April's GOP Asshat of the Month
This month's selection for the poster child of GOP insanity was not a slam-dunk. While Tom DeLay clearly makes for an easy target due his spectacular fall from grace, his decision to resign and allow another Republican the opportunity to win his seat was the right move for him politically, so it's hard to pin the asshat label on him. Some other Republican candidates and elected officials engaged in some mildly embarrassing activities in the last 30 days, but it wasn't until this past week that the winner became obvious by saying two stupid things in the past month.
Without further adieu, I present to you the GOP Asshat of the Month for April.....Curt Weldon.
Weldon is a conservative Republican Congressman from Pennsylvania's 7th district, a region which entails the affluent southwestern suburbs of Philadelphia. When Weldon was elected in the 1980's, this district was a Republican stronghold. That is no longer the case. Clinton won the district twice, followed by a comfortable victory for Al Gore in 2000 and an even more decisive margin for John Kerry in 2004. While he's been re-elected comfortably in biannual House contests up until now, he's starting to sweat a little now with the tide turning so strongly against his party, particularly in the Northeast. Thankfully, Weldon's perception of possibly vulnerability is provoking him to make some shocking gaffes early in his faceoff with Democratic challenger and Retired Admiral Joe Sestak.
Sestak's five-year-old daughter was diagnosed last summer with a malignant brain tumor and given only a few months to live. The girl's extensive treatments went so well that doctors upgraded her chances significantly. So how did Weldon respond when Sestak jumped into the Congressional race in attempt to unseat him a few months back? With respect and admiration for a man who served his country in the armed forces? With accolades and wishes of goodwill for his daughter's successful treatments?
Hardly. Weldon criticized Sestak over petty residence issues....and specifically used Sestak's daughter as a weapon in his criticism. Sestak continued to own a house in a northern Virginia (he had previously worked at the Pentagon) out of convenience of his daughter's treatment since she had been attending a D.C. hospital. Meanwhile, he was only renting a home in PA-07, which set off Weldon, who suggested that Sestak should permanently reside in the district where he's running for Congress and commute to D.C. to work every day, as Weldon insists he does. Weldon added that Sestak should have sent his daughter for treatments at Philadelphia area hospitals instead of seeing the doctors who had already been treating her in northern Virginia. Politicians have tried to make hay out of residency requirements before, but none have stooped so low as to invoke the cancer-stricken preschoolers into their smear campaign. It's unlikely Sestak will exploit this blunder by Weldon, but if he did, he could easily make Weldon out to be the 21st century of Ebenizer Scrooge, denying medical treatment for cancer-stricken schoolchildren.
Thankfully, Weldon wasn't done making an ass out of himself after that incident....
Take a look at his latest moonbat ravings from this article at SwingStateProject:
"Veteran Rep. Curt Weldon has a proclivity for calling out shady government doings that have him in mind as a principal target. A year ago, for example, after the No. 2 Republican on the House Armed Services Committee published “Countdown to Terror,” a frontal assault on the CIA’s track record before Sept. 11, he claimed that Clinton administration veterans with ties to the agency were out to get him.
So it’s not surprising that as Weldon girds for the most difficult re-election bid during his two decades representing the Philadelphia suburbs, his campaign is alleging that the CIA is probably abetting the opposition. Last month, his campaign manager Michael Puppio Jr. announced that Weldon’s expected Democratic opponent, Joe Sestak, a former Navy vice admiral, had taken campaign contributions from Mary McCarthy, the CIA operative recently fired for allegedly leaking secret information to the media. McCarthy, who was specifically accused of being a source for The Washington Post’s Pulitzer Prize-winning story on secret CIA prisons overseas, has denied that charge through her lawyer.
The media also has raised suspicions in the Weldon camp. The reporter on the Post article, Dana Priest, wrote a piece last year about Weldon’s book that the congressman viewed as critical.
It’s just a question of following the money, says Puppio. “What’s a CIA analyst doing giving money to a partisan political candidate?” he asks. “I’m not sure she violated any laws, but then when that analyst is alleged to have leaked information to a reporter who in turn is extremely critical of Curt Weldon, that raises some big questions.”
And amidst all of this is Weldon's flakiest headline yet.....a 2004 coronation of goofball Sun Myung Moon from the Unification Church which Weldon attended. Weldon adamantly denied attending this circus at first....until it was revealed that Weldon was the co-organizer of the event. After getting caught in that lie, Weldon then claimed he had intended to attend the coronation, but couldn't because of a scheduling conflict.....until a photo surfaced showing Weldon speaking at the event...right next to a lifesize photograph of Weldon pinning a Unification Church medal on the shirt of Libyan dictator Muammar Qadhafi at a previous gathering. I couldn't make this stuff up.
As for Sun Myung Moon, the Unification Church leader that Weldon apparently sacrificies animals with, he's on record in calling gays "dirty, dung-eating dogs", insists that "Jews killed Jesus Christ, and has speculated that "Satan is clinging to our sexual organs."
I'm sensing that Weldon's religious practices, choice of company to reward with medals(murderous African terrorists), and abrasive treatment of four-year-old cancer patients might be a tad out-of-step with the values of suburban Philadelphia residents. Given Weldon's stature and breezy margins of victories in past campaigns, I had never thought of him as seriously vulnerable up until recently. Any more potshots or howls at the moon and Weldon could find himself one of the most vulnerable Republicans of all in another six months.
Without further adieu, I present to you the GOP Asshat of the Month for April.....Curt Weldon.
Weldon is a conservative Republican Congressman from Pennsylvania's 7th district, a region which entails the affluent southwestern suburbs of Philadelphia. When Weldon was elected in the 1980's, this district was a Republican stronghold. That is no longer the case. Clinton won the district twice, followed by a comfortable victory for Al Gore in 2000 and an even more decisive margin for John Kerry in 2004. While he's been re-elected comfortably in biannual House contests up until now, he's starting to sweat a little now with the tide turning so strongly against his party, particularly in the Northeast. Thankfully, Weldon's perception of possibly vulnerability is provoking him to make some shocking gaffes early in his faceoff with Democratic challenger and Retired Admiral Joe Sestak.
Sestak's five-year-old daughter was diagnosed last summer with a malignant brain tumor and given only a few months to live. The girl's extensive treatments went so well that doctors upgraded her chances significantly. So how did Weldon respond when Sestak jumped into the Congressional race in attempt to unseat him a few months back? With respect and admiration for a man who served his country in the armed forces? With accolades and wishes of goodwill for his daughter's successful treatments?
Hardly. Weldon criticized Sestak over petty residence issues....and specifically used Sestak's daughter as a weapon in his criticism. Sestak continued to own a house in a northern Virginia (he had previously worked at the Pentagon) out of convenience of his daughter's treatment since she had been attending a D.C. hospital. Meanwhile, he was only renting a home in PA-07, which set off Weldon, who suggested that Sestak should permanently reside in the district where he's running for Congress and commute to D.C. to work every day, as Weldon insists he does. Weldon added that Sestak should have sent his daughter for treatments at Philadelphia area hospitals instead of seeing the doctors who had already been treating her in northern Virginia. Politicians have tried to make hay out of residency requirements before, but none have stooped so low as to invoke the cancer-stricken preschoolers into their smear campaign. It's unlikely Sestak will exploit this blunder by Weldon, but if he did, he could easily make Weldon out to be the 21st century of Ebenizer Scrooge, denying medical treatment for cancer-stricken schoolchildren.
Thankfully, Weldon wasn't done making an ass out of himself after that incident....
Take a look at his latest moonbat ravings from this article at SwingStateProject:
"Veteran Rep. Curt Weldon has a proclivity for calling out shady government doings that have him in mind as a principal target. A year ago, for example, after the No. 2 Republican on the House Armed Services Committee published “Countdown to Terror,” a frontal assault on the CIA’s track record before Sept. 11, he claimed that Clinton administration veterans with ties to the agency were out to get him.
So it’s not surprising that as Weldon girds for the most difficult re-election bid during his two decades representing the Philadelphia suburbs, his campaign is alleging that the CIA is probably abetting the opposition. Last month, his campaign manager Michael Puppio Jr. announced that Weldon’s expected Democratic opponent, Joe Sestak, a former Navy vice admiral, had taken campaign contributions from Mary McCarthy, the CIA operative recently fired for allegedly leaking secret information to the media. McCarthy, who was specifically accused of being a source for The Washington Post’s Pulitzer Prize-winning story on secret CIA prisons overseas, has denied that charge through her lawyer.
The media also has raised suspicions in the Weldon camp. The reporter on the Post article, Dana Priest, wrote a piece last year about Weldon’s book that the congressman viewed as critical.
It’s just a question of following the money, says Puppio. “What’s a CIA analyst doing giving money to a partisan political candidate?” he asks. “I’m not sure she violated any laws, but then when that analyst is alleged to have leaked information to a reporter who in turn is extremely critical of Curt Weldon, that raises some big questions.”
And amidst all of this is Weldon's flakiest headline yet.....a 2004 coronation of goofball Sun Myung Moon from the Unification Church which Weldon attended. Weldon adamantly denied attending this circus at first....until it was revealed that Weldon was the co-organizer of the event. After getting caught in that lie, Weldon then claimed he had intended to attend the coronation, but couldn't because of a scheduling conflict.....until a photo surfaced showing Weldon speaking at the event...right next to a lifesize photograph of Weldon pinning a Unification Church medal on the shirt of Libyan dictator Muammar Qadhafi at a previous gathering. I couldn't make this stuff up.
As for Sun Myung Moon, the Unification Church leader that Weldon apparently sacrificies animals with, he's on record in calling gays "dirty, dung-eating dogs", insists that "Jews killed Jesus Christ, and has speculated that "Satan is clinging to our sexual organs."
I'm sensing that Weldon's religious practices, choice of company to reward with medals(murderous African terrorists), and abrasive treatment of four-year-old cancer patients might be a tad out-of-step with the values of suburban Philadelphia residents. Given Weldon's stature and breezy margins of victories in past campaigns, I had never thought of him as seriously vulnerable up until recently. Any more potshots or howls at the moon and Weldon could find himself one of the most vulnerable Republicans of all in another six months.
posted by Mark at 9:54 PM
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