Ask Matt Labash

Ask Matt Labash: Vol. VI

Matt Labash Columnist
Font Size:

EDITOR’S NOTE: Have a burning sensation? Consult your doctor. Have a burning question for Matt Labash? Submit it here.

What’s the appropriate amount of touching from a stripper when you’re attending your own bachelor party? The amount that you can be comfortable with yourself, I mean; I assume the soon-to-be-missus would approve of nothing. — SB

Before advising you SB, let me just state my position at the outset: I personally loathe strip clubs. As a male hunter-type, I’m always made uneasy when women work that hard to turn me on. Call me old-fashioned, but I’m supposed to be convincing them to take their clothes off. Volunteering themselves straightaway wrecks the natural order of things. In fact, I’ve long thought of starting a get-dressed club: where scantily clad women slowly and seductively put on more clothes, lending an air of mystery to the proceedings, providing a lap-dance for the imagination. Also, their extra pockets would provide more convenient places for customers to tuck $10 bills.

But that wasn’t your question. To assist you, I’ve surveyed some of my more libertine lady friends. Their consensus seems to be that it is completely appropriate for a stripper to extend a congratulatory handshake and, depending on your rapport, a firm clap on the back, offering you hearty well-wishes and eternal happiness in the spirit of platonic friendship for your pending nuptials to your beautiful fiancée. As for how much it’s appropriate for you to touch, I say let your conscience be your guide. Roe v. Wade stipulates that it’s your body, and no woman should be allowed to tell you what to do with it. So touch yourself as much as you’d like.

A question on global warming—where is Al Gore? Has he gone dark? — Beth

Look Beth, I don’t agree with everything Al Gore says either. But I will not tolerate racism. Kindly take your master-race rants elsewhere.

Matt, how is your leg healing? — fallon1977

You’ve clearly confused me with Jim Treacher, which is understandable. With our Clooney-esque mug shots, we are often confused. Ordinarily, I’d bat this question over to him, so he could tackle it in his completely non-derivative series, “Ask Jim Treacher,” his not-so transparent attempt to sandbag me, to cost me traffic, and to let the readers punch themselves out in his comments section so that they have no energy left to ask for my life-changing advice, relegating me to taking up superfluous questions such as “How is your leg healing?”

But, okay. I’ll take Treacher’s sloppy seconds. It wouldn’t be the first time (Would it now, killtruck? Call me.) Since Treacher and I have forged the unbreakable bond that results from new-employee orientation, team-building ropes-courses excursions, and living in S.E. Cupp’s shadow (readers inexplicably think she is hotter than both of us, though they haven’t seen us in our skinny jeans), I feel qualified to answer on Treacher’s behalf:

My knee’s doing better. My pride isn’t. Yes, I came to the big city from Idaho or Illinois or whatever flyover state I originated in that starts with an “I” (I’ve forgotten — success has changed me). For a season after arriving in Washington, D.C., I lived the high life and tasted the spoils: I had the chili dog at Ben’s Chili Bowl, with the works. I had the steak fajita burrito with the extra $1.85 guacamole at Chipotle. (I didn’t care. I owned this town.) Every night at happy hour—and every hour was happy hour—I drank Cabana Boy rum punches out of men’s shoes down at the Meat Magnet. By the time that State Department SUV came barreling at me in that fateful crosswalk, I thought I was invincible. So I kneed it as hard as I could in the grill, as though I were leveling a shot right in Hillary Clinton’s breadbasket. But there, in the crucible, I learned my limits. Unlike Hillary, I’m not made of chrome and steel. I’m just a man, made of flesh and bone, muscle and sinew. And blood. And 2 percent body fat after my grueling physical therapy. So I owe the readers and the State Department and my family and friends back in Iowa or wherever an apology for forgetting who I am and where I came from.

Also, I’d like to share some X-ray outtakes. The nurse wouldn’t let me have a Diet Coke before my MRI. Guess I showed her.

My husband and I coverted to Catholicism a few years ago. On paper, Catholicism is great, but the actual practice of being Catholic (the dry homilies, awful choir, lazy parishioners), not so much. I miss our old Protestant church, but my husband is perfectly content. What should I do? — Ann

Get a divorce? You forgot to mention the multitudinous kid-touching scandals, but it’s not my place to nitpick. Full disclosure: I come from an Italian family, so I grew up Catholic until I was four. Then we decided to become Christians, so we could start worshipping God instead of the Pope. (Put the gun down, Catholic friends—just a little Prot joke.) Don’t get me wrong. I love Catholics. They know how to prepare fish. They make those snazzy Catholic schoolgirl uniforms. And who doesn’t like bingo?

But personally, I’ve gone Protestant, as I’m generally for eliminating bureaucracy, and so prefer dialing the red-line directly to J.C., rather than having a priest in the confessional, doing it for me. You played the game “Telephone” when you were a kid, one person passing along what he thought he heard another say. You know how things can get confused. I say, “Bless me, Father, for I have sinned.” He hears, “Caress me, Father, for I am 10.”

Which is not to taint an entire denomination with the broad brush of ignominy. The Catholic leadership has managed to do that just fine on their own, with even more disgraceful cover-ups and mealy-mouthed apologies for the pedophilia abominations in Europe and in the United States. All of which are not only a grievous sin against the child victims, but against good priests who are truly doing the Lord’s work. I do, however, believe you can grade a church on the caliber of their clerical scandals. Protestant miscreants generally bang the church secretary or a hooker. Catholic versions of the same generally prefer the church secretary’s or the hooker’s underage son. All things being equal—tie goes to the non-child rape scandal. Advantage: Protestants. So by all means Ann, come back, and bring your husband, at least until the Catholic hierarchy can decide to stop harboring criminals, and to do something even more unfathomable, such as bringing them to justice.

Matt Labash is a senior writer with the Weekly Standard magazine. His book, “Fly Fishing With Darth Vader: And Other Adventures with Evangelical Wrestlers, Political Hitmen, and Jewish Cowboys,” is just published from Simon and Schuster. Have a burning question for Matt? Submit it here.

PREMIUM ARTICLE: Subscribe To Keep Reading

Sign up

By subscribing you agree to our Terms of Use

You're signed up!

Sign up

By subscribing you agree to our Terms of Use

You're signed up!
Sign up

By subscribing you agree to our Terms of Use

You're signed up!

Sign up

By subscribing you agree to our Terms of Use

You're signed up!
Sign up

By subscribing you agree to our Terms of Use

You're signed up!

Sign Up

By subscribing you agree to our Terms of Use

You're signed up!
Sign up

By subscribing you agree to our Terms of Use

You're signed up!
Sign up

By subscribing you agree to our Terms of Use

You're signed up!
BENEFITS READERS PASS PATRIOTS FOUNDERS
Daily and Breaking Newsletters
Daily Caller Shows
Ad Free Experience
Exclusive Articles
Custom Newsletters
Editor Daily Rundown
Behind The Scenes Coverage
Award Winning Documentaries
Patriot War Room
Patriot Live Chat
Exclusive Events
Gold Membership Card
Tucker Mug

What does Founders Club include?

Tucker Mug and Membership Card
Founders

Readers,

Instead of sucking up to the political and corporate powers that dominate America, The Daily Caller is fighting for you — our readers. We humbly ask you to consider joining us in this fight.

Now that millions of readers are rejecting the increasingly biased and even corrupt corporate media and joining us daily, there are powerful forces lined up to stop us: the old guard of the news media hopes to marginalize us; the big corporate ad agencies want to deprive us of revenue and put us out of business; senators threaten to have our reporters arrested for asking simple questions; the big tech platforms want to limit our ability to communicate with you; and the political party establishments feel threatened by our independence.

We don't complain -- we can't stand complainers -- but we do call it how we see it. We have a fight on our hands, and it's intense. We need your help to smash through the big tech, big media and big government blockade.

We're the insurgent outsiders for a reason: our deep-dive investigations hold the powerful to account. Our original videos undermine their narratives on a daily basis. Even our insistence on having fun infuriates them -- because we won’t bend the knee to political correctness.

One reason we stand apart is because we are not afraid to say we love America. We love her with every fiber of our being, and we think she's worth saving from today’s craziness.

Help us save her.

A second reason we stand out is the sheer number of honest responsible reporters we have helped train. We have trained so many solid reporters that they now hold prominent positions at publications across the political spectrum. Hear a rare reasonable voice at a place like CNN? There’s a good chance they were trained at Daily Caller. Same goes for the numerous Daily Caller alumni dominating the news coverage at outlets such as Fox News, Newsmax, Daily Wire and many others.

Simply put, America needs solid reporters fighting to tell the truth or we will never have honest elections or a fair system. We are working tirelessly to make that happen and we are making a difference.

Since 2010, The Daily Caller has grown immensely. We're in the halls of Congress. We're in the Oval Office. And we're in up to 20 million homes every single month. That's 20 million Americans like you who are impossible to ignore.

We can overcome the forces lined up against all of us. This is an important mission but we can’t do it unless you — the everyday Americans forgotten by the establishment — have our back.

Please consider becoming a Daily Caller Patriot today, and help us keep doing work that holds politicians, corporations and other leaders accountable. Help us thumb our noses at political correctness. Help us train a new generation of news reporters who will actually tell the truth. And help us remind Americans everywhere that there are millions of us who remain clear-eyed about our country's greatness.

In return for membership, Daily Caller Patriots will be able to read The Daily Caller without any of the ads that we have long used to support our mission. We know the ads drive you crazy. They drive us crazy too. But we need revenue to keep the fight going. If you join us, we will cut out the ads for you and put every Lincoln-headed cent we earn into amplifying our voice, training even more solid reporters, and giving you the ad-free experience and lightning fast website you deserve.

Patriots will also be eligible for Patriots Only content, newsletters, chats and live events with our reporters and editors. It's simple: welcome us into your lives, and we'll welcome you into ours.

We can save America together.

Become a Daily Caller Patriot today.

Signature

Neil Patel