Introducing Lee Stranahan

Hi, Daily Dose readers, remember me?  The guy on the poster next to the pot-smoking alien?  Sorry I’ve been away for so long.  I’m still getting used to the extraordinary blessing that is being a real, full-time writer.  For those of you who don’t know, my initial deal with Mediaite only called for a weekly column.  The rest of what I wrote was voluntary gravy.  As of this month, however, I’ve gone from Pinocchio to real boy, with an obligation to crank out lots of content.  Concurrently, Asylum has also been asking for a lot more content from me.

As a result, I’ve been an absentee father to my home here.  Billie has stepped up admirably to fill in the gap, and traffic hasn’t really suffered.  I hope to be back here posting regularly soon, but it still won’t be what it was.

I’ve also been trying, for awhile, to establish a small contributor base.  This is tough, because I have high standards for you, our readers.  With this in mind, I’m proud to introduce you to our newest contributor, Lee Stranahan.

Lee Stranahan really needs little introduction, but I’ll do it anyway.  Lee first crossed my radar early in the 2008 Presidential campaign when I caught some of his very funny, satirical videos.  Our paths have crossed online quite a bit since then, especially on the Twitter.

He also blogs at Huffington Post, where he landed after being banned by Daily Kos for daring to believe what his lying eyes were telling him about John Edwards.  Lee currently spends his time writing and making films in support of aggressive health care reform.

Stylistically, Lee brings a harder ideological edge to the site than you might be used to here.  He’s also a very responsive guy, but I’ll remind you all to remember the rules anyway.  Let’s have fun.

Meghan McCain Quotes of the Week: Bras, Bugs, & Beta Males

Unfortunately, Meghan McCain’s boobs can’t really talk, but thankfully, Meg’s Twitter feed is such a treasure trove of good quotes, they really don’t have to.  Politico even put one of Meghan’s tweets in its “Politi-quotes: The week in one-liners,” but I think she deserves a whole list to herself.

First, there was Politico’s pick, Meg’s tweet about killing a cockroach in her sink.  Funnier than that, though, were her followups.  Apparently, this one spurred a flurry of cockroach fun facts:

WHAT? @HeyDaveJ Tip: Put a paper towel over the cockroach before you kill it. They carry eggs on their back, and that way they don’t spread. 9:58 AM Jun 27th from web

stop tweeting me about roach eggs people! good lord, I just killed one! 10:18 AM Jun 27th from web

I have to give Meg some props here.  Even though she said “Ewww!”, she did kill the roach herself.  Several years ago, I had a girlfriend who made me drive 2 hours to the City so I could kill a roach that she had trapped under a glass.  To be fair, the thing was the size of a Rottweiler puppy, but it was also missing a bunch of legs.

Now, killing is second nature to Meghan, putting her even more squarely in the “Cool Chick” category, the kind of girl that every guy wants to have a beer with, then have breakfast with.

My favorite Meg quote (aside from her perceptive take on our Meg story) was this 2-Tweet decimation of her conservative critics:

I love people that tell me “I’m doing damage to the GOP”, yeah cause Donald Rumsfeld, Karl Rove, Sen. Ensign, Gov Sanford and the entire Bush administration have nothing to do with the GOP’s problems, no…it’s my 5″1 ass in a pushup bra thats the real problem with the GOP… about 19 hours ago from web

She’s right, of course.  The problem isn’t her ass, but the GOP’s habit of telling people what to do with their own asses, while stealth-hunting extracurricular booty.

Finally, she launches a funny one-liner at Hot Air blogger Allahpundit, who self-deprecatingly refers to himself as a “beta male”:

@allahpundit I don’t like beta males darlin’, I am a lot of a lot to date and guys gotta be able to handle it! 12:41 AM Jun 27th from web in reply to allahpundit

At least now, he’ll know who to call if he needs some exterminating done for him.

Other highlights this week include her run-in with an unhinged taxi driver, smackdown of a jerky Twitter troll, and coinage of a great Battlestar Galactica-related catch phrase.  What I’m saying is, you’re missing out on a full life if you don’t follow Meg’s Twitter feed.

Daily Kos Founder Twitter-Feuds with Meghan McCain Over Gay Marriage

This kind of thing really makes me mad.  I’m going to try to be chill, but there might be profanity below the fold.

Meghan McCain was tweeting about a Washington Monthly article that named her as a “meaningless” advocate of gay marriage:

It was pretty meaningless to hear Meghan McCain urge her Republican Party to come around on gay marriage. It seemed a bit more important when Steve Schmidt, John McCain’s campaign manager, gave the GOP the same advice.

But in terms of influence in Republican politics, Dick Cheney is on another level.

While their point is that Cheney carries more political weight, their swipe at Meg was gratuitous and inaccurate.  Meg has done more than most to publicize marriage equality, and not in the ugly, Perez Hilton way.  To call her meaningless, or all of the other non-Dick people who work hard to achieve equality for everyone, is just wrong.

So, when Meg pointed this out on her Twitter feed, here’s the response she got from Daily Kos founder Markos Moulitsas:

Before I comment further, and before I get to Meghan McCain’s statement on this feud, let me lay out the rest of the Twitter conversation for you, in chronological order:

Today’s Quickies and…Another Hot Hack

I stumbled across this “Where are they now?” on Charlie’s Angels, and I couldn’t believe how insanely hot Shelley Hack still is.  Added her to my “freebie” list.  Actually, I think she was already there, so I’ll bump her up a few spots.

DailyKos is apoplectic anew that the dreaded MSM won’t put the Pittsburgh cop killer’s gun in Rush Limbaugh’s hands.  Also, what the eff does that strikethrough mean?  Do these guys have any sense of gravity?

Mixed messages on executive pay? I’m betting on Axelrod.

Paterson shoulda picked Cuomo.

“And did you know that shoplifting is free?”

This is why I always get a sound-proof room.

Heather Mills gets phished.

Eliot Spitzer fucked Gizmo?  Ugly 70’s car?

How Daily Kos Handles Criticism: Death Wishes and Cyber-Griefing

Just a quick side-note on the Daily Kos shitstorm.  I wrote a heartfelt denunciation of Markos’ joking Twitter exchange, posted a link at Daily Kos, and I did a followup piece at AOL today.  Never did I attack Markos personally.  In fact, quite the opposite.  It’s because he is so important that this matters.

So, what was the reaction?  Well, one of the Kos commenters wished me dead (arguably a threat), which the army of Daily Kos moderators seemed fine with:

Go figure. Kos Kommenters think Tommy deserves to DIE for his heresy:

Good bye. Scum like you should not be allowed to breath[sic]. More or less allowed to use a computer. What “Kos” said was true in every since of the word. I just wish you the best of no luck.

This morning, a DKos contributing editor has been Twitter-griefing Lee Stranahan about his article at HuffPo. Like most of the commenters at DailyKos, this guy doesn’t come within 2 feet of the substance of this issue. What I really love about this is the guy’s Twitter profile. Kossacks are notoriously dickish about anything that remotely resembles self-promotion, but this guy’s name and profile pic are of his goddam book!

People like this make me sick. So unaware of themselves, they’re going around shaming good liberals. Devilstower, you should be telling your pal, Markos, to watch his mouth while he’s still our spokesman, not griefing Lee Stranahan because he called your boss out yet again.

Twitter Badness: DailyKos Frontpager, Kos Joke About Pittsburgh Cop Shooting

Before I start, let me say that I’m pretty sensitive to this kind of thing.  I always hate the way the media covers these tragedies.  It’s always all about the scumbag who killed people, and the dead are just “the victims.”  What was he thinking?  Why did he do it?  Where’s his Facebook page?

Having said that, and having written about the way blogs on both sides play politics with cooling corpses, I have to say that DailyKos frontpager Dana Houle and Kos himself have earned my “Unbest Individuals Upon the Earth” award (patent pending).  So badly have they made me sick to my stomach that I am resigning as a DailyKos diarist and reader. Here’s why:

Time Slams Daily Kos

More on this later, I just wanted to get it cross-posted.  I pulled major punchage here about DKos.

Time Slams Daily Kos

See, this is proof that I can be objective.  I can’t stand Daily Kos, but I recognize that most of the reasons for this are personal, and don’t belong in the kind of story I was writing.