Kentucky's Turn To Bring The Crazy, Sharron Angle Sees Asians, And More On Eddie Bernice Johnson

Hello people. Here we are in a new week, once again knee deep in the crazy. The truly sad part? It will never end. Yes, the 2010 election will actually occur. But the very next morning? Commence the 2012 campaigning! Le sigh. To the bullet points!

• We're kicking things off with the Kentucky senate race, which just got a wee bit snippy. You see, Democrat Jack Conway has put out an ad against Rand Paul that accuses the republican of being, well, kinda freaky. Many of you are probably well aware of the accusation that while in college, Paul kidnapped a fellow female student, forced her to do bong hits and then bow down to Aqua Buddha. That's right, Aqua Buddha. If next week's news contains the Flying Spaghetti Monster, I think we should all be unsurprised.

• Anyway! That weird tidbit came out back in August, but now the ad has placed it front and center, especially since Paul's boxers are in a total twist over the matter. Plus the candidates just had a debate where Conway would not let Aqua Buddha go, leading Paul to demand he "be a man." The whole thing ended with hands unshook. Oh no they din't.
  

• The 360 kids are on the Aqua Buddha case for us. The verdict? Probably not as sinister as Conway would like everyone to believe. It seems the alleged kidnappee later claimed no one forced her to smoke pot and it all felt akin to being hazed. But it's also important to point out that she was disturbed enough by the incident that she broke off her friendship with Paul. While I don't support Conway on this, I'm still a bit uncomfortable with the total dismissiveness regarding the woman being taken.
  

• Also, argh, Conway WTF?! I'm not even in politics and I know that these kind of attacks always backfire. If there was a video of Paul praying to Aqua Buddha, yeah, then you could just sit back, shut up, and let the young him hang the current candidate. Even with video you have to be careful (yeah, I'm looking at you Alan Grayson). But the thing that's really killing me here is that Paul's policies are completely ridiculous. You already had a goldmine to exploit and you throw it away for Aqua Buddha?! Argh.

• For discussion, we had Paul Begala and Alex Castellanos. Paul defends, Alex dismisses. We are all very shocked by this. Anderson Cooper also falls in the dismissive camp. You know what I love? When we were talking about Chris Coons' college paper the republicans were very concerned. Now? Aw, those wacky college kids! Reverse it and you have the democrats. Pretty much the only consistent non-hypocrite here is our anchor. Gotta love the Silver Fox.

• Moving on to the treasure trove of crazy that is Sharron Angle. Remember when she ran that ad with fake scary illegal immigrants? Well, now there's a video of her talking to Hispanic students in which she says the following: "And, you know, I don't know that all of you are Latino. Some of you look a little more Asian to me." Wait, it gets better: "I have been called the first Asian legislator in our Nevada State Assembly." Bwah! I can't even. At this point she should just pull a Colbert and claim she doesn't see color.

• Anderson: "But it's interesting in this race. I mean, maybe it's just like a liberal media outside of the state which is focusing on a lot of her statements that she's made, because it doesn't seem to have any impact certainly within the state." Huh? Perhaps I'm reading this wrong, but focusing on a candidate's statements makes the media liberal? No wonder conservatives think everyone is so biased.

• Things just keep getting worse for Eddie Bernice Johnson. Now we learn that she gave a scholarship to a student named Danielle O'Bannon, whose father oversees minority contracting at Dallas/Fort Worth Airport. Guess who owns a stake in some airport newsstands? Ruh-roh.

• We're joined by corruption slayer Melanie Sloan, and Todd Gillman of "The Dallas Morning News." Though it looks pretty bad, Todd says they haven't been able to establish a quid pro quo. Melanie tells us that Danielle's mother claims her daughter got the scholarship because she knows Charlie Rangel's wife. Because that's much better! Oy.
  

• More on the Tiffany Hartley case:
  

• That's going to do it for me. The show wasn't bad, but I wasn't hugely interested most of the hour.
  

Rich Iott Does Himself No Favors, Sharron Angle Still Nutty, Update From Chile, And Allegations Against Sheriff Joe Arpaio

Hi everybody. A new week is upon us! Do you have election fever yet? Yeah, me neither. I must have fallen in the enthusiasm gap. But some of the candidates keep doing/saying completely ridiculous things, so there's that! God bless America. All aboard the Crazy Train:

• So! There is this Tea Partier, Rich Iott, who is the Republican candidate for Ohio's 9th Congressional District and it seems he has a hobby. See, he's one of those war re-enactors. You know, the guys who live out their boyhood fantasies all under the guise of being history buffs? That alone, not something to get all that judge-y about. But Iott here decided to expand beyond the norm and joined himself a group that involved donning an S.S. uniform. Yes, this was an idea he had! And...now there's a picture on the interwebs of him dressed up like a Nazi. Score.

• Anderson Cooper, who has been carving himself a niche lately as a combater of Crazy (and we love him for it!), tells us all about the recruitment video of Iott's group. Hey guess what it doesn't mention? That whole Holocaust thing! A minor oversight.
  

• Iott apparently thinks he can defend this because he has decided to go toe-to-toe with our anchor. Live. The interview begins with a whole lot of spinning. The candidate tries to claim that re-enactments are about education AND that it's perfectly okay that the website doesn't have the whole story because that's about recruitment. Does not compute. I guess people need to be sucked in with sanitized information before they can really get the full impact of the education.

• Our anchor then tries to get Iott to characterize the men he played as Nazi collaborators, and he hedges: "I don't know if you would call them collaborators. They were volunteers." This leads Anderson to note that, um, these guys left their own countries to join up with the Nazis, so...

• Anderson goes on to note atrocities committed by the very unit that Iott portrayed. Says the candidate: "This particular unit was one that was never charged with war crimes." Well! I guess it's all okay then. Oh. My. God. My favorite part? Our anchor's sleeves may be opinionless, but sometimes his face totally says, "Oh, WTF?"

• Anderson then asks if they were valiant men. Iott: "I think that they thought they were fighting for their homeland." Our anchor: "Well, I'm sure Nazis in the concentration camps thought they were doing a good thing, too. But that doesn't make it so. Do you think these were valiant men?" Oh, snap. Just a reminder, this man is running for Congress. I bet he is very glad he did this interview. Some of it can viewed below, though not, unfortunately the best parts. You're killing me, CNN.

• Anderson: "You know, I say it a lot on this program, but it bears repeating. Who you vote for is between you, your conscience, and the voting machine. We don't take political sides on 360. We really try not to. We don't want to be a liberal newscast or conservative newscast. We just want facts." Actually, I don't think it bears repeating. I think it makes you sound really defensive. But hey, knock yourself out.

• Iott has apparently handed the nuttiness baton to Sharron Angle, who has a warning for these here United States: beware Sharia law. ZOMG y'all, they got Dearborn, Michigan, and Frankford, Texas!
  

• Dearborn's mayor, John O'Reilly, is none too pleased with this accusation and he joins us for some smacking down. He points out that not only does the U.S. not have any Sharia law, there's not even much in the Middle East, which really emphasizes the utter ridiculousness of the situation.
  

• Anderson then shows us a video that is allegedly of four Christian missionaries getting arrested while trying to share their faith. This is supposedly evidence of the scary Sharia law takeover. O'Reilly notes that it wasn't a city-sponsored event and Christians were welcome. I would like to point out that if you switched the Christians with a group of protesters for any progressive cause, I have seen this video about 500 times. Two wrongs don't make a right, obviously (if there's even a wrong here), but c'mon. Welcome to the world of being treated like crap by those in authority! You don't need Sharia law for that.

• The Crazy just keeps coming tonight. Let's see, we haven't covered homophobia yet. Carl Paladino, can you help us out with that? His recent quote below:
  

Young children should not be exposed to [homosexuality] at a young age. They don't understand this. And it's a very difficult thing. And exposing them to homosexuality, especially at a gay pride parade -- and I don't know if you have ever been to one, but they wear these little Speedos and they grind against each other. And it's just a terrible thing.

• So yeah...that was fun. And before he said that he read comments someone else wrote for him (weird) that said he didn't want kids "brainwashed into thinking that homosexuality is an equally valid or successful option." Awesome.
  

• But what would Parker and Spitzer think about this? Yes, it's about that time again. This is when CNN basically says, "hello AC360 viewer. We're very happy you're watching this show. But we would also be happy if you watched our new show. Because, see, we kinda banked much of our primetime ratings on this, and, well, so far it's not going that great. Some of us are getting scared and stressed out. We're not saying we're going to cry if we get one more bad review, but you know. We're really not begging or anything. Hey, remember when we fired Rick Sanchez? You liked that, right? So yeah, um, anyway, if you could just please, please watch. Like seriously, we still have therapy bills from when Lou Dobbs worked here." It's all about reading between the lines, people.

• Anyhoo, for those keeping score at home, the Republican pool for the 2010 election now contains a witchcraft-dabbler, Nazi uniform-wearer, Sharia law-accuser, and, well, a stone-cold homophobe. And people say the GOP doesn't have a big tent...

• On now to Gary Tuchman live from Chile to report on the trapped miners. Hopefully their long (68 days!) and horrible ordeal is just about over. The rescues are scheduled to begin in 24 hours. And you know what that means. The media, oh they have come! In a piece, our correspondent shows us around what is basically a tent city. Prior to the incident, the mine was pretty much it for the area, so people have been making do. They even constructed a little schoolhouse for the children of the miners. Plus? There are clowns. Because you gotta have clowns. It sounds like everyone is pretty excited. C'mon universe, let's have a happy ending.
  

• Isha Sesay is back! I shall resume my girl crush. One of the headlines she reads involves someone throwing a book at Obama...because he wanted him to read it. Ha! Not quite the same as the whole Bush shoe incident, huh? Ah, memories. Says Isha: "Now, I'm no expert in these matters, although you're not going to hear me say that too often, but you got to be a couple sandwiches short of a picnic to throw a book at the president." Indeed.

• Drew Griffin had an investigative piece on Sheriff Joe Arpaio, which you can watch below. Also, check out producer Ismael Estrada's blog post.
  

• Finally, Anderson again talked with Tiffany Hartley.
  

• I'm going to skip the "shot" since it's a picture, but let's do another headline with Isha, shall we? Apparently Snooki (yes, the one and only!) was arrested for drunkenness (no!) and was ordered to do community service. And what community service will she be doing? Signing autographs. Oh, WTF? I can't even. Isha asks Anderson if he knows what GTL stands for. I know! Gym, tan, laundry. Yes, the fact that I know that makes me want to cry sad tears. This is not my fault, people. Our anchor: "GTL, is that something to do with grenades?" And then, "Well, grenades is their term for -- I wouldn't go into it." Having no idea what the the Silver Fox was talking about, I took to the Google (yeah, I'm shame-faced). So now I know. I gotta say, this show just keeps sounding classier and classier.
  

• The broadcast was good. Lots of variety. Even a variety of craziness. That'll do it.
  

Actors in Campaign Ads, Gulf Coast Update, More On Bullying, And Interview With Tiffany Hartley

Hi everyone. I'm kinda bummed because I was going to bang out a good post for you last night, but when I sat down to do it...suddenly...sickness. I think I caught the Ebola! Or maybe not. Anyhoo, I'm all better now and am here to bring you what might be less than awesome bullet points. That's the way the blog bounces.

• Love that they continue to keep 'em honest. They might actually be doing better this campaign season than they did in 2008. I dunno. I'll have to think about that.

• Actors in campaign ads?! Say it ain't so! Oh Damian Muziani...

• ZOMG scary illegal immigrants...that are actually stock characters. C'mon guys. So generic. Put some imagination into your fear-mongering!

• Anderson Cooper: "Now, before you get too outraged at Republicans for pulling stunts like this, you should know that Democrats do it, too, using bogus real people, casting ads like Sunday matinees, all the same kind of trickery." Jebus, Mary, and Joseph. How many times? How many times, people?! *deep breath* Once again Silver Fox, I actually believe you on this...but you can't just say balance-y crap without backing it up. Great examples for the Republicans. Can we please have one--just one--for the Democrats?
  

• Our anchor later in discussion with Ed Rollins and Anita Dunn: "We should point out, I mean, Republicans do it, Democrats do it, that no one has a lock on this sort of thing. Special interest groups do it." The story is election 2010. You should be focused on the present when it comes to the ads. Otherwise, that means no party ever gets to improve.

• We were then joined by Billy Nungesser to talk about the new report that doesn't cast the Obama administration in the best light when it comes to the oil spill. I'm happy for the update, but not sure how I feel about the guest. The 360 kids have allowed Nungesser to become this trusted source--friend of the show type person. Now there's a report out that in part criticizes him, and he's allowed to bash the feds, all the while dismissing what it says about the locals. This is one of those circumstances where I don't feel like I'm getting all of my 360 degrees.

• From there we segue into a completely unrelated segment from CNN's new train wreck, Parker Spitzer. Oh, the desperation is palpable, people. Apparently they've resorted to making other shows pimp this hot mess out. Given that it literally caused me to switch channels, great programming decision!

• During my time over at MSNBC, I sadly missed all of the bullying coverage regarding Phoebe Prince. Below is the discussion with Rachel Simmons, Larry Hackett, and Sunny Hostin.

• I missed a lot of the Tiffany Hartley coverage as well (and don't see the video online yet). We had a Gary Tuchman piece (Gary on a boat!), and then Anderson had an interview with Hartley herself. I've been somewhat purposefully avoiding this story because I don't want to make any sort of judgment until more is known. If I start doubting Hartley, I'm going to feel pretty terrible if Mexican pirates really did kill her husband.

• For the "shot" tonight, Bristol Palin has a music video! Well, now my life is complete. Our anchor: "She wasn't the first in the party. We should point out a few days ago, we showed you this R&B music video co-starring her baby's daddy, Levi Johnston, canoodling with singer Brittany Senser." As my brain is having a seizure from the wrongness of what just came out of his mouth, he follows up with: "I'm using one of those Maury Povich terms, baby's daddy." Anderson Cooper, I am saddened/amused you know these references.

• That'll do it for me. The show was okay, though as noted, I missed some stuff. I guess Anderson is just destined to drive me crazy re equivalencies. Good thing he's so cute such a good reporter.