Oh come on. I would never say that the Republican Party "deserves better candidates" or the like, because they quite frankly don't, but at the least they might want to get rid of the
abject bullshitters.
Bevin, who is challenging Minority Leader Mitch McConnell for the Republican Senate nomination, has spent weeks struggling to explain his appearance at a pro-cockfighting event on March 29. After a series of vague denials, video emerged on Thursday of Bevin personally defending legalized cockfighting – a sport in which chickens fight to the death – at the rally. [...]
After Bevin spoke next, Deveraux asked him whether he would “vote to support the effort to legalize gamecock fighting in the state of Kentucky.”
“I support the people of Kentucky exercising their right, because it is our right to decide what it is that we want to do, and not the federal government’s,” Bevin responded. “Criminalizing behavior, if it’s part of the heritage of this state, is in my opinion a bad idea. A bad idea. I will not support it.”
Please read below the fold for more on this story.
So he flatout lied. When news of his attendance broke, his defense that he didn't even know what the rally was about, he was just being Mr. Candidate going to lots of events and, golly gee, he couldn't be expected to know what they all were about. Now it turns out he addressed the topic directly. On tape. Jeebus, fella.
You know, the problem with this is not that a politician would lie—we've sort of gotten outrage fatigue on that topic—but we still reserve the right to be irritated over politicians lying outright for incredibly stupid and petty reasons. If you're gonna support chicken fight club as part of Kentucky's long-cherished rights to wager money on which animal will best maim or kill which other animal, fine, whatever. But at least own it! Telling different audiences different things may be the hallmark of campaigning, but politicians still haven't gotten the hang of balancing it against the whole but there will be tape of this thing.
Defender of small animals everywhere because he is one Mitch McConnell, on the other hand, thinks this will go down in history alongside the Battle of Richmond and the time Secretariat was caught in bed with a hooker. No really:
“Matt Bevin’s cockfighting episode will go down in history as one of the most disqualifying moments in Kentucky political history,” McConnell spokeswoman Allison Moore said in a statement. “Twenty years from now, we will all remember the time when the East Coast con-man thought so little of Kentuckians that he pathologically lied to us about absolutely everything until an undercover camera caught him red-handed at a cockfighting rally.”
Mm-hmm. Twenty years from now most people will be hard-pressed to remember Mitch McConnell; I don't really think "the time Matt Bevin lied about cockfighting" is going to be one of the state moments grandparents tell stories about to the kids. At least, the kids sure hope not.
Both of these people cannot possibly lose hard enough. Not saying Kentucky deserves a better class of Republican politicians, no I am certainly not, but at least if you nominated a chicken you would know where it stood on things.
11:48 AM PT: And Bevin now issues a nopology.