The perpetual candidate

For the third time in his career, Alan Keyes ran earlier this year for the Republican nomination for president. He got approximately 12 votes. Presumably not including the vote of the lesbian daughter he disowned a few years ago. So few votes did Keyes get that CNN didn’t even bother including them on their scorecard.

When he sooo didn’t get the Republican nomination, he renounced his Republican registration and tried to get the nomination of the openly theocratic Constitution Party, where he was quickly crushed by radio host Chuck Baldwin by a nearly 4-1 margin.

He then immediately refused to endorse Baldwin and whined that (instead of about) he’d been betrayed:

It seems that the pattern of my political career … I have experienced this pattern on several occasions in the course of my political life, where people invite me in, and then they kill me, they invite me in, and then they kill me, they invite me in and then they kill me. … I kind of represent, in political terms, the abortion.

Well, Alan … kind of. Except that the fetus featured on all the anti-choice posters would get more votes than you.

Keyes also ran for the U.S. Senate three times and never got more than 29 percent.

Put this all together, and this guy is the Washington Generals of politics. But he is nothing if not persistent. Having failed to get the nomination of two political parties in one year, he tried a third, the American Independent Party. The American Independent Party was the California delegation to the Constitution Party, but its members were so incensed that Keyes lost that they split and joined up with a new party, the similarly named America’s Independent Party, based in Fenton, Mich. The Judean People’s Front had no comment.

By the way, Keyes’ VP nominee for America’s Independent Party is none other than Wiley Drake, a Baptist minister from California who a few months ago called on his congregation to pray to God to put a curse on Americans United for Separation of Church and State, a liberal group that opposes the religious right. Maybe that can be part of their platform: instead of hunting down terrorists, they can get God to send plagues of locusts.

Debbie Schlussel to the plaid courtesy phone

You might remember the furor a few weeks ago when the terminally irritating Rachael Ray wore a plaid scarf in a Dunkin’ Donuts ad, and the right, led by Michelle Malkin and Michigan’s favorite wacko, Debbie Schlussel, threw a fit because she was “endorsing terrorism.” The scarf, you see, bore a vague resemblance to the keffiyeh worn by Yassir Arafat and most of the rest of the Arab world. Well, now that story has returned. And guess who’s supporting the terrorists this time? Meghan McCain, daughter of John McCain. Here’s a picture of that commie pinko terr-symp:

I bet she’s plotting a suicide bombing right now in her dad’s 1995 Lincoln Town Car. (That’s a car old people drive, right?)

The McDonald’s BoiBoycott

The American Family Association has its panties all bunched up over the fact that McDonald’s donated $20,000 to the National Gay and Lesbian Chamber of Commerce and has an executive on its board.

It’s demanding that their followers boycott the golden arches until they stop supporting the Evil Gay Agendatm. They actually put out a YouTube video that quotes Martin Luther King Jr. saying, “Noncooperation with evil is as much an obligation as cooperation with good.” But King was in fact strongly in favor of equal rights for gays and lesbians, and his wife was even more outspoken about it. Coretta Scott King said a few years ago:

For too long, our nation has tolerated the insidious form of discrimination against this group of Americans, who have worked as hard as any other group, paid their taxes like everyone else, and yet have been denied equal protection under the law. … I believe that freedom and justice cannot be parceled out in pieces to suit political convenience. My husband, Martin Luther King, Jr. said, “Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.” On another occasion he said, “I have worked too long and hard against segregated public accommodations to end up segregating my moral concern. Justice is indivisible.” Like Martin, I don’t believe you can stand for freedom for one group of people and deny it to others.

Sorry, guys, you don’t get to bathe in the reflected moral stature of MLK. He was on our side on this one, not yours. He believed in genuine equality — you don’t. By the way, you really must see some of the comments at the Boycott McDonald’s Web site. Wonkette posted a few of the really choice ones. Like this one, which really would have been more appropriate if it were scrawled on the back of a Piggly Wiggly bag in crayon:

“I`m sorry that you have made the decision that heterosexul (sic) folks such as i (sic) are not welcome in your resturants (sic) any longer. i (sic) will not argue your decision. By giving your resturants (sic) sapport (sic) to the homosexual groups you have told me my believes (sic) and lifestyle are not yours and i`m (sic) not welcome in your resturants (sic) anylonger (sic).”

Ten spelling, punctuation/grammar mistakes in a mere three sentences. … I think we’ve found the leader of the group. Or this one:

“YOU DID NOT BILD YOUR COMPANY ON HOMOSEXUAL PEOPLE! IT WAS BUILD ON FAMILY VALUES! MAN,WIFE.CHILDREN!MOSTLTY CHILDREN! THEY DON’T COME FROM HOMO PEOPLE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!”

I love the notion that McDonald’s is a “family company.” Why, exactly? Because the folks at McDonald’s market crappy, horribly unhealthy food directly to your kids? Because they have playgrounds in their restaurants to attract more kids to come and eat the crappy, horribly unhealthy food? They keep using this phrase “family values.” I do not think it means what they think it means.

Blinded by the light

A British newspaper reports:

At least 50 people have lost their sight after staring at the sun hoping to see an image of the Virgin Mary, according to reports. …

Forty-eight cases of sight loss, allegedly caused by photochemical burns on the retina, have been recorded at St Joseph’s ENT and Eye hospital in the region since Friday.

Despite warnings and the potentially harmful effects of their actions, believers are allegedly still flocking to a hotelier’s house in Erumeli near where the divine image is said to have appeared.

Rationality: preserving your eyesight since the Enlightenment era.

Jon Stewart v. Elaine Donnelly

Michigan’s favorite anti-gay den mother, Elaine Donnelly, testified last week in front of the House Armed Services Committee, urging it to continue the ban on gay soldiers in the military. Jon Stewart had a great deal of fun with her testimony on “The Daily Show.” I especially liked how she kept bringing up a single incident in which a straight woman was attacked by a lesbian as a reason to keep all gay people out of the military. Best of all, to find that single incident, she had to go all the way back to 1974! Meanwhile there are thousands of sexual assaults in the military every year by straight men against female soldiers. But does she think that’s a reason to keep straight men out of the military? Of course not. She thinks that’s a reason to keep women out of the military.

Ah, consistency, thou art a fickle muse.