The Rod Squad's blog

The rules that made certain attacks against John Kerry perfectly okay, of course, also make those same attacks against John McCain not okay.

It's so hard to keep track of who is allowed to hide behind his wife and who isn't. 

Which prominent Republicans are trying to have sex with children this weekend?

Feel free to leave guesses in the comments.  Better yet, don't.

So Peter Kinder's campaign committee used to pay its own rent to the J. Harris Company.  Until Kinder decided that it would be easier to let some other committee pay their rent to J. Harris Company and never bother with reporting it as an in-kind contribution.

Since this blatant lawbreaking was perpetrated on behalf of the Lieutenant Governor (not just one of four candidates for the Democratic Attorney General nomination) one can be forgiven for thinking the capitol press corps might, you know, check into it or something.

Imagine having to choose between the second coming of Fred Thompson who effectively wants to extend Matt Blunt's term by four years or some woman whom Chamber of Commerce members describe this way...

She was awful…She couldn’t string a sentence together…She wasn’t prepared…She made no sense…

Yet despite the widely acknowledged weakness of the GOP primary candidates, there aren't very many Republican lifers out there lamenting Matt Blunt's decision not to run for re-election.  Strange, that.  No? 

Word buzzing around the DC media rumor mill is that national outlets CNN and the Washington Post are currently working on a blockbuster story involving Missouri Governor Matt Blunt.

Kenny Hulshof has been locked in a battle with opponent Sarah Steelman over which GOP gubernatorial candidate can rightly claim the mantle of "fiscal conservative." 

But this is a strategy that Hulshof obviously hasn't been pursuing for very long.  Just last May, Hulshof cast a Congressional vote against an amendment that, among other things, would have prohibited the use of federal funds for research on "social relationships and reproductive strategies of Phayre’s Leaf Monkeys."

Quite odd for an anti-research Republican who claims to be in favor of slashing government spending to have voted to pay for studies on monkey sex. 

From a column by Ryan Cooper (whose writings the Springfield News-Leader publishes, inexplicably) come bons mots like this one: 

"Corrupt politicians eventually lose."

Yes, Ryan.  Or they get shuffled off to the federal penitentiary before they get the chance to lose. 

Readers may remember that Ryan Cooper is the brother of disgraced GOP Representative Nathan Cooper, also known as prisoner #34350-044.