Orly Channels King Arthur as Brad’s Mom Vanishes
Amid the 713 must-read web sites Calbuzz reviews before hauling our Pilates-ripped glutes out of the sack 30 or 40 minutes after noon each day, only about 92% are more valuable in honing our prudent judgments and ADD-riddled focus than Wonkette.
Despite its unfortunate founding by the repulsive Nick Denton, and its disconcerting if discerning discussions about the intersection of politics, gin and anal sex, the site is the hands-down winner of this week’s Little Pulitzer for Investigative Punditry for scooping the world, not to mention the entire California press corps, with its exclusive report on a spectacular new web ad produced by the Orly Taitz for U.S. Senate campaign.
As loyal readers know, the cognoscenti smart money is on the Moldavian Mad Hatter to capture the second place slot in the wide-open primary for Senator Dianne Feinstein’s seat and swoop into a mano a mano one-on-one general election showdown with Herself.
The widely known leader of the responsible birther/dentist community may not be every Republican’s glass of raichu, of course. But CalWatchdog, our fourth favorite conservative web site, did an estimable job this week of reaching out to Republican Senate wannabes, of whom there are 14 (!), and found that the biggest beef among most of them is not with Orly, but with the California Republican Party putting the fix in for endorsed candidate Elizabeth Emken. But we digress.
After viewing the new Taitz for Senate spot, it’s hard to pick our favorite part: Orly calling herself “the Energizer bunny on steroids?” The photo of the Auschwitz ovens to illustrate her view of the Obama Administration’s economic policies? The photos of Difi and Nancy Pelosi with bug eyes big enough to cast them as aliens in “Men in Black 3”? The tried and true dental lab coat shot? Her eyes peeking out of the helmet of a full suit of armor as she’s identified as “Warrior”? Misspelling the word “deprivation”?
Sigh. So many images, so little time.
WAIT first here is a preview, or more of a WARNING, that Dianne Feinstein will jump out at you like a squirrely hobbit…
Is this perhaps a new record for most themes covered in a single campaign ad? … Oh dear we are giggling, it’s like Orly Taitz has found out how to make the laughing gas contagious through the computer screen, it is MAGIC.
In other news, Nate Silver has moved the Feinstein seat from “likely Democrat” to “safe Democrat.”
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Goyim, choo-choos and Brad: Over at LA Observed, our friend Kevin Roderick posted an intriguing item showing two mailers from the Brad Sherman for congress campaign, one that included Brad’s mother, Lane, and the other without her. According to our sources in the district — where Sherman is battling Israel’s favorite Howard Berman — the mailer with mom went to Jewish voters and the one without mom went to the goyim.
Oy.
This brought to mind vivid memories of an event near the end of the 1990 governor’s race, when Sherman rode along on Democratic nominee Feinstein’s whistle-stop campaign train tour of the Central Valley. Then a candidate for the Board of Equalization, Brad was hanging around, pestering reporters and generally encroaching on everyone’s personal space. As he is wont to do.
While the rest of the pols on the train stayed up in the car carrying DiFi and her entourage, Sherman trolled the press car, rather desperately seeking attention. So clingy and annoying did Sherman become, that the ink stain wretch crowd, trying to write their stories before adjourning to the bar car, became fairly exasperated.
On appeal from his colleagues, one scurrilous reporter (we name no names) approached the conductor and asked him to page Sherman. Moments later, over the train’s loudspeaker, came the announcement: “Brad Sherman, your mother is calling.”
Sherman raced out of the press car, whereupon the door was locked behind him, bringing to a swift end his close encounter with the assembled news media. Until the next stop, when Sherman confronted the by-now heroic reporter, wagged a finger at his face, and informed him that he had been scared nearly to death because his mother was advancing Brad’s journey by car along the train route and he thought something terrible had happened to her.
We criticize ourselves severely.
Since then, we understand, Lane Sherman has been Brad’s constant volunteer campaign go-getter. So it made perfect sense that when he put together a flyer with a family photo, that mom should be included. And she is – but only in the mailer aimed at Jewish voters. For the gentiles – poof – mom’s been Photoshopped out. (HT to Charles Mathesian at Politico for also noting that the Jews-only mailer includes a shot of Brad with Benjamin Netanyahu.)
Not only is this insulting to the very ideals of motherhood, Jewish and otherwise. It’s just plain odd, too.
Today’s sign the end of civilization is near: Is that a piece of granite in your pocket or are you just glad to see me?
Must read of the week: Conventional Wisdom Cult punishes chief purveyor of Conventional Wisdom for departing from Conventional Wisdom.
Takedown of the week: Michael Hiltzik levels David Gregory for slobbering all over Jamie Dimon.
ICYMI: Kickoff of Santorum ’16 campaign.
The anecdote from ’90 on Sherman is hysterical! He needs to do another “two-for” mailing/picture: One catered to Jews, eating at a good deli in the district and another sent to non-Jews showing him chowing down at Tommy’s. FYI: On Sherman’s campaign website, there is a picture of him, his wife and their kids and the bio above mentions all of them by name. But there is also an elderly red-haired woman he is talking to and for some reason, she is not identified.
It is his mother, Lane.
Looks to me like the message he wants to send out is that he is nice to “little old ladies” he and his family encounter during a walk around the neighborhood. Although since he lives in D.C, one presumes that pic was taken inside the Beltway and not in “Sherman Oaks.” Oy Gevalt!
I don’t know about why Lane Sherman is or is not in the mailer, but that picture looks like it was shot at the new playground in the Van Nuys-Sherman Oaks Park. That canopy is fairly distinctive; that is the tell. It is near the corner of Hazeltine and Huston in Sherman Oaks, CA.
At this point is is fair to say that the “Congressman, Schmongressman Show” in CA-30 has jumped the shark. But Brad is still a better Representative for the area than Howard Berman, who completely ignored the district until this year when he realized he had to fight to win the seat.
In terms of more substantive issues, Berman was the one who was more gung ho for Bush’s wars (though Sherman is not quite where I would be) and Berman is the one who has voted for all the bad trade deals since NAFTA (up to the recent Korea and Colombia deals) while Sherman opposes them.
But hey, this race might just erase the Postal Service defifit all by itself. There’s too damn much mail…