Moral of the story: Don’t f**k with CPAC? “CPAC bans atheist group from conference right after saying it could attend” — HuffPost headline. “It is very obvious to me they were looking for a reason to say no,” American Atheists Spokesman David Silverman told CNN. “Christianity is bad for conservatism and they did not want that message out there.” A CPAC spokesman said Silverman’s “divisive language” would not be welcomed. See the full story.
House Budget Chairman Paul Ryan dodges tea party question, uses potty excuse
“As he exited the bathroom, I asked Paul Ryan about the tea party’s impact. ‘That’s kind of a weird question comin’ out of the bathroom.'” — Roll Call‘s Matt Fuller.
Piers Morgan compares his Twitter following with the Pope’s
“The Pope currently has 441,000,000 Google hits to his name. I have 484,000,000. I reckon I’ll be OK. But thanks for the concern everyone.” — CNN’s Piers Morgan, whose show ends in March.
Uh oh.
“Aide to Missouri House Speaker leaves loaded gun on top of a capitol bathroom toilet paper dispenser” — Washington Post political reporter Jaime Fuller.
Congratulations to… Richard Just for being named editor of National Journal Magazine. He most recently worked for Newsweek. Before that, he was editor of The New Republic. National Journal will get a spring redesign. He promises the magazine will be “truly fun to read.”
Nick Denton to debate Alec Baldwin
“Alec Baldwin may be withdrawing from public life. But not before he debates me at Columbia next month.” — Gawker founder Nick Denton.
Does Hillary Clinton really need to inhale?
A certain New York lawyer, blogger and former Assemblyman Ryan Karben thinks so. “Get High with Hillary would definitely be a sellout fundraiser, but I think Democrats would be just as satisfied with a strong policy stand,” Karben told The Mirror. “Though it looks like the DC City Council is poised to vote in favor of legal weed, so maybe she’ll need to wait into she moves in to The White House.” Check out his entire reasoning here.
Travel Bitches
“If you’ve never experienced a truly empty security area at Dulles before. Book a ticket to anywhere and come on down. Glorious!” — NationalReviewOnline‘s Jonah Goldberg.
“Tampa —> Boston. Haven’t checked the weather there but assume I can keep wearing my jorts and ‘Spring Break Bitch’ T.” — Slate‘s Dave Weigel.
Speaking of bitches generally…
“I mean, bitch is just so obvi. Of course I’m a bitch. But how am I a WRONG bitch?” — freelancer Cathy Reisenwitz, who writes a Sex and the State blog and contributes to Bitcoin Magazine. She’s also — ironically — really into “positive psychology.” How are you a WRONG bitch? Well, Cathy, really glad you asked. Because you don’t get to declare people “bigots” just because they use a word you don’t care for or point out that soon-to-be NYT‘s Josh Barro widely discussed his gay sex life. And be careful dealing with Rare‘s two-faced Betsi Fores…a woman who can’t seem to reconcile what she thinks and what she says. She says one thing behind closed doors, another out in public. Very Washington, but still…not something to which to aspire. As The Mirror has reported, Rare is an interesting breed of “conservative” publications in that it purports to be conservative but is run by an editor who voted for President Obama. Fores somehow thinks it’s a “slur” to reveal that her openly gay editor, Will Alford, sent an email directive to staff saying they were to only to run stories on gay marriage that match his own beliefs. After all, he wrote in the email, the company, Cox Media, employs “thousands of gays at EVERY level of the organization (including yours truly) — and as a consequence, Rare is not going to pass judgement or offend our colleagues around the company.” Because there is only one view on gay marriage among conservative readers and voters — Alford’s view, right?
Informative…
“We apologize for technical difficulties on the @rollcall website. Our IT team is looking into it.” — Roll Call.
Journo has dietary limitations
“No Jolt today. Recovering from food poisoning.” — Jim Geraghty, National Review campaign correspondent.
