Haire of the Dog

It happens to every movement, every trend, every cause, and every meme. At some point, it enters its Creed years. And today it has happened to the so-called War on Women. Let me explain.

At the dawn of the Grunge Era, there was Green River and Soundgarden. And it was good.

And then came Mudhoney, Mother Love Bone, Screaming Trees, Tad, and Alice in Chains. And it was even better.

And then came Nirvana and Pearl Jam. And Grunge was triumphant. The climb was over. The only way left was down.

And so came a long line of pretenders, from Stone Temple Pilots to Candlebox and Bush. The Grunge years were coming to an end. But the worst was yet to come.

And so a beast of wretchedness and putrescence was born, a creature that was so hideously deformed that it bore virtually no resemblance to that from which it was spawned. That foul thing was called Creed, and they sucked like no other band before them.

And although Creed co-opted the sounds and looks of the Grunge bands that came before them, they were not the same. They were prefab posers, the opposite of what the Seattle scene stood for. They were the servants of the corporate music world that Grunge had fought against.

Today, the War on Women has entered its Creed years thanks to the more spin-minded members of the Right Wing punditocracy and their twisted take on what has been affectionately termed Pinata-Gate. The term the War on on Women has now been co-opted by the very group whose antagonistic stances toward women actually led to the creation of the phrase in the first place: the Republicans.

As you may recall, the much ballyhooed War on Women began when the Republican Party and its surrogates suddenly — and quite strangely — launched a renewed assault on abortion and the Pill. And it all culminated when the King Junkie of Talk Radio, Rush Limbaugh, called Sandra Fluke, a young college-aged girl, a slut. The masses soundly renounced Limbaugh and cursed these newly proposed restrictions and their supporters. And so, the GOP suffered a setback in the 2012 campaign. Their chances of victory in November were diminished.

However, when video footage surfaced yesterday of former S.C. AFL-CIO head Donna DeWitt beating a pinata decorated with an image of Nikki Haley's face, they saw an opportunity to regain the ground they had lost in the War on Women, a war they themselves had started. And so they proclaimed that it is not the GOP that has been waging this war — despite all evidence to the contrary — it is the Democratic Party.

In an article entitled, "'Civil' War on Women: SC AFL-CIO President Beats Pinata of Nikki Haley," Katie Pavlich of the Townhall.com writes:

The question now is, will President Obama call Haley to apologize for Dewitt's behavior as he did with liberal activist Sandra Fluke? After all, AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka is one of Obama's most frequent White House visitors and was his guest of honor at this year's State of the Union Address.

Meanwhile, Human Events' John Hayward notes in an post titled "War on Women update: AFL-CIO president clubs Nikki Haley piñata":

I think we just might have a “War on Women” incident here! What would the constipated liberal guardians of “civility” say about video of a Tea Party event where Sandra Fluke was clubbed in effigy? Or Michelle Obama? Or how about a female Democrat governor, like Christine Gregoire of Washington State, or Beverly Perdue of North Carolina? (Okay, they might let a Bev Perdue piñata slide.)

Remember when President Obama was furiously milking the Sandra Fluke affair for all it was worth, and said that he wouldn’t want his daughters to be treated like Fluke if they decided to go into politics someday? Would he want their faces printed on piñatas and pounded with clubs by their political opponents, while a crowd screamed “Whack her again!”

Of course, for an incident to be included in the short list of battles in the War on Women, women must be under attack for the sheer fact that they are women.

When Rush called Sandra Fluke a slut, he was attacking her very sexuality and displaying a type of misogynistic hypocrisy that has no place in modern America.

When the Virginia General Assembly championed a pre-abortion ultrasound bill, they were attacking a women's fundamental right to decide what is best for her and her body.

And when Rick Santorum spoke against the Pill, he was attacking a liberating force in the lives of many women, a means by which they could chart their own destinies apart from their traditional roles as only wives and mothers.

But Donna Dewitt. She hit a pinata because Nikki Haley hates unions and wants them out of South Carolina. It's not because Haley is a woman and certainly not because she's a minority. Either Hayward or Pavlich don't realize this or they're just hacks of the lowest order. Either way, they deserve pinatas of their own.

And believe you me, I'd love to take the first whack.

Politics is the realm of the easily offended. The kneejerking jerk-offs. The stone-throwing glass-housers. The insincere spittle-spewing spinmeisters of righteous indignation.

And because of these detestable flecks of toilet dust, we have to endure one nonsensical bit of outrage after another.

The latest involves the now-retired head of the S.C. AFL-CIO. At a party last weekend held by the S.C. Progressive Network — a group's whose relevancy is, well, nearly irrelevant — AFL-CIO President Donna Dewitt beat the living shit out of a piñata on which some cheeky bastard placed a photo of S.C. Gov. Nikki Haley. Yawn.

Yesterday, the video surfaced on the interwebs and suddenly became the contro du jour, with folks both in the Palmetto State and elsewhere weighing in the matter. Not surprisingly, Red State's Erick Erickson, a Nikki Haley fluffer if there ever was one, took a moment from squeezing another intellectually dishonest soundbite out of his ass on CNN to weigh in on the matter, proclaiming that, gosh darn it, life just isn't fair, especially if you're a Republican:

Were Nikki Haley a Democrat, the media would make this the front page story across the nation — racist tea partiers beating up the minority governor in effigy.

But no, Nikki Haley is a Republican minority. The media views most stories like this in terms of victim and victimizer and a minority who signs on with the Republicans has, in the mind of so many reporters in America, chosen to join the victimizer class. Therefore, when she herself is a victim, it’s just payback.

It’s sad that this would be the case, but the media has for decades shown us how they operate. What would be front page for days in a row on the New York Times were Nikki Haley a Democrat will be barely covered.

But on the bright side, we lose one less news cycle to a story of union violence and keep the focus on how Barack Obama is destroying the economy.

Two things.

One, if a white Tea Partier was motivated by clearly stated racial prejudices, then, well, that would be news. If it was only assumed that the Tea Partier in question was motivated by racial prejudices, it would not be. That Nikki Haley is an Indian American and Donna Dewitt a white is irrelevant here since there is no indication that Dewitt is a racist or that her actions were racially motivated. Erickson knows this, but he chooses to ignore it. Instead, he chooses to play the Democrats-are-the-true-racists card. Choad.

Two, if "union violence" involves swatting a piñata, then maybe we should all seriously reconsider rethinking this thing we call a children's birthday party. I don't know about you, but I certainly don't want Erickson writing about my daughter's upcoming birthday bash. She's scared of clowns and Chris Hansen.

But enough about Erick Erickson. The point of the matter is that beating the shit out of a piñata bearing your political enemy's face is an accepted and celebrated form of political speech. It's commonplace.

See folks, piñatas are fine. And so is burning an effigy of your enemy, comparing him to Hitler, and Photoshopping his face to look like the Joker. Those digs are all just par for the course. (It's also fine to call your enemies a cock stain, a skid mark, or a frothy mug of santorum, but then again, I play a little differently.)

That said, if you call your political enemy something that expressly denotes and denigrates their racial or heritage — let's say like calling them "Sikh Jesus" like Phil Bailey did or a "raghead" like Jake Knotts — then you've committed a party foul and, frankly, somebody needs to escort you to the door and kick your ass to the curb.

Now, I'm not one to let a day pass without muttering at least one ill word about Nikki Haley. It's happened, mind you. Hell, sometimes I've even defended her, but you can bet your bottom's last dollar-bill ball gag that I whipped myself silly when I got home. And the worst part is, I didn't even like it. Yesterday was not one of those days.

On Wednesday, Nikki went before the SCGOP executive committee and urged them to put Katrina Shealy back on the ballot. As you may know, Shealy was one of nearly 200 candidates that were removed from the ballot thanks to a ruling by the S.C. Supreme Court over alleged filing errors. (Charleston's own Peter vonLehe Ruegner was one of them. To read more about his woes — and his videotaped showdown with Charleston County GOP chair Lin Bennett — check out a report by the City Paper's Paul Bowers.)

Well, thanks in part no doubt to the good guv's urging, the SCGOP executive committee announced that it was putting Shealy — and only Shealy — back on the ballot. Of course, that's not their call to make. Unless the state code of laws has changed recently, political parties don't have authority over the Supreme Court, not even in this one-party state.

However, today, the S.C. Election Commission said as much, stating quite clearly that Shealy will not be on the ballot. In fact, the ballots have been set and printed, and absentee voting has already begun.

Now in the middle of this, S.C. Senate Democratic Caucus Director Phil Bailey found a way to put his hunting dog-shit-covered boot in his mouth.

Prone to writing off-color tweets, Bailey got on Twitter and voiced his anger, writing, "@nikkihaley is the Sikh Jesus. She can resurrect an unlawful campaign by simply appearing at a @SCGOP hearing." Douche.

As you may know, Nikki Haley was raised a Sikh and later in life converted to Christianity. Of course, this being South Carolina, some good ole boy types want to constantly remind you of this, with some even going as far as to say that Nikki's still a Sikh at heart and the whole conversion was just a political ruse. Assholes. A

And then there are those who bring up Haley's Sikh heritage to remind you that Nikki's an "other," someone who's different than, say, real red-blooded Americans. Some dickheads even go as far as to refer to Haley repeatedly by her birth name, Nimrata Randhawa, in order to emphasize her otherness. Choads. Bailey's in this latter camp.

Of course, none of this should come as a surprise to anyone following Palmetto State politcs. The S.C. Democratic Party has a homophobic-slinging assmunchin, Dick Harpootlian, as its leader, so bigotry is clearly an accepted play in the Dem's political handbook. That needs to change or the state Democratic Party will quickly become even more irrelevant than it already is.

I hate to admit this, but I've been a little behind the curve here when it comes to this whole 50 Shades of Grey phenomenon.

Yeah, I know all about the mommy-porn bestseller — and how it all began as a torrid bit of Twilight fan-fic — but I haven't had the chance to engorge myself on this tawdry tale about the deflowering of a 22-year-old virgin by a super-rich, super-kinky 27-year-old super-hunk. Honestly, I just don't have time to read about all the games that Christian Grey and his subbie sex kitten play.

So I went looking for an audiobook version of E.L. James' randy-dandy chart-topper. Fortunately, I came across one. And, well, I can see why 50 Shades of Grey has gotten all the taxicab soccer moms and midlifey wifeys all hot and bothered. As read by celebrated physicist Stephen Hawkins, this bit of smut would make C3PO blow a gasket and cause the HAL-9000 to shout out, "Dave," again and again and again.

Listen to the excerpt below and decide for yourself. Oh. And don't forget to break out the WD-40. You're gonna need it.

Look, I don't care why the long-lost episode of Pub Politics featuring S.C. state Sen. Jake Knotts finally surfaced.

You know the one I'm talking about it. It's the episode of the Columbia-based political talk show in which the Lexington senator proudly proclaims that both Barack Obama and Nikki Haley are closeted ragheads. That's old news.

What bothers me is that we haven't seen this video until now.

The makers of Pub Politics, Wesley Donehue and Phil Bailey, have long refused to release the "raghead" episode. Why? I'm not sure. It's bad for business? Decorum? They're afraid that Knotts will challenge them to a duel? Who the fuck knows. But I can tell you this: If this situation reveals anything at all, it's that the good ole boy system is too much a part of Statehouse life to ever go away.

See, given the right circumstances, the folks in Columbia — whether they're Democrats or Republicans, politicians or political operatives — protect their own. It's not in their best interest that anybody sees them for what they really are, the putrid contents of an overflowing colostomy bag of glad-handing narcissism and sycophant, ball-gargling ambition.

Ladies and gentlemen, in case you didn't know, but the Statehouse is nothing but one big ole circle jerk, a bath house of oily porkers and greased up squealers.

Anyhow, here's the video in question. Judge for yourself.