Another Real Winner From The Tea Party

Yesterday's Republican gubernatorial primary in New York state was won by this guy . Go Cuomo!

The Republican senatorial primary in Delaware was won by fellow Tea Party candidate Christine O'Donnell. O'Donnell is a former Extreme Chastity for Jesus campaigner. (Every time you spill your seed or other lustful bodily fluids, the baby Jesus cries. Why is the baby Jesus' tender infant heart so unfortunately hooked up to your — and everyone's — sexy bits? It is a mystery known only to the holy).

O'Donnell is also the candidate who employed Yates Walker, then of Liberty.com, which subsequently posted a video in which an unseen person asked, "Isn't Mike Castle (O'Donnell's primary opponent) cheating on his wife with a man?" "That's the rumor," smirkingly replied the onscreen woman.

See what they did there, those clever boots? They didn't accuse Castle of having a gay affair, they just said there was a rumor to that effect. And, once the video was posted, there undeniably was a rumor to that effect. Walker claimed the rumor already existed before Liberty.com made the video. So that's just intrepid reporting, then.

O'Donnell, for her part, disavowed any involvement with the video, which appeared shortly after Walker and the Liberty.com team ceased being in the employ of her campaign. So determined was O'Donnell to distance herself from the rumor about her opponent that she took advantage of a number of opportunities to discuss it, that she might once again absolve herself of any connection to it.

Despite her complete lack of interest in Castle's sexuality, O'Donnell did evince some interest in his gender presentation.Commenting on an FEC complaint filed against her campaign by the Delaware Republican Party, which supported Castle's nomination, O'Donnell had this to say:

You know, these are the kind of cheap, underhanded, unmanly tactics that we've come to expect from Obama's favorite Republican, Mike Castle. You know, I released a statement today, saying Mike this is not a bake-off, get your man-pants on.

Presumably, since man-pants seem to represent toughness in O'Donnell's view, and she was by implication representing herself as being tougher than Castle, O'Donnell was wearing her man-pants at the time. But as she was speaking on a radio program, her audience was deprived of the opportunity to assess what form O'Donnell's own man-pants took.

I am unquestionably no expert in men's fashions, but that term struck me as somewhat imprecise. How might Rep. Castle have complied with Ms. O'Donnell's polite suggestion?

Rep. Castle is a man. So it seems quite obviously to follow that any pair of pants owned and worn by him are, by definition — supposing you feel the need to define such things — man-pants. Yet one has the impression that Ms. O'Donnell is referring to something more particular. What could it be?

This, perhaps?¹








Or could it be this?²








Another possibility.³








*Or something simpler.⁴






Of course, all this confusion would have been obviated if Ms. O'Donnell had simply womaned up — so to speak — and, taking the adult responsibility of expressing herself forthrightly, said precisely what she really meant. Should the voters of Delaware choose to elect O'Donnell to the Senate — and they are not expected to — it will have to be with the understanding that they cannot expect her to say what she means and mean what she says. They can, however, expect her to keep her hands out of her pants. So there's that.

(*Full disclosure: This picture, The American School, was painted by my great-great-great-great-grandfather, Matthew Pratt, an 18th c. portrait painter of mediocre talent.