It's been a fairly quiet couple months from Daredevil Jean Schmidt, which is notable for someone whose brief Congressional career has been noted for remarkably inappropriate missteps, exaggerations, and shameful allegations. Schmidt's career as a Congressional candidate and Member has been so completely pockmarked by disgrace that she has almost singlehandedly made one of Ohio's reddest districts competitive for Democrats.
She has somehow avoided stepping in her trademark political dogpiles of late, however. Rumors were rampant that after nearly losing her 2006 race to Dr. Victoria Wulsin, Republican leadership had sent Schmidt a message from on high:
Keep quiet.
I have to admit, the lack of controversy of late from Rep. Schmidt left me a bit concerned. She had been such a reliable repository of excess for so long...if she could tone down her rhetoric and stay on message, perhaps all Republicans could?
I shouldn't have worried so much.
Schmidt's latest: she has sent out a letter accusing Dr. Wulsin, her opponent again in 2008, of performing "grotesque medical experiments" on humans.
Wulsin's contempt for the culture of life has even led her to participate in grotesque medical experiments. Wulsin was paid for her work in medical "studies" where victims of AIDS in Africa and China were, without their consent, injected with the malaria virus, all in the name of "scientific inquiry."
Naturally, this bald accusation of such Mengele-like behavior was a dirty lie. Schmidt's people, of course, tried to weasel out of it:
Schmidt press secretary Barry Bennett said the letter wasn't suggesting Wulsin participated in the experiments.
Which I guess makes sense, except for the part where the letter said:
Wulsin's contempt for the culture of life has even led her to participate in grotesque medical experiments.
Ah, Daredevil Jean Schmidt, notorious purveyor of lies and pictures of also-lies, is back. Back with a vengeance.
Need more? Per Ohio Daily Blog:
Here comes another big one. On June 5th, the truth-challenged Schmidt took her misspeaking skills to the floor of the House, denouncing federal limitations on drilling for oil by declaring that China is currently drilling off the Florida coast.
She alleges, of course, that it's Cuba helping their Communist partners in crime Communism to steal our good American oil. Watch here:
Needless to say, this is also not true.
Yet no one can prove that the Chinese are drilling anywhere off Cuba's shoreline. The China-Cuba connection is "akin to urban legend," said Sen. Mel Martinez, a Republican from Florida who opposes drilling off the coast of his state but who backs exploration in ANWR.
"China is not drilling in Cuba's Gulf of Mexico waters, period," said Jorge Pinon, an energy fellow with the Center for Hemispheric Policy at the University of Miami and an expert in oil exploration in the Gulf of Mexico. Martinez cited Pinon's research when he took to the Senate floor Wednesday to set the record straight.
Even so, the Chinese-drilling-in-Cuba legend has gained momentum and has been swept up in Republican arguments to open up more U.S. territory to domestic production.
But cheers for Schmidt. She's not alone:
Vice President Dick Cheney, in a speech Wednesday to the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, picked up the refrain. Cheney quoted a column by George Will, who wrote last week that "drilling is under way 60 miles off Florida. The drilling is being done by China, in cooperation with Cuba, which is drilling closer to South Florida than U.S. companies are."
And we know he's reliable, don't we?