‘A Criminal Organization Masquerading as a Political Party’

Shot:

In news that must have left my friends at the New York Post — never mind the gang at The Daily Show – with a renewed confidence that ours is a just and beneficent God, the White House has been caught covering up a scandal involving a Cartagena hooker.

The phrase “Cartagena hooker” alone is a mellifluous gift to ink-stained wretches everywhere, but the revelation that the White House reassigned the alleged client of the aforementioned Andean call girl to the State Department’s office of “Global Women’s Issues” is the sort of flourish Tom Wolfe or Chris Buckley wouldn’t dare attempt as satire.

—“The Cartagena-Hooker Cover-Up: If the White House would falsify records about this, it can deceive the public about larger issues,” Jonah Goldberg, today.

Chaser:

Via the Daily Surge, I’m using “aide” because I’m not sure what to call this guy. Is he a staffer? Bodyguard? Some jack-of-all-trades policy advisor/goon? Why does Harry Reid have muscle with him when he walks the halls of Congress? And more importantly, per Mattera’s question, how does a humble, longtime public servant like him pay for it? (Conservatives, and only conservatives, have been asking about that for a long time.)

—”Video: Harry Reid aide manhandles Jason Mattera for asking about Reid’s personal wealth,” Allahpundit last night.

Hangover:

THE “MARGIN OF FRAUD” JUST EXPANDED: Supreme Court blocks Wisconsin’s voter ID law. “In a related action, a district court judge in Texas ruled that state’s voter ID law is racially discriminatory and violates the Voting Rights Act. The state attorney general’s office said it would appeal.”

—Glenn Reynolds of Instapundit.com, last night.

“Think of the Democratic Party as what it really is: a criminal organization masquerading as a political party,” my friend and fellow PJM columnist Michael Walsh wrote in 2009 in the guise of his leftwing alter-ego, David Kahane, to borrow the lede from my post earlier this year on a day when politics and the police blotter were particularly interactive and visible.

Update: And again: “WTF: Oregon’s First Lady admits she had a sham marriage with an immigrant for money,” and as with the Cartagena hooker debacle, there’s an element that’s beyond satire as well:

Just as I suspected: Oregon Gov.’s GF reveals 3rd marriage to 18 y.o. Ethiopian guy named Abraham B. Abraham for $5k http://t.co/of8qDVNLkP

— Joseph Lawler (@josephlawler) October 10, 2014

Vladimir Nabokov, call your office.