THE EARMARK

It takes a big man to read the proverbial writing on the wall, telling him his political career is over.  (It’s particularly impressive when that man is blind.)

That’s why David Paterson should be celebrated, not chastised, for dropping out of New York’s gubernatorial race, and giving his 26% of the vote back to the people.

And no, that isn’t a typo.  The standing governor of New York state was polling at 26% in a hypothetical November match-up.  That’s worse than the hooker-craving blowhard that preceded him.

But now that 26% is freed up for better use.  It could go to likely challenger Andrew Cuomo or to New York’s favorite token Republican, Rick Lazio.  Or it could go to a write-in campaign for the millions of New Yorkers that are more popular than Paterson, such as Ed Koch, Batman or the Times Square Naked Cowboy.

And with the race behind him, Paterson can also take that hefty $3 million he had in his campaign war chest, and re-appropriate it toward something more viable than the governorship.

We suggest a two-bedroom walk-up in Manhattan.

There’s something about the sex lives of Nevada politicians that recalls a traffic accident you just can’t look away from.  And no, we’re not talking about Sen. Harry Reid enjoying a little missionary position with the missus.  (We’ll pause 20 minutes for you to flush that horrible image out of your mind.)

Here at the Earmark, we’re much more interested in Nevada’s philandering set.  And that group is chaired my Sen. John Ensign (R-Christian Group House), and the state’s governor, Cheatin’ Jim Gibbons.

Ensign, who has a taste for his staffers’ wives, will never get in trouble so long as his parents are around to bail him out.  Contrast that with Gibbons, who dates everyone from Playmates to podiatrists’ wives, and mostly just needs someone to let him into his governor’s mansion.

But while Senator Ensign has recently shifted his focus from getting laid to sabotaging healthcare, Governor Gibbons continues to embarrass himself in the field of sex.  Here’s the latest:

• This week, Gibbons lied about bringing a mistress with him on a recent visit to Washington, even though video existed of the two of them together on the trip.
• He also said with a straight face that he hasn’t had sex since 1995, despite conducting public extramarital affairs with at least 3 separate women during that time.

If Gibbons has really been cut off since 1995, he’s the most inept gigolo since Bill O’Reilly.  That’s because there’s a trail of 867 text messages indicating that Gibbons was certainly trying to get laid sometime in the last 14 years.  He also propositioned a cocktail waitress for a night of non-consensual sex in a parking garage, although apparently that was also a failure.

If you find it ironic that the governor of the union’s most brothel-intensive state has been abstinent since the first Clinton administration, we’d argue this sort of thing happens everywhere.  For instance, Vermont has become the most reliably liberal state in the US, but they’re governed by a Republican. And New Jersey is the eggplant capital of the world, but their governor looks like he eats nothing but bacon cheeseburgers.

And also, Gibbons is lying.

Let’s be honest, patriots.  Ronald Reagan was the greatest American since Jesus Christ, and he deserves as much named after him as possible.  Countless freeways and schools, an airport, an aircraft carrier, and a missile test range are not nearly enough!

We must now turn our sights to natural wonders– those landmarks created by God to set the stage for the Great Communicator’s 93-year visit from heaven from (1911-2004).

Thankfully, a San Francisco Bay-area Christian is on the case– and he’s eradicating Satan in the process!

Arthur Mijares never saw it coming when he filed the federal paperwork to change the name of Contra Costa County’s most famous landmark from Mt. Diablo to Mt. Reagan…

“I just happen to be an ordinary man that worships God,” Mijares said by way of explanation. “He gave me this task in my prayer time. I said, ‘Lord, they’re going to think I’m a loon.’”

But only because they’re in league with Satan, Arthur.  Judging from public comments, naming a San Francisco-area mountain for Reagan would be about as popular as renaming the Daytona Motor Speedway for Nancy Pelosi…

In less than a month, more than 80,000 people have joined a Facebook group called “People AGAINST Re-naming Mt. Diablo to Mt. Reagan!!” The Contra Costa County Board of Supervisors, which will vote on the name change Tuesday, has been flooded with e-mail; the heated response runs nine to one against the idea.

Although the Board won’t vote until this afternoon, it’s already clear  the Bay Area has cast its lot with the Devil, and the Reagan movement will have to pick a more auspicious locale for their Messiah’s resurrection.  (We suggest Grover Norquist’s jacuzzi.)

If it’s any solace to the pro-Reagan crowd, it may be impossible for Republicans to get public recognition in greater San Francisco.  In a town where George W. Bush can’t even get a sewage plant named after him, the time may have come to cut bait and just embrace Satan after all.

They said it couldn’t be done.  “They” were either wrong or didn’t know there was an election last week.

Dean Murray, an organizer for the Tea Party movement and winner of a special election, takes office today in New York’s state assembly.

Now some of you hear “tea party” and think of a bunch of fringe activists hyperventilating into bullhorns on state house lawns, pausing only to force their elected leaders to recite the pledge of allegiance. But starting today, the movement’s members can finally shed that image and let us see them for what they really are:

Republicans.

Today is also a big day for the New York legislature, which is excited about any news that doesn’t involve domestic violence by its members.  And who could forget Murray himself– soon about to experience life on the other side of an unruly mob.

But most importantly, this inauguration cracks the door to every fringe movement that wants a voice in government.  With the Tea Party now ensconced in New York’s 3rd district, who on Earth could deny power to…

• Incompetent corporate executives?
• Plumbers making over $250,000 a year?
• Robots?
• The legally insane?

We say bring them all on board.  It doesn’t matter who they are or how little they know about government.  In fact, the less experience the better!  It’s well worth it to watch novice after novice leapfrog Alan Keyes in the quest to actually win an election.

On the same morning that Tiger Woods apologized for instigating his wife’s golf club attack, Minnesota governor Tim Pawlenty told the Conservative Political Action Conference that the golfer’s spouse had it right all along.

Now he wants to set her loose on the federal government…

Joking about Woods’ looming press conference, Pawlenty said. “I think we can learn a lot from that situation. Not from Tiger, but from his wife.”

“She said she’d had enough, and we’ve had enough,” he said. “I think we should take a nine iron and smash the windows out.”

True to the spirit of his golf metaphor, Pawlenty then teed off on Democrats, slicing piles of red meat into a CPAC audience that aptly resembled a golf bunker… all white.

Pawlenty also took time to articulate the two positions one can take in American public life: Patriot or Liberal.

“Patriots in this room and patriots across the country are rising up, and we have a message for liberals: If you plan to take out freedoms we will fight back!” Pawlenty exclaimed.

Patriot or liberal?  Those are our only options?

Well then don’t tell the Kennedy family, a family known as much for their military service, Special Olympics sponsorship, and social justice initiatives as for their liberal politics.

And don’t tell CPAC’s own Gov. Rick Perry (R-TX), who certainly isn’t a liberal, and probably isn’t a patriot either… unless wanting to secede from the country counts as patriotic.

For those of you looking for a heartwarming story from the dreary, rainy Vancouver Olympics, here’s a pretty good one: An irate airline passenger nearly landed a punch on Mitt Romney, just below the venture capitalist’s stylishly gray temples…

An airline passenger “took a swing” at former Republican presidential candidate and Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney aboard an AirCanada flight from Vancouver to Los Angeles on Monday, after Romney asked the passenger to return his seat back to the upright position while awaiting take off.

Now before you rush to sell off your shares in Bain Capital, keep in mind that Romney and his billion dollar mane eluded the passenger’s fists.  Although there are probably a lot of people that wish they hadn’t.  Among them…

We here at The Earmark are delighted to see Joe “The Plumber” The Plumber back in the news again.  It seems like years since we were reporting on:

• His B. Dalton-packing book tour.
• His ground-breaking research in the field of Early Republic scholarship.
• His hard-charging journalistic career.
• His narrow escape from Barack Obama’s Death Panel.
• And who could forget … his country music career.

Well, now he’s tossing us some more low-hanging fruit in the form of an angry diatribe against John McCain!  Yes, the same John McCain who plucked him from YouTube obscurity and made him the iconic embodiment of the typical American working man (who apparently makes over $250,000 a year).

Here’s Joe the Plumber on his benefactor:

John McCain is no public servant. … I don’t owe him shit.  He really screwed my life up, is how I look at it.

We’re not 100% sure why Joe is so mad at McCain - perhaps at some campaign event, the candidate got upset and threatened to give him a “switchin’.”  But we do know the best way to get revenge: meet McCain on his own turf.

By running for Congress.

The first amendment to the U.S. Constitution says that government has no power to restrict freedom of speech, religion or the press.  The second amendment says that if a desperate raccoon chews its way into your house during a blizzard, you’re allowed to blow it to pieces with a $2000 gas-powered Desert Eagle handgun.

Representative Steve King  (R-IA) cashed in on that second freedom last week, as evidenced by this incredibly manly Twitter boast…

Mid day, mid blizzard, 15 degrees, Crazy Raccoon chewing and clawing his way into my house. Desert Eagle 1, Crazy Raccoon zero.

So to all of you complaining that our congressmen never get anything done, now you know how they’re otherwise occupied: Staying indoors and firing pistols at panicked wildlife.

Congressman King defended his raccoon annihilation to Capitol Hill newspaper Roll Call, explaining that while he respects most animals, “I can’t have a crazy ’coon.”  Interesting language coming from the only U.S. representative to vote against acknowledging slaves’ role in the Capitol building’s construction.

As for the Desert Eagle handgun, you might be interested to know that it:

- is manufactured by Magnum Research, which declares itself “maker of the world’s most powerful handguns.”

- is sold under the slogan “the science of kaboom.”

- enjoyed great fame as the gun that got Gilbert Arenas kicked out of the NBA.

And to think: If only Arenas had used his gun to blow up raccoons instead of to “prank” a teammate, he could’ve ditched basketball altogether, kept working in Washington, and represented Council Bluffs, Iowa in Congress.

Or he could have used it to shoot an elderly man in the face and become Vice President.