Wednesday, December 02, 2009

The Strangest Day Ever?

12-1-09. Next time you think things can't get any weirder, remember that date.

Atlanta elected a new mayor and it wasn't even close to the top story. Not even locally. Why?

Republicans scurried behind close doors to determine the fate of politically wounded leader Glenn Richardson. Two news outlets reported his resignation was imminent. In typical Richardson manner, his people immediately fired back with a "nu uh". Yet, still this morning Republican insiders are saying it's going to happen. (And I ain't even going to get into that "other shoe about to drop" Erick mentioned)

President Obama gave a speech about sending more troops to Afghanistan which resulted in Democrats whining about a "war President" (when this is exactly what Obama told them over a year ago he would do) and Republicans plumbed new depths of cognitive dissonance by calling it isolationism. And you thought the partisanship in the Atlanta Mayor's race was screwy.

Speaking of affairs, the most famous man in the world has been caught not only in one affair, but now two (maybe three, maybe infinity) and even better than Richardson's ex, this one has tape! If you haven't heard the voice mail, let's just say it is devestating.

Oh.

And Atlanta elected a mayor. Maybe. Maybe not.

It's like the entire world took a big huff of glue yesterday.

8 comments:

Juliana said...

There were not many lulls yesterday at the campaign office I was working at, but I found a few to read about the Speakers troubles, Tiger Woods and the Presidents speech, yes it was a day chock full of D.R.A.M.A... oh and the nasty Facebook snipping over City Council Post 2. Maybe if they'd spent less time on Facebook and more on field ops their guy would have done better. Oy.

Glad it's raining today and I'm home.

Rusty said...

It may sound like pearl clutching, but I'm squicked out by the fascination with Tiger Woods' personal life. And a million other celebrities' personal lives.

In the case of Glenn Richardson, his affair is news to me because it was with a lobbyist and could have (read: did) effect legislation, which is a major ethics issue. Barring something like that, I wish people would mind their business.

griftdrift said...

It's why I stayed pretty quiet on it. We hear these "stories" all the time. To be crude, I'd hate to take a UV light to any piece of carpet under the Gold Dome. When the story changed for me was when the wife started producing emails and texts. This thing suddenly has tentacles all over the place.

Was there an ethics violation? Will it affect the Johnson campaign for Governor since he chaired the committee that quickly swept aside the ethics allegations? If there were threats both physical and possibly through the misuse of state agencies could we be drifting into the criminal?

It was all just a sordid, trashy personal story until somebody produced physical evidence. Now it's a whole different ball of wax.

griftdrift said...

And one note about the Tiger Woods thing. His situation is a little unique (he doesn't run over a fire hydrant, we never hear about it), but I'm always reminded of a quote I heard once from I think a publicist, "there's a reason you never see anything about people like Tom Hanks in the tabloids".

That thought made my decidedly cynical and unsympathetic to the Lindsay Lohans and such of the world.

Sara said...

I also think the Richardson story has legs not because of the acknowledgment of the affair, but because of Richardson's threats to his wife. Lots of politicians fuck around, but few give the appearance of being so drunk on power they think they can threaten to harm people and get away with it. Coupled with the threat to rain hellfire down upon AGL if they fired the mistress, it just looks like a guy who thought he could do anything with no consequences, and THAT is what is getting him thrown out of the speaker's chair.

Grayson: Atlanta, GA said...

With a cast of characters such as you spell out I'm thinking I can now ditch the "Spacey" part and go with SanestPersonOnEarthG.

Amber Rhea said...

And one note about the Tiger Woods thing. His situation is a little unique (he doesn't run over a fire hydrant, we never hear about it), but I'm always reminded of a quote I heard once from I think a publicist, "there's a reason you never see anything about people like Tom Hanks in the tabloids".

That thought made my decidedly cynical and unsympathetic to the Lindsay Lohans and such of the world.


I'm probably being dense but I don't understand what that means?

griftdrift said...

The publicist point was either they didn't have the common sense to keep it on the down low or they drummed up the story themselves to generate publicity. Usually the latter