Voice Votes: Grading Scalia, Strippers, and Chick-fil-A
Today, we’re introducing Voice Votes, a new feature in which we grade the week’s headlines — and poke fun at them. You can join the fun by suggesting your own #win, #fail and #meh candidates via Twitter. (Send tweets @nationaljournal). Need more space? E-mail suggestions to Readers@nationaljournal.com or leave us a comment on Facebook. We’ll publish the best suggestions in this space every week and credit the authors.
Here’s how we vote this week:
#Meh on billionaire casino mogul Sheldon Adelson, who declined to answer reporters’ questions about his participation in a Romney fundraiser in Israel on Monday. “I’m usually misquoted too often,” Adelson said. Or did he?
#Win on Justice Antonin Scalia’s rare televised interview on Sunday, in which he revealed that he had no plans to retire. "My wife doesn't want me hanging around the house," he said. Notably, Scalia gave the same response when asked what limits should be imposed on capital punishment.
#Win on Poland, which played host to Mitt Romney this week and which, according to Charles Kupchan of the Council on Foreign Relations, “has broadened its portfolio, and instead of investing exclusively in its relationship with Washington, it now understands that it needs to have good ties to Russia and to the European Union.” The nation was a good fit for Romney, who knows the value of investing abroad.
But #Fail on Rick Gorka, Mitt Romney’s traveling press secretary, who told reporters asking questions outside of Poland’s Tomb of the Unknown Soldier to “show some respect” and then told a New York Times reporter, “Kiss my ass.” That would be showing a little too much respect.
#Fail on Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid’s insistence that an unnamed person with connections to Bain Capital told him that Mitt Romney paid no income taxes for 10 years. We’re the ones that get to use anonymous sources, and you’re the one who gets to make laws. If you want to trade, fine, just let us know.
#Fail on the gay-marriage discourse this week. A major political party officially came out in favor of gay marriage, and a fast-food chain came out against it. Guess which one got more attention.
#Fail on Thursday’s House vote against adjournment. If members of Congress are going to act like children, they might as well have recess.
#Fail on the Obama and Romney campaigns’ efforts to gain an edge among early voters, who could account for up to 40 percent of all ballots cast this year. Pouring resources into wooing early voters is safe. We’re looking for a campaign with the guts to make a play for procrastinators.
#Win on the shout-out by House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Dave Camp, R-Mich., to California sex shop Stan’s Two on the House floor on Wednesday. Apparently, the shop would suffer if Bush-era tax cuts expired. But our nation’s leaders aren’t deaf to the plight of the industry, which is why Tampa’s strip clubs are looking forward to a bailout next month.
#Win on the defection from the Assad regime of Khaled-al-Ayoubi, Syria’s erstwhile charge d’affaires in London, announced by the British Foreign Office Monday. When we heard there had been a high-level defection in London, we were worried that Ryan Lochte was swimming for the Chinese.
#Fail on the announcement that Elizabeth Warren, whose rhetoric has been linked to Obama's ubiquitous, and intentionally misinterpreted, “you didn’t build that” line, will deliver a prime-time speech at the Democratic National Convention. We know about your speechwriters, Elizabeth. You didn’t write that.
