For Pete’s Sake!
It wouldn’t have been quite so bad if he
Wasn’t such a staunch defender of decency.
But then the old salt
Had a kid with Ms. Laxalt —
Because eight just wasn’t enough for Domenici!
h/t Roll Call
Day: February 21, 2013
Laxalt Defended Domenici’s Morals to Larry King in 2007
I think when you’re — when you’re attacking the integrity of someone who has been in public service for his entire lifetime, at great sacrifice, supporting no fewer than eight children and with the many sacrifices and the many contributions Senator Domenici has made, not only to the country, but to New Mexico …
— Michelle Laxalt, in a 2007 interview on Larry King Live, defending the senator who recently admitted to being the father of her son.
Intellectually, Republicans Are Stuck in the 1980s
Today’s Republicans are very good at tending the fire of Ronald Reagan’s memory but not nearly as good at learning from his successes. They slavishly adhere to the economic program that Reagan developed to meet the challenges of the late 1970s and early 1980s, ignoring the fact that he largely overcame those challenges, and now we have new ones. It’s because Republicans have not moved on from that time that Senators Marco Rubio and Rand Paul, in their responses to the State of the Union address last week, offered so few new ideas.
— Ramesh Ponnuru, writing in the New York Times.
GOP’s Argument for Sequester a Self-Defeating Non Sequitur
Could the GOP message on the sequester be any more self-defeating? Boehner could argue that the sequester cuts are necessary as a first — and somewhat modest — step toward controlling the deficits that threaten the economy. Instead, he describes them as a threat to national security and jobs that he nevertheless supports. It’s not an argument that is likely to persuade millions of Americans.
— Byron York, writing in the Washington Examiner.
Rand Paul Gives $600K to U.S. Treasury
$600,000
Amount Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) gave to the U.S. Treasury, “taking the money he said he didn’t need from his office’s budget to make a tiny dent in the nation’s massive federal debt,” CNN reports. Said Paul: “We watch every purchase. We watch what computers we buy, what paper we buy, the ink cartridges. We treat the money like it’s our money, or your money, and we look at every expenditure.”
Jon Stewart Calls Out John McCain on His Benghazi-Iraq Hypocrisy
Stewart: First of all, Bush was the worst president since Herbert Hoover.
With Domenici’s Adultery Scandal, the C Street Christianist Cult Rears Its Ugly Head Again
Former New Mexico Sen. Pete Domenici admitted yesterday that in 1979, when he was 46, he had an adulterous relationship with the 24-year-old daughter of his colleague, then Sen. Paul Laxalt of Nevada. In a statement also released yesterday, Laxalt’s daughter Michelle said that she became pregnant as a result of the encounter, which she described as a one-night stand and a “mistake.” She said she raised the son, Adam Laxalt, now 34 years old, as a single mother.
They believe that morality is a secular construct — that morality is something made by man for little people like us, and that if you are part of God’s chosen … morality, ethics, these things don’t apply to you.
– Jeff Sharlet
– Jeff Sharlet
Domenici and the Laxalts are all Republicans.
By keeping their secret for all these years, as Lauren Ashburn at the Daily Beast pointed out, both Domenici, who retired in 2009 and is now 80, and Michelle Laxalt, 57, benefited.
Domenici — New Mexico’s longest-serving senator — was able to hold onto his career, including being reelected five times. Michelle Laxalt became a Washington lobbyist, head of the Laxalt Corporation, which she founded in 1984, when her son was about five years old. She also served as a staffer for Republican senators, including Ted Stevens and John Warner, and worked on the Reagan and Bush I and Bush II presidential campaigns.
Because of his extremist positions on morality, it’s likely Domenici’s career in politics would have ended if his extramarital dalliance had come to light. In the Daily Beast, Asburn points to examples of pols whose careers were recently stymied when their affairs were made public, including N.C. Sen. John Edwards, a Democrat, former South Carolina Gov. Mark Sanford and former Nevada Sen. John Ensign.
Both Sanford and Ensign are Republicans and, like Domenici, they are members of “the Family,” the infamous, high-powered Christianist cult that operates out of a house on C Street on Capitol Hill in Washington, D.C.
