Politicos

This is a big f-ing deal.

Vice President Joe Biden showed up in Charleston, S.C, Friday for Easter weekend causing a major traffic jam for about 30 miles from Charleston to Kiawah Island, according to the Post and Courier. The Quinton Report’s Jeff Quinton was among the first to draw attention to this story.

Some reaction from Twitter:

“Well thank you Joe Biden for being the reason for my 30 minute traffic jam on the way to Charleston.”– chipsaHOYT, a self-described Gamecocks fan.

“Traffic was awful. Figured it was due to complete incompetence. Radio validated my thought when they announced it was due to VP Joe Biden.”– WesShealy, a Charleston native.

And it wasn’t just Friday that locals complained. Here’s a tweet from Olivia_Topnotch on Easter Sunday: “So Vice President Joe Biden is in Charleston. Coming from Kiawah Island. [West Ashley] traffic backed to max!”

A recent profile of Rep. Tim Scott (R-SC) by the National Journal contains several tidbits that we’re shocked haven’t gone viral. Sure, there’s the obligatory tale of Scott rising through the ranks of GOP as a black conservative. They also talk about how he seems to be pretty popular with the ladies. One of the first stories that NJ’s Ben Terris tells is of being at a restaurant with Scott and his staff. A flirty waitress has this encounter with him:

“Then the waitress made physical contact. ‘I think you’re hot,’ she said, putting her palm on Scott’s freshly shaved head. ‘I can feel your heat from over here.’”

Using the line “I can feel your heat” should be outlawed. I can’t imagine anyone finds that hot. That sounds like the last thing a bulky prisoner says to his new cellmate before making him a woman.

That’s not all. As a young candidate, Scott campaigned around South Carolina touting his Christian faith. He was unmarried and proudly told audiences that he had never had sexual relations with a woman because it was against God’s law. That was 1995 and he was a 30-year-old man. Fast forward 17 years. Scott admits that in recent years he hasn’t been so faithful to God’s law.

“Scott laughed when asked recently about whether as a 46-year-old bachelor he adheres to the same virtues that he did at 30. ‘Yeah.… Not as well as I did then,’ he said in his Capitol Hill office. ‘At the end of the day, the Bible is very clear: abstinence until marriage. Not to do so is a sin.’ Scott said he would still go to schools to preach the importance of abstinence but would no longer use his own story. ‘I wouldn’t talk about that anymore,’ he said with a smile. ‘The Bible’s right—you’re better off to wait. I just wish we all had more patience.’”

Hypocrisy isn’t really all that out of the ordinary for Washington politicians or the church, so this is hardly news. But, did God just change her mind on the whole subject? Are we allowed to get down and dirty with people as long as we just recognize that it’s a sin? By that logic, we could do anything that God says not to do and then just ask forgiveness later.

For now we’ll just call Tim Scott a Selective Sinner.

Yeah, yeah, we know. Politico seems to pat itself on the back so often that it hardly qualifies as news, but this one was a real doozy. Last week, during a speech in Florida, Vice President Joe Biden went after the latest budget released by Rep. Paul Ryan (R-Wis.). To help make his case on how bad of a budget he thought it was, Biden directed his audience to read this article by Politico’s Jake Sherman about how Ryan was able to sell his budget to his colleagues.

Well, that’s just not enough for Politico. Jennifer Epstein pens a piece on the love letter from Biden. She quotes Biden to say,

“All of you are adept with computers,” he told a crowd of senior citizens in Coconut Creek. “Go online to an outfit called POLITICO.com, an extremely well-respected publication that all the major papers look to.”

While it may seem a little over the top to write this piece on how great people think you are, we have to give Epstein a lot of credit. We can’t imagine how hard it is to write a piece with one hand while patting yourself on the back with the other.

On top of that, it should come as a shock to absolutely NO ONE that Mike Allen took the Biden shoutout and included it in his Saturday edition of Playbook. Fishbowl Facts of Life – This is all just a warmup to even more self promotion as the release of Politico‘s latest E-Book lurks just around the corner.

By now, we’ve all been inundated with emails and commentary on the meaningfulness of Mitt Romney’s campaign saying that he will emulate an “Etch-a-Sketch” when he reaches the general election. Eric Fehrstrom, the top Romney advisor made the gaffe while on CNN yesterday. It seemed like mere minutes before Rick Santorum hit the campaign trail with an actual Etch-a-Sketch toy in hand. Newt Gingrich, never one to miss a big fat opportunity, followed suit. Both liberals and conservatives had a field day on Twitter. The hashtag #Romneytoys began trending. The parody account, @MittsEtchaSketc popped up. Buzzfeed’s McKay Coppins reported that the Etch-a-Sketch press flack had quite a busy day yesterday.

• WashPost turned this into a big picture conversation about how little slips on the campaign trail can become lingering problems.

• Ann Romney appeared with Piers Morgan on CNN to answer his question, “How’s your etching and sketching going?”

• Leave it to Politico, however, to own the market on Etch-a-Sketch stories. A quick search on their website reveals that since Wednesday afternoon, when the story broke, they published 24 stories with references to the Etch-a-Sketch. (Of COURSE they did.)

• HuffPost got creative and included their artist’s rendering of a sad Mitt on an Etch-a-Sketch (pictured here).

So, does this really hurt Mitt? Time will tell. One thing is for sure: Etch-a-Sketch wins. National Journal reports that Ohio Arts, the parent company of Etch-a-Sketch has skyrocketed. Their stock started the day at $4 per share and ended at $12.50.

It’s impossible to not say something stupid when nearly every waking second of your day is recorded. It comes with the scorched territory of running for public office. But because Republican presidential hopeful Newt Gingrich‘s chances of winning the nomination are even slimmer after only winning one state (his native Georgia) on Super Tuesday, Current TV has paid homage to the candidate by listing the “12 stupidest things he said during his campaign.”

Frankly, the list is weak. While some quotes really are stupid on their face, others aren’t and Current offers no explanation as to why they made the list.

Here are the ones that really are stupid… Read more

While most fans tuned in for the Slam Dunk Contest and the actual game over the NBA All-Star Weekend, we settled in to watch mediocre basketball.

Two teams, each having a mix of musicians, actors, Jersey Shore cast mates and retired NBA legends, battled it out in Orlando on Friday night for a Celebrity basketball game. While expertise in this annual game can usually be described as sloppy, one star came to play. Arne Duncan, the U.S. Sec. of Education, put on a clinic to would-be-ballers trying to keep up with him. As many know, Duncan regularly plays basketball with POTUS on the weekends. He also played professional basketball in Europe after a successful run at Harvard. Duncan racked up 17 points, 8 points and 5 steals in a performance that led his team to a convincing 86-54 victory. There is absolutely zero exaggeration when we say that he could EASILY play for the Washington Wizards and be a starter. Just sayin’.

Here’s just one example of the Secretary of Education schooling the opposing team.

As we continue our in-depth coverage of the “CrateGate” sage involving Mitt Romney’s dog, Seamus, Politicker cracks open what might be the most interesting part of the debacle thus far. We’ve told you all about Seamus and the road trip from Hell, but there might be more to the story than just the ride on the roof of the car. The official story has been that Romney gave the dog away to his sister after that trip. But, Politicker says that might not be the whole truth.

“According to a trusted Politicker tipster, two of Mr. Romney’s sons had an off-record conversation with reporters where they revealed the dog ran away when they reached their destination on that infamous journey in 1983.”

So, there you have it. After Romney LITERALLY scared the shit out of him, Seamus headed for the hills never to be heard from again. We can’t hardly blame the pooch.

Yesterday, the Westminster Kennel Club crowned Malachy, the Pekingese, as Best in Show. While we think he looks like a dirty thumb, some people find beauty in such creatures.

But outside of the glitz and glamor of the dog show, protesters had assembled to shed light on Mitt Romney’s questionable relationship with dogs. We brought you the story earlier this week about the “Dogs Against Romney Pack” — a group of animal lovers that want to make sure everyone knows about the time that Romney put his dog, Seamus, in a kennel atop the car for a family vacation. CNN sent Jeanne Moos to the scene to interview dogs on their perspective.

No, really. Here’s the video.

At a press conference yesterday, Newt Gingrich revealed the evening of romance that he had planned for his wife, Callista, on Valentine’s Day. What he explained could not have been any more cringe-inducing. Gingrich told reporters,

“All I can promise you is that I believe she will be quite happy tomorrow night. I think for the first time in a while, we’ll have a private dinner and then, hopefully, exchange gifts, and reconnect a little bit. But I’m not going to…  no more details.”

While we have heard some wild Valentine’s Day horror stories, this one just might top the list in terms of awful. Our overactive imaginations just couldn’t let go of what Newt had in mind. For starters, there’s the gifting. I’ll avoid the obvious Tiffany joke and just imagine that he gave her an erotic massage. Which can only lead to the “reconnect.” Now, we can’t get the mental image out of our head of Gingrich rutting with Callista. Sweat pouring off his back with Callista’s hind legs up in the air. As the moonlight gleamed off the hard platinum shell of Calista’s hair, Newt screamed out in grandiose ecstasy, “Frankly, I’m reconnecting!”

Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to go take the world’s longest shower.

After some logistical mishaps, openly gay GOP presidential candidate Fred Karger hosted what he said was a successful reception for CPAC attendees and media types last Friday in his suite at the Marriott Wardman Park Hotel.

“Successful” means such different things to different people.

Nicholas Thimmesch, a pal of Karger’s who works on his campaign, told FBDC that the reception was to be hosted at 6 p.m in Karger’s hotel suite. We showed up at his door (pictured to the right) 10 minutes past the hour and no one was there. A serious faux pas, indeed. The party actually started at 9 p.m.

But there was, in fact, a reception and we had to hear about it from several CPAC attendees. We caught up with Karger the next day to find out what happened. He told us about some miscommunication between him and Thimmesch, blamed it on a case of temporary “dyslexia” and apologized profusely. We’re all about redemption in the Fishbowl. All is forgiven.

Unfortunately for Karger, however, his party was busted up at 11 p.m. He told us security barged in and demanded that everyone clear out. At issue: the noise. Karger said they had to call an early end to the party.