It’s Tuesday, it’s November, is there anything special going on? Welcome to your open thread. Use this thread to talk about the election or not. The floor is yours.
But Scott Lemieux notes that the reaction to the pitch from some on the right is rather odd.
Shorter Verbatim Blogprof: “How refreshing that we had a President that knows how to throw a baseball. Bush didn’t ‘wrist’ it like sissy girls do.” How dreamy! Sadly, this is followed by links to several other wingers making similar observations, perhaps while scrawling hearts all over their kiddie biographies.
It seems bizarre, but far-right really do seem excited about this today. One prominent conservative wrote about the former president throwing a baseball, “What a moment! … What a wonderful moment.” Another called the joint appearance on the field, “What a moving study in dignity and class. What a great example.” Another writer on the same site wrote, “God, I miss the man. I disagreed with him on a number of issues … but no one ever doubted where his loyalties lay or what country he thought he was President of…. It’s good to see that he still throws a baseball like a man, which is how he governed.”
Another wrote, “Miss them yet, America? What a moment in Texas. Father, son and baseball — it does not get any more American than that…. Remember Barack Hussein Obama’s pathetic first pitches? Who could forget the lameness.”
Remember, these people are entirely serious. None of this is tongue-in-cheek, or intended to be funny, or published as some kind of parody.
Yes, the Republicans have man crushes. I remember how crazy they went when Bush landed a plane and declared “Mission Accomplished.”
Italy’s Silvio Berlusconi is in trouble again. It involves a young woman – big surprise!
It is not the first time that Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi of Italy has gotten into trouble for dallying with under-age girls, but the most recent scandal involving the septuagenarian’s private life could open the door to a full-fledged government crisis.
At the heart of it all is a Moroccan girl nicknamed Ruby, who turned 18 on Monday, but was still a minor last May when she was held in a police station in Milan, accused of theft until Mr. Berlusconi called and demanded she be released, Italian newspapers reported.
The details of what happened that night are now in the cross hairs of Milanese prosecutors, who must determine whether laws were broken or procedures ignored when Ruby was placed into the custody of Nicole Minetti, a former showgirl and Mr. Berlusconi’s dental hygienist. In March, Ms. Minetti was elected to the regional assembly in Lombardy as a candidate of the prime minister’s People of Freedom Party.
But beyond any legal repercussions, which may well not exist for Mr. Berlusconi, 74, the political stakes became apparent during the weekend as Gianfranco Fini, a disgruntled former ally, suggested that the prime minister might have overstepped his authority by intervening in Ruby’s release.
Berlusconi reminds me of Carl Paladino. How much do you want to bet that Berlusconi forwards pornographic emails to people?