Video captures happiest 4 minutes of Christine O’Donnell’s life

By Dan Brooks in Tea Party 7 Comments

I assume that, by now, the numerical minority of you who did not send me links to Christine O’Donnell’s First Amendment gaffe yesterday have heard about it. In a debate with Chris Coons before, of all people, an audience of law students, the Delaware Senate candidate demanded to know “where in the Constitution” is the separation of church and state. After her opponent recited the establishment clause (pretty much from memory, although he missed a couple of words,) she remained incredulous, saying, “You’re telling me that’s in the First Amendment?” Newspaper accounts were beautiful, but they miss what is perhaps the best part: the four or so minutes after O’Donnell sticks Coons with her “where in the Constitution?” question but before she realizes it’s a gaffe. During that time, she smirks at the crowd, mugs during her opponent’s answers and generally acts like she’s just checkmated Vladimir Nabokov. It’s an almost physically painful study in dramatic irony, and it captures the essence of Christine O’Donnell.

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Polls show O’Donnell hosed for November

By Dan Brooks in Tea Party 1 Comment

Republican Senate candidate Christine O'Donnell, making that face that certain people learn to make instead of a smile

If elections in the United States were decided by comparative media coverage, Christine O’Donnell would be Supreme Overlord by now. As it is, a new poll conducted by Fairleigh Dickinson University finds Christ-Od trailing her opponent, Chris Coons, by 17 points. If the name of that university sounds familiar to you, it’s probably because it’s the one from which O’Donnell falsely claimed to graduate—you know, back when that was the most alarming thing we knew about her. God, the irony is sweet. That’s irony, right? I don’t even know anymore.

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Department of Aiigh!: Christine O’Donnell is you

By Dan Brooks in Tea Party 8 Comments

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uxJyPsmEask&feature=player_embedded

Let’s talk about first impressions. When I’m suddenly confronted with the image of a woman looming in a featureless null-space, the most reassuring thing she can say to me is not, “I’m not a witch.” Behold Christine O’Donnell, starting from scratch. She’s nothing you’ve heard—a statement immediately punctuated by the appearance of the words “Christine O’Donnell” next to her. Clearly, we are rebuilding Candidate O’Donnell from the ground up. She’s done some experimenting, she’s shopped around, and she’s finally settled on an identity that she thinks she likes: yours.

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Unintentionally Hilarious: Palin likely in 2012

By Dan Brooks in Unintentionally Hilarious 4 Comments

The human equivalent of an American flag pin made of colored rhinestones

According to Jonathan Chait at the New Republic, Sarah Palin will run for President in 2012. It’s a surprise announcement roughly as surprising as the announcement that the cat will lick itself around noon—sure, there are a lot of reasons why she wouldn’t, but that is also the kind of thing she is prone to do. As Chait points out, Democrats might regard a Palin nomination as a free ticket back into the White House. “But here’s the thing,” he writes, “no one is ‘unelectable.'” Thus begins the rush to assert that Sarah Palin would be a qualified, serious candidate in 2012—a rush by which political commentators, in their natural desire to take up a contrarian position, all wind up saying the same thing. In preparation for an election that may well be determined by how many Americans take up our civic duty to call stupid statements stupid, I’m inaugurating a brand-new feature called Unintentionally Hilarious.

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What the Tea Party means: Christine O’Donnell

By Dan Brooks in Tea Party 3 Comments

Everybody loves her: the white, the old, the old and white, the asked to stand there...

Partly because it’s the most vital movement in contemporary politics and partly because they’re hilarious, we’ve spent over a year now trying to figure out what the Tea Party means. While several of the philosophical questions—and even some of the ontological ones—remain unanswered, Tuesday made one practical outcome clear. Christine O’Donnell has defeated heavily-favored Delaware legislator Michael Castle in the Republican senate primary, thanks to the enthusiastic backing of the Tea Party. Where Castle polled favorably against likely Democratic opponents in the general, O’Donnell does not. It might be because she’s crazy. “A lot of people said we can’t win the general election; yes we can!” she told the Times. “It will be hard work, but we can win if those same people who fought against me work just as hard for me.” Two things: 1) Agreed that Christine O’Donnell will win the election if the people who don’t like her start liking her and 2) now she owes Barack Obama a nickel.

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