex with him.”

• This young intern lady also got her apartment paid for and a $7,000 bonus, even though she admits she was spending “70 percent of the time” doing law school homework. Hey, at least she was in law school! And doing her homework!

• This woman performed her fake job from an office above a cigar store in Pittsburgh. That’s glamour.

• DeWeese’s defenders are wondering WTF any of this has to do with him. –SKS

Rudy’s Son Sues College for Cutting Him from Golf Team

Good lord: “The son of former New York City mayor Rudy Giuliani is suing Duke University, claiming he was wrongfully kicked off the golf team. Andrew Giuliani claims he was dismissed without cause from the golf team earlier this year because coach O.D. Vincent III wanted to cut the team of 13 players by about half. The lawsuit claims the coach has interfered with Giuliani’s efforts toward becoming a professional golfer.” That basically says everything that needs to be said. Enjoy your annual divorce ritual in adulthood, Andrew. –JN

Friday

McCain Campaign Finally Launches Basic Online Outreach Strategy

It has been merely a HALF-YEAR since John McCain locked up the Republican nomination, and his team has somehow found the time to develop an online grassroots strategy between those 20-person town halls in nowhere that it holds every other day. From campaign manager Rick Davis’s e-mail client, he writes, “Through the McCain Nation online headquarters you can create events, upload and invite your contacts, send out invitations, get maps and directions, and much more. You can also search for events in your area and ask hosts to attend.” Oh right! Hasn’t that black guy used something exactly like this for the past year or so, to defeat the Clintons? Three months should be plenty of time for WALNUTS! to catch up. –JN

John McCain Too Popular to Party with Us

We were so excited about the MCCAIN NATION, and yet our very first request to attend a McCain party was stone cold rejected. The Straight Talk Express minces no words when it comes to telling its fans a particular event has reached capacity! A similar e-mail from the Obama campaign would have had the subject line, “Barack Obama Wants to Meet with You in Person and Make Out with You,” and then a big long paragraph about how great you look in that outfit, and then a request for money, and then at the end one very quick sentence: “By the way please try to come to a different event, because this one is full.” –SKS

Terrible Michelle and Barack Obama Don’t Give Their Kids Birthday Presents

Well, this is the topper. Barack Obama cannot be the American president because he refuses to participate in our glorious national tradition of giving our children lots of expensive plastic shit for them to choke on all the time. These communist Obamas throw birthday parties for their tots but do not give them actual presents. What other subversive values are the Obamas teaching their children?

• Chores.

• They get a crappy $1 weekly allowance.

• These tragic little girls don’t even get Christmas presents, except from Santa Claus.

This last troubling bit of information suggests Barack Obama’s TRUE religious problem: It’s not that he’s a Muslim, it’s that he’s a Jehovah’s Witness. –SKS

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