I was going to write about Karl Rove this weekend, but I was drunk and lazy, so I decided against it. There's a great profile and analysis on how Rove effectively destroyed his boss's presidency in the upcoming issue of The Atlantic(subscription required.) According to Joshua Green, all roads - with the exception of Iraq - lead directly to Rove.
Rove is one of those really smart guys who is so married to a long-term vision that he doesn't see his immediate ruination staring him right in the face. Except in Rove's case, he took the Bush presidency and large swaths of the country with him.
Since the launch of George Bush's first gubenatorial race in Texas, Rove has been a believer in "transformational politics," which would create a governing majority like that enjoyed by William McKinley and his successor, Theodore Roosevelt, and later, Franklin Roosevelt. For whatever reason, Rove believed that Bush was the perfect vehicle for that.
Rove is essentially a political guy with pretensions of shaping policy. Unfortunately, the two are mutually exclusive and by Bush's second term, nothing of consequence was getting passed and the White House's political fortunes had turned to shit. This is why smart presidents never place political operatives with no policy experience in high administration posts. You can point to people like James A. Baker III in the Reagan White House, or George Stepanopulous in Clinton's, but both were involved in policy before they were campaign strategists. They both actually graduated college, too, which is seen as being a plus when shaping the future of a superpower.
As Mr. Green lays out in great detail, President Bush and Rove's self-destruction began right at the beginning of the second term. As part of their "transformational politics," they began with a suicidal attempt to reform Social Security with little enthusiasm from the Republicans in Congress and no cooperation from the Democrats. Social Security - the so-called "third rail of politics" -is incapable of serious reform without a bipartisan effort where both sides have a lot to lose If you don't have that, the opposition gets Christmas early.
Ronald Reagan learned this the hard way in 1981 when he proposed a reform package that the Republican Senate wouldn't even send to committee. In 1983, Reagan came back to the idea, but he had the Democratic Speaker of the House, Tip O'Neill, on board and they gave each other the political cover needed to get the deal done. Bush and Rove refused to even consider that course, being too stupid or arrogant, or both, to try. Rove is a practioner of "50%+1" politics, which is fine in an election campaign. Unfortunately, you need 60% to pass pretty much anything in the United States Senate. And there hasn't been a filibuster-proof Senate since 1965, when Lyndon Johnson was president.
Bush and Rove, who should have known better, went out with a package unilaterally, and they got killed for their trouble. And it only took them a year to notice. Then came the diasterous Supreme Court nomination of Harriet Miers, Hurricane Katrina, and the ruinous Immigration Reform bill. Within a year, Bush was a president that no one - Democrats, Independents or Republicans - trusted. While Iraq certainly didn't help, it isn't the root cause of Bush's troubles. Even when Johnson was mired in the morass of Vietnam, he was still able to pass the Fair Housing Act and create PBS. Bush did what Rove told him to do and he's now an irredeemably failed president for his trouble.
I can't recommend the Green essay enough. As soon as it comes out, you should all run out and buy the Sepember Atlantic.
As much as Bush and the conservative movement like to bitch and moan about how the Democrats are being mean to them, they really have no right to. In the aftermath of 9/11, Bush used the tragedy to pass ridiculous programs that had nothing at all to do with national security. The president and his surrogates would go out and say things like "unless the Democrats give me another $100 billion tax cut, insane highway and farm bills and a illegal steel tarrif, they're with the terrorists." Once he got all of those things, he ran the 2002 campaign on the platform of "the Democrats are with the terrorists." In short, he acted like a duplicitous cocksucker.
If President Bush expected flowers after that, he's even dumber than he looks. If anything, I've been shocked at how tepidly the Democrats have been fucking Bush back. If I were Nancy Pelosi, the president of the United States would be offering me anything if I could only let his asshole stop bleeding.
Karl Rove demonstrated his evil mastery of electoral politics no fewer than four times. He took perhaps the most unelectable candidate in history and humiliated some pretty impressive heavyweights with him. One should always remember that Ann Richards started the '94 Texas race 33 points ahead of Bush. Using history as a barometer, there's no way Al Gore should have lost the 2000 presidential campaign, but he did. Sort of. Despite having done almost everything wrong during his first term and being the weakest incumbent since Carter, Bush was still re-elected.
I don't think that any of that would be possible without Karl Rove. And he'll go to his grave knowing that he's responsible for that. That might bother him were he encumbered with something as troublesome as a soul.
Politics is a hard game designed for hard, cold men. And Karl Rove is as hard and as cold as they come. In a meticulously detailed report for the November 2004 issue of the The Atlantic (again, subscription required,) Joshua Green described some of Rove's more horrible tactics.
A typical instance occurred in the hard-fought 1996 race for a seat on the Alabama Supreme Court between Rove's client, Harold See, then a University of Alabama law professor, and the Democratic incumbent, Kenneth Ingram. According to someone who worked for him, Rove, dissatisfied with the campaign's progress, had flyers printed up—absent any trace of who was behind them—viciously attacking See and his family. "We were trying to craft a message to reach some of the blue-collar, lower-middle-class people," the staffer says. "You'd roll it up, put a rubber band around it, and paperboy it at houses late at night. I was told, 'Do not hand it to anybody, do not tell anybody who you're with, and if you can, borrow a car that doesn't have your tags.' So I borrowed a buddy's car [and drove] down the middle of the street … I had Hefty bags stuffed full of these rolled-up pamphlets, and I'd cruise the designated neighborhoods, throwing these things out with both hands and literally driving with my knees." The ploy left Rove's opponent at a loss. Ingram's staff realized that it would be fruitless to try to persuade the public that the See campaign was attacking its own candidate in order "to create a backlash against the Democrat," as Joe Perkins, who worked for Ingram, put it to me. Presumably the public would believe that Democrats were spreading terrible rumors about See and his family. "They just beat you down to your knees," Ingram said of being on the receiving end of Rove's attacks. See won the race.
(...)
But no other example of Rove's extreme tactics that I encountered quite compares to what occurred during another 1994 judicial campaign in Alabama. In that year Harold See first ran for the supreme court, becoming the rare Rove client to lose a close race. His opponent, Mark Kennedy, an incumbent Democratic justice and, as George Wallace's son-in-law, a member in good standing of Alabama's first family of politics, was no stranger to hardball politics. "The Wallace family history and what they all went through, that's pretty rough politics," says Joe Perkins, who managed Kennedy's campaign. "But it was a whole new dimension with Rove."
This August, I had lunch with Kennedy near his office in Montgomery. I had hoped to discuss how it was that he had beaten one of the savviest political strategists in modern history, and I expected to hear more of the raucous campaign tales that are a staple of Alabama politics.
Neither Kennedy nor our meeting was anything like what I had anticipated. A small man, impeccably dressed and well-mannered, Kennedy appeared to derive little satisfaction from having beaten Rove. In fact, he seemed shaken, even ten years later. He quietly explained how Rove's arrival had poisoned the judicial climate by putting politics above matters of law and justice—"collateral damage," he called it, from the win-at-all-costs attitude that now prevails in judicial races.
He talked about the viciousness of the "slash-and-burn" campaign, and how Rove appealed to the worst elements of human nature. "People vote in Alabama for two reasons," Kennedy told me. "Anger and fear. It's a state that votes against somebody rather than for them. Rove understood how to put his finger right on the trigger point." Kennedy seemed most bothered by the personal nature of the attacks, which, in addition to the usual anti-trial-lawyer litany, had included charges that he was mingling campaign funds with those of a nonprofit children's foundation he was involved with. In the end he eked out a victory by less than one percentage point.
Kennedy leaned forward and said, "After the race my wife, Peggy, was at the supermarket checkout line. She picked up a copy of Reader's Digest and nearly collapsed on her watermelon. She called me and said, 'Sit down. You're not going to believe this.'" Her husband was featured in an article on "America's worst judges." Kennedy attributed this to Rove's attacks.
When his term on the court ended, he chose not to run for re-election. I later learned another reason why. Kennedy had spent years on the bench as a juvenile and family-court judge, during which time he had developed a strong interest in aiding abused children. In the early 1980s he had helped to start the Children's Trust Fund of Alabama, and he later established the Corporate Foundation for Children, a private, nonprofit organization. At the time of the race he had just served a term as president of the National Committee to Prevent Child Abuse and Neglect. One of Rove's signature tactics is to attack an opponent on the very front that seems unassailable. Kennedy was no exception.
Some of Kennedy's campaign commercials touted his volunteer work, including one that showed him holding hands with children. "We were trying to counter the positives from that ad," a former Rove staffer told me, explaining that some within the See camp initiated a whisper campaign that Kennedy was a pedophile. "It was our standard practice to use the University of Alabama Law School to disseminate whisper-campaign information," the staffer went on. "That was a major device we used for the transmission of this stuff. The students at the law school are from all over the state, and that's one of the ways that Karl got the information out—he knew the law students would take it back to their home towns and it would get out." This would create the impression that the lie was in fact common knowledge across the state. "What Rove does," says Joe Perkins, "is try to make something so bad for a family that the candidate will not subject the family to the hardship. Mark is not your typical Alabama macho, beer-drinkin', tobacco-chewin', pickup-drivin' kind of guy. He is a small, well-groomed, well-educated family man, and what they tried to do was make him look like a homosexual pedophile. That was really, really hard to take."
Nice! You and I might know that Karl Rove will go directly to hell for what he did to Mark Kennedy's reputation, but I'm sure he'll go happily, secure in the knowledge that he will enter the Gates of Hades as the winningest strategist in modern politics. A man must have priorities, after all.
After the disasters of 2005-06 and particularly after the loss of the Republican firewall in Congress, Rove surveyed the wreckage of a once proud presidency and recognized that all was now irretriveably lost. The survivors of the rout were so shell-shocked and ashamed of themselves that they couldn't even engage in the ritual of party infighting so common after electoral humiliation. But Karl Rove is smart man and he knows that they will rise soon to eat their own. He also must know that he's at the top of the cannibalistic menu.
2006 was a sea-change election. The smart and the righteous in both parties either retired or were defeated. Official Washington is now a kingdom of angry, morally stunted dwarves who have their knives out. There is a thirst for Rove's blood in both parties and he knows it. The only person left standing with a brain-damaged level of devotion to him is the president, and he is lacking in any kind of authority at all. In a town were decency died long ago and was buried in an unmarked grave, Karl Rove knows that he can only expect the level of mercy he afforded others, which is to say none at all. Possessed as he is with an encyclopedic knowledge of American political history and a ferret -like survival instinct, Rove knows that it is time to give up the ghost and flee.
Today, Karl Rove tendered his resignation as White House Deputy Chief of Staff for Policy and Special Assistant to the President.
If any of you think that Rove can leave without uttering an enourmous amount of bullshit, then you just don't know Karl Rove.
Sitting in the book-lined living room of his townhome on Saturday afternoon, a relaxed, cheerful and typically rambunctious Mr. Rove hands over two sheets of paper on which he has tapped out a pair of outlines. One says "Up to Now," and summarizes what he thinks are the achievements to date of the Bush presidency. The second, "Months Ahead," lays out an agenda for the next year and a half.
"He will move back up in the polls," says Mr. Rove, who interrupts my reference to Mr. Bush's 30% approval rating by saying it's heading close to "40%," and "higher than Congress."
That's a lot like saying that Michael Vick is still more popular than O.J Simpson. If having only sixty percent of the voting public thinking that your guy is a jabbering dupe of a president and an all-around skunk is your legacy, then I shouldn't need to point out that your priorities are deeply fucked.
As for the Democrats, "They are likely to nominate a tough, tenacious, fatally flawed candidate" by the name of Hillary Rodham Clinton. Holding the White House for a third term is always difficult given the pent-up desire for change, he says, but "I think we've got a very good chance to do so."
Compare this to Rove's assertion that the Republicans would "without a doubt" hold Congress last year. Karl knows that the Republicans can't win the White House on their own next year. They have to count on the Democrats actively losing, which, to be fair, they have a storied reputation for doing. I wouldn't put it past those idiots to nominate a McGovern/Mondale ticket that would campaign on the slogan of "Speaking for the People of Minnesota, Massachusetts and the District of Columbia: Make it an Even Fifty in '08." Y'know, just for giggles.
Because a third term for a party in the White House has only happened three times in the last century (1910, 1940 and 1988,) he can't tell you that it will "absolutely" happen. At least not without laughing.
Mr. Rove's political influence has been historic, notwithstanding the rout of 2006. His crucial insight in 2000 was recognizing that Mr. Bush had to be both an alternative to Bill Clinton's scandalous behavior and "a different kind of Republican." In 2002, the president's party gained seats in both the House and Senate in a first midterm election for the first time since 1934.
By a "different kind of Republican," Rove actually meant "Be a Democrat." Actually, that isn't fair to Democrats, who "tax and spend." Bush just spent, without knowing where the money was coming from or seeming to care. And as Karl has learned, winning by suggesting that the opposition party is a minor-league al-Qaeda isn't without its consequences.
A big debate among Republicans these days is who bears more blame for 2006 -- Messrs. Bush and Rove, or the behavior of the GOP Congress. Mr. Rove has no doubt. "The sense of entitlement was there" among Republicans, he says, "and people smelled it." Yet even with a unified Democratic Party and the war, he argues, it was "a really close election." The GOP lost the Senate by its 3,562 vote margin of defeat in Montana, and in the House the combined margin in the 15 seats that cost control was 85,000 votes.
A prominent non-Beltway Republican recently gave me a different analysis, arguing that the White House made a disastrous decision to "nationalize" the election last autumn; this played into Democratic hands and cost numerous seats.
"I disagree," Mr. Rove replies. "The election was nationalized. It was always going to be about Iraq and the conduct of Republicans." He says Republican Chris Shays and Independent-Democrat Joe Lieberman survived in Connecticut despite supporting the war, while Republicans who were linked to corruption or were complacent lost. His biggest error, Mr. Rove says, was in not working soon enough to replace Republicans tainted by scandal.
Hey Karl, aren't you the guy who personally talked Mark Foley into running again when he wanted to retire? You never did take your bow for that one. Don't get all fucking humble now!
Oh, and there's the small matter of congressional Republicans hating Rove. Again, from next month's Atlantic;
Rove's behavior toward Congress stood out. "Every once in a while Rove would come to leadership meetings, and he definitely considered himself at least an equal with the leaders in the room," a Republican aide told me. "But you have to understand that Congress is a place where a certain decorum is expected. Even in private, staff is still staff. Rove would come and chime in as if he were equal to the speaker. Cheney sometimes came, too, and was far more deferential than Rove - and he was the vice president." Other aides say Rove was notorious for interrupting congressional leaders and calling them by their first name.
Dick Armey, the House Republican majority leader when Bush took office (and no more a shrinking violet than DeLay), told me a story that captures the exquisite pettiness of most members of Congress and the arrogance that made Bush and Rove so inept at handling them. "For all the years he was president," Armey told me, "Bill Clinton and I had a little thing we'd do where every time I went to the White House, I would take the little name tag they give you and pass it to the president, who, without saying a word, would sign and date it. Bill Clinton and I didn't like each other. He said I was his least-favorite member of Congress. But he knew that when I left his office, the first schoolkid I came across would be given that card, and some kid who had come to Washington with his mama would go home with the president's autograph. I think Clinton thought it was a nice thing to do for some kid, and he was happy to do it." Armey said that when he went to his first meeting in the White House with President Bush, he explained the tradition with Clinton and asked the president if he would care to continue it. "Bush refused to sign the card. Rove, who was sitting across the table, said, 'It would probably wind up on eBay,'" Armey continued. "Do I give a damn? No. But can you imagine refusing a simple request like that with an insult? It's stupid. From the point of view of your own self-interest, it's stupid. I was from Texas, and I was the majority leader. If my expectations of civility and collegiality were disappointed, what do you think it was like for the rest of the congressmen they dealt with? The Bush White House was tone-deaf to the normal courtesies of the office."
Congress is notorious for being populated by pussies. They won't stand up to someone like Rove while he's perceived as being powerful. But the second you lose an important race - and '06 was hugely important - it's only a matter of time before they eat the fucking flesh directly from your still breathing body. Karl Rove spent the last six years pissing off the wrong people, and now the only friend he has left has a tendancy of bankrupting everything he touches. Frankly, I'm amazed that Cheney didn't have Rove killed last Christmas. I'm told that the vice-president is a rather handy with a shotgun.
He's less persuasive on Medicare, where he insists that market reforms and health savings accounts are building a "critical mass" of popular support that will make them unrepealable. Yet Democrats are even now trying to kill Medicare Advantage, blocked only by the promise of a veto. If Mrs. Clinton wins in 2008, the Medicare drug expansion may prove to have been all spending and no reform.
In a word, horseshit. The Medicare drug bill was always "all spending and no reform." It was designed to do one thing and only thing only, win a majority of seniors in 2004. Even now, no one's sure what the fucking program will cost, although the best guess is nearly a trillion dollars over ten years - or three times over the initial projections.
Everything that Karl Rove and George Bush said about Bill Clinton applies equally to them. None of them give a shit about anything beyond the next Gallup poll. It was only in 2005 that they supported anything that polled below 70% approval and by then they had been too blinded by their own deranged hubris to care.
They got lucky when the Democrats stayed softheaded enough to nominate Kerry and they failed to see that for the gift it was. They came within 180,000 Ohio votes of being humiliated by the only man in America with fewer principles than they have and they saw it as a mandate. Even a fool like Jimmy Carter was a genius of government compared to these two, and all he did was schedule the White House tennis court, boycott the Olympics and blow up his own helicopters. Christ, George W. Bush makes Herbert Hoover look like George fucking Wasington.
Rove was a brilliant political consultant, but he fancied himself a philiospher king. The problem is that such people don't usually do well at 1600 Pennsylvania Blvd. Woodrow Wilson - whose presidency Bush seems to have modeled his own on - was a lot like Karl Rove. And the American people were so disgusted with Wilson that they elected Warren Harding, a man who didn't even think he was worthy of the presidency.
Watching the news today, I can't fail but notice how full of glee shitheads like Bill Bennett are that Rove is leaving without being indicted. Is that really the best that the Republican Party can hope for at this point? Has the party of Lincoln really been reduced to doing cartwheels when they don't go to fucking jail?
Karl Rove is "heading on down the road" leaving the White House utterly discredited in the eyes of people who have the gall to actually to actually believe in something. His boss, as he pointed out this morning, isn't far behind.
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"When you're good, you're good. When you're bad, you're even better. See you in hell." Posted By: Anna
November 11, 2003
"Skippy, if you can prove to me that giving head and swallowing will without a doubt keep lung cancer and heart
disease at bay, you've earned yourself a BJ." Posted By: Mary Magdalicious, December 5, 2003
"Wow...you know nothing about politics." Posted Dr. Reverend, December 26, 2003
"You are a dick and should think seriously about killing your stupid blog - go get a job, you big fag"Posted
By: Princess Paragonian, December 29, 2003
"You have a, how shall i say.... appealing 'tough', yet gently gay look." (Univited PM) Posted
by:Jus20012002, January 2, 2004 .
"I hope jesus doesn't kick you in the nuts."Posted By: Mary Magdalicious February 2, 2004
"Stumbled on to your blog by accident and i must say alot of the stuff had me in stitches. Love it" Posted
By:Jeremy February 4, 2004
" .....sick."Posted By: Bee February 7, 2004
"Hey Skippy, you ever consider running for public office in the states? I know some people in the West Virginia state
government and our Senator can't live forever.Hell, even Strom, Thomas-Jefferson-Fan, Thurmond died
eventually.Posted By: Ford W. Mavrick, February 9, 2004
Wow, for someone who is so opinionated, you really don't know shit about American or Canadian culture. You appear to
know even less about history." Posted By: Dr. Reverend February 13, 2004
"Your blog's the best I have come across in a long time. I may not agree with all you say but the verve with which
you say it and the humour and irreverance is terrific. These days when the media just reproduces the handout from central
control, blogs like yours do a great deal to form informed opinion in a democratic society. Thanks. Keep it up."
Posted By:Anandan February 13, 2004
"SKIPPY pities ME? Where's my noose?" Posted By: Kilgore Trout March 22, 2004
"Jesus Skippy. Now Allah is going to kick you in the nuts" Posted By: Mary Magdalicious March 22, 2004
"I could make one that says "Skippy has a small penis" although his cock is superb. Posted By: Bestest Pussy March 23,2004
"Cunt sucking is for bitches.You're considered one of the girls because you dress like one. Posted By: Dr. Reverend March 24, 2004
"John Malkovich is one sexy bastard. I have such a thing for him. And I never realized til now, Skippy, how much you resemble John Malkovich...this, by default, makes you also one sexy bastard. See how that works?" Posted By: Zombie March, 26, 2004
"Too bad you live up north. It could have been beautiful.
Ever since I started coming here and saw your pic I wondered why you weren't getting more action. You are not a bad looking guy at all.
Maybe the girls are just...well, that's enough kindness for one day." Posted By: Serenity March 26, 2004
"Hell, if they make gay marriage legal, I'll marry you..." Posted By: Outpatient March 26, 2004
"You look creepier than the REM faggot. But he looks much more like a homersexual." Posted By: Dr. Reverend March 27, 2004
"Skippy, your hits will go up again if you post pictures of your man nipples. Lots of man nips." Posted By: Mary Magdalicious April 15, 2004
"What the fuck? You turning faggot? Posted By: Dr. Reverend April 16, 2004
"Sometimes it gets to be just a little too much. Sharing, that is." Posted By: Bee May 23, 2004
"I'll give you $5.00 if you make the fucking font you use on your blog bigger.
I'll give you $50.00 if you stop fucking writing about American politics.
I'll give you $500.00 if you fucking kill youself." Posted By: Dr. Reverend May 26, 2004
"Of course women like jerks.
Why the fuck do you think they like me?
I guess you've learned nothing from me over all these years." Posted By: Dr. Reverend May 29, 2004
"Sometimes a bitch just has to die." Posted By: Ford W. Maverick May 29, 2004
"It looks like we have more in common than the swastikas carved in our foreheads."Posted By: Dr. Reverend May 29, 2004
"This might be a shallow and 'Waiting-for-Godot-like' comment but...you seem to have not only brains but also beauty." Posted By: Nietzscheswife June 7, 2004
"Skippy, you are such a twisted bastard. Seriously. Why haven't we had sex yet?"Posted By: 0phelia June 25, 2004
"Just found your site. I find some of the things you say quite disgusting. And really quite enjoyable,so keep up the good work."Posted By: Big Al June 28, 2004
"I've read most of your blog. I'd say that so far it's the best I've come across, and believe me, I've seen a few. It's funny, well written (except for the spelling...) and interesting. There will always be those few idiots who just don't get it. It's useless to get worked up about it." Posted By: Johnny June 30, 2004
"Skippy... Go for the facial tattoo. I dig em', and fuck what those other bitches think. You can always bite their tits off if they back talk you." Posted By: Mary Magdalicious July 1, 2004
"Go fuck yourself up your butt." Posted By: Reek Stankleberry July 6, 2004
"Well if ass-fucking won't keep Satan away, I just don't know what will." Posted By: Dr. Reverend July 7, 2004
"dude, you're killing me. keep it up." Posted By: Son of Nixon July 22, 2004
"Are you always either naked or in a suit?" Posted By: Rehella July 22, 2004
"That person should speak for himself or herself. 'Cause you really are that much of a cunt, skippy." Posted By: Kilgore Trout August 4, 2004
"I've read you for a long time but have never commented before. That isn't a slight to your great writing ability, it's mainly because I don't want to be seen here!" Posted By: Paul August 4, 2004
" Dead on. Bulls-eye. I take back what I said about you being a cunt. For now." Posted By: Kilgore Trout August 4, 2004
"Know what, Skippy? You're alright." Posted By: Anna August 18, 2004
"Excellent work. Damn you for being so dead on." Posted By: The Maximum Leader August 24, 2004
"Skippy, fuck the puppy idea. Try getting a monkey that smokes. That will get you laid." Posted By: Mary Magdalicious August 27, 2004
"As to the beard - I like the clean shaven better - and what's wrong with a bald head? Bald heads are hot on some guys - unfortunately most can't pull it off * sigh * You look like you can pull it off though and that's a good thing - not a bad.
BTW, love your blog. I saw it in my referrers and thought it was just a random hit. Then I started reading and found you to be hilarious - it was only after about 10 posts that I noticed you linked me. I was more than flattered - linked by someone I was about to link anyway - awesome. Thanks" Posted By: Kinky August 27, 2004
"Fuckin' Goy bastard." Posted By: Dr Reverend December 19,2004
"Who does a guy have to sleep with to get one of his Skippy quotes pasted to the sidebar?
Great googly-moogly." Posted By: Smallholder December 20, 2004
"Are you a child molester or what's the story?" Posted By: Fukinator, December 28, 2004
"Sick dude." Posted By: DCayer December 29, 2004
"You officially suck." Posted By: Sorry, January 22, 2005
"I heart you, Skippy" Posted By: Karinsky, January 25, 2005
"As I've stated before, you were quite skilled in bed and I had no need to fake any of my multiple orgasms." Posted By: 0phelia, June 30, 2005
"I love Skippy. I swear I do. The only blogger more twisted than me." Posted on: Velociworld, July 26, 2005
" You are so fucking ignorant about America. And while the American people ARE stupid, so are you." Posted By: Bill Lassiter, August 2, 2005
"How can you not love a man who hates himself so viciously?" Posted on: It's All About De , August 31, 2005
"If I wasn't positive that all Canadian men had tiny penises, I'd be all over that Skippy." Posted On: It's All About De
"I've seen pictures of you and I'd say you're fuckable." Posted By: Joan, September 29, 2005
" I love your posts on Canadian politics even more than I love your posts on porn.
And I love your porn posts.
Why the hell do you waste all this talent on the internet? Write a book or something, goddammit! Posted By: Cliff S., November 17, 2005
"Let it never be said that underneath your self-cavilling, bitter (yet strangely egomaniacal) surface that you never take the time to give the people what they want. Even if it's just one people. Gawd bless you, Skippy! Posted By: Locke, November 18, 2005
"Wow! I don't know that I've ever been flattered and yet somewhat revolted at the same time... It's an interesting sensation." Posted By: Dewey in Toronto, December 1, 2005
"Very often, debating you is like playing whack a mole: You pop up some premised assertion moles, I pull out my mallet and start whacking, then you pop up more premised assertion moles - which are mostly or completely unrelated to the original moles I was whacking at. Your stock of moles seemingly stretches into infinity. And yet, an endless supply of moles does not equate to cogent argument.
Very often, debating you is like speaking to a salesman who will not answer a particular direct question, and instead flies off on the flight of rhetorical splendor known as "baffling them with bullshit." I'm impressed with your rhetorical skills, and your IQ, and your accumulation of knowledge. I'm impressed that I'm the American citizen, yet you might have a more thorough knowledge of the American Constitution than I. And yet, these impressive things are not substitutes for cogent argument."Posted By; gcotharn, December 21, 2005
"Besides, you seem to think you're the least respectable person I know. While you're often right, you're wrong on that count. Careful, I might out YOU as a nice guy. Or something." Posted By: Dewey In Toronto, December 27, 2005
"I've been to Toronto. The most dangerous thing I saw there was an 11 foot tall red head with shaved balls."Posted By: Judy, December 31, 2005
"There was this "Caught on Tape!" video I watched back in my highschool days where one of the scenes shows two people starting to cross the railroad tracks. One looks up at the last minute and sees the train, the other does not. In the commercial, it cuts away just before the train does its thing, but the video...
Your blog is like a twisted version of the video. We know the train is going liquify you in shocking gory fashion, but that's why we keep coming back. It's so much more fun that we both know the train is coming and you still gleefully walk into its path...and we love you all the more for it." Posted By:Locke, January 13, 2006
"Fuck. I'm hooked." Posted By: DeAnna, January 14, 2006
"Your Maximum Leader has found Skippy's commentary more insightful and interesting than anyone elses. So now he supposes that Skippy will go back to writing about porn and strippers he meets in the subway." Posted By: The Maximum Leader on Naked Villainy January 24, 2006
"Slightly crazed is fine, but with the beard you look like a total nutjob. If you ever hope to get laid again, for fuck's sake, Skippy, NEVER, EVER grow a saddam beard. You're welcome."Posted By: The Lady O, 28 January, 2006
"Maybe we should get married. My readers could support us by purchasing my worn panties and you could be the panty pimp." Posted By; Joan 28 January 2006
" I know it must be hard for you...being objectified by women all the time. But come on, how can they really help themselves? Have you seen yourself lately? Your pheramones preceed you into a room (as does your crotch). Don't blame it all on them...you did choose to leave your house. :D" Posted By: Joan, 3 February, 2006
"Skippy, you sarcastic twerp." Posted By: Arwen, 8 February 2006
"Just so you know.. if I had to choose between Moussaoui or Skippy.. You'd win. Even if I know what an asshole you are. Posted By; Judy, 13 February 2006
"I'd be willing to sign a legal document stating that is IS ok, in fact, to masturbate whilst thinking of me." Posted By: DeAnna (Who seems unaware of my reputation as an outlaw) February 24, 2006
"Feel free to masturbate while thinking of me...actually, do you need some of my panties to help you with that?" Posted By: Joan, February 24, 2006
"I blame myself for this. I have been too lenient with you. Your Godless behaviour must come to an end. You will receive a severe beating this weekend and I am contemplating removing your testicles." Posted By: Dr. Reverend, February 24, 2006
"Just remember skippy, the US never threw a fit when you smuggled your own personal WMD over the border twice a year. After all, it wasn't like you were hiding in your pants or anything.
All's fair in love and war, so to speak." Posted By: Judy, April 4, 2006
"Wow...nothing hotter than a man willing to issue fatwas for pussy." Posted By: Joan, April 16, 2006
"You sir, are a brilliant writer." Posted By: Judy, May 4, 2006
"I think I'm falling in love." Posted By: DeAnna, May 11, 2006
"THIS IS THE MOST DIABOLICAL FALSITY YOU HAVE EVER ENGAGED IN!!!!
I was intending to kick you in the face upon our next meeting, but now it's obvious that I must douse your scrotum in kerosene and set your testicles aflame. Alas, it is the only way you will learn." Posted By: Dr. Reverend, May 12, 2006
"And i would like to commend you on some excellent blogging. This particular story would normally warrant a few cryptically humorous lines and a link. To an ordinary blogger. But you managed to wring an essay of New Yorker-esque proportions out of it. That takes talent. Your beautiful young friend is right. I see big things for you in the future." Posted By: Annika, June 4, 2006
" I like a man who will unabashedly tell someone his penis size because hes unashamed. Thats hot.
*raises hand* I'll take that 6.5, thank ya" Posted By: Kinky, June 6, 2006
"Elvis, like skippy, is the very definition of rock and roll. Posted By: Rube, June 10, 2006
" I'm beginning to think you're the only good man left in the world, skippy. WTF?" Posted By: By: DeAnns, June 11, 2006
"Just so everyone knows.
Skippy does indeed, taste like bacon.
And, any guy who doesn't know cum tastes good to real women, is clueless." Posted By: Judy, July 2, 2006
"There was a British columnist whose work was described as 'a suicide note in weekly installments.'
This blog is sort of like that." Posted By: Gadfly, July 6, 2006
"Jeez, Skippy. Sometimes I really hate coming here." Posted By: Cynlee, July 18, 2006
"Someone needs to throttle you with a riding crop...truly!" Posted By: Joan, July 18, 2006
"Holy mother of god. I just had an orgasm. It's official: I'm devoting the rest of my life to you, skippy." Posted By: DeAnna, July 19, 2006
"Skippy, sometimes I'm not quite sure of your sanity, but you are without a doubt the baddest morning news reading, quiz show hosting, talent introducing PIMP in the motherfuckin' blogosphere." Posted By: Shank, July 19, 2006