The next generation of wingnuts cut their teeth:
A politically conservative student armed with a video camera and a Web site is trying to force a Democratic congressional candidate out of his teaching job at Central Michigan University.
Dennis Lennox, a 23-year-old junior, has posted videos on YouTube of himself questioning assistant professor Gary Peters about campaigning for office while holding a prestigious position at the university.
Some say Lennox is persistent. Others accuse him of pandering for attention.
“What I’m doing isn’t about getting media attention,” said Lennox, a political science major. “I’m speaking for the hundreds of students, alumni, taxpayers and even legislators who have complained because Gary Peters won’t pick between Congress and campus.”
***Lennox helped start the group Students Against Gary Peters and created a Web site for what he calls “Petersgate.” He insists that he isn’t targeting Peters because he’s a Democrat.
But some see it differently.
“Basically, he’s just an extreme partisan. Anybody that’s a Democrat, he’s going to try to get at,” said fellow political science major Eric Schulz.
I regret that there was no information available regarding the good prof’s kitchen counters. Stay tuned, though!
*** OBLIGATORY TROLL PROTECTION *** – I am sure there are JUST as many douchebags on the left doing this sort of things to Republicans.
capelza
Oh look…ain’ he cute..he looks like a young David Horowitz. Sigh..tears up, dabs eyes.
Zifnab
Just as many? Didn’t you get the memo? Democrats are worse. Besides, I think Clinton did it too. This just proves we need to bomb Iran.
RSA
My first thought: How many shirts can one kid wear at the same time?
tBone
At least he’s not wearing a headscarf, moonbat.
D-Chance.
Too bad there wasn’t a war going on or something, this kid sounds like a go-getter who could be a true asset to his country… or is stalking his teacher his way of “serving the nation”?
(: Tom :)
And we get to the Clenis Corollary to Godwin’s law in only two comments! I kid, I kid – and I think Zifnab is using satire* to make a point. It’s a little rough out there for the citizen journamalist these days – the Scaife money has decreased significantly of late.
I’m with Ezra Klein on this one. I can’t imagine getting to the point of stalking. And the copycatting has only begun!
* – on top of the original satire from Mr. Cole. Hopefully, you’ve both cleared it with the Piranha Brothers…
RSA
Nah. This kid is laboring under the impression that the publicity will help him
* get into a good conservative political science grad program (if such exist);
* get an internship in a political campaign;
* draw attention to a book he’s writing.
I think number two is a strong possibility, actually.
Keith
Funny, I was thinking “Oh look, it’s Dale from Top Chef!” As much as I appreciate the next generation of these guys not having the Hugh Hewitt hair and Karl Rove glasses, a fauxhawk is not the wave of the future.
Zifnab
Wow. If that picture doesn’t scream “giant douchebag” I don’t know what does.
jake
Wha?
It was a while ago, but as I recall I barely scraped 21 before I graduated.
Paul L.
Macaca
RSA
Forgot to mention: This isn’t unprecedented. The year I started grad school at UMass, John Olver was a chemistry professor there as well as a state representative. He ran for Congress to fill an open seat and won. I don’t know how common this is, but I just checked Newt Gingrich’s bio, and he ran for Congress twice while an instructor at the University of Georgia, or so the dates indicate.
AnonE.Mouse
Did the photographer intend to give him a demented appearance?
Perry Como
Williamsburg would be shocked by that level of douchebaggery.
BARRASSO
That kid is SO Graham Norton! Stalking is now a vital skill for wingnut journaljism.
rawshark
Isn’t this how Hannity got started?
jake
The new look for up-and-coming fRighties: Morrissey Ate A Lot of Mallowmars and is Too Busy Hiding a Hickey to Brush His Hair.
That’s HOT!
tBone
If you’re saying that both cases involved rightwing douchebags making asses out of themselves in public, I agree.
Warren Terra
Honestly, how does PaulL manage to type so accurately and without causing himself major injuries, with so little brainpower that he thinks this is anything like the macaca matter?
This kid Lennox is making an ass of himself through his assertions that it’s somehow immoral to be a candidate while holding an appointment as an assistant professor. The fact that Lennox is operating a video camera is – like his approximate age and his bipedal nature – a point of similarity with the now-famous ‘macaca’ videographer, but hardly indicative of much.
Nancy Irving
Looks like just another moussed-up Young Republican.
Fred
Considering John Yoo is still employed at Berkely, no, I’d say there aren’t as many on the left acting like this.
rā¬nato
Rep. Harry Mitchell (D-AZ) – who unseated the odious J.D. Hayworth last year – started his political career running for the Tempe city council while a teacher at Tempe High School.
I am fairly certain nobody called for the fainting couch over that one, though it must be said that Republicans weren’t such gaping fucking assholes at the time.
rā¬nato
…in fact, Mitchell was both a teacher and a city councilman/mayor for 22 years.
Which of course explains his success against J.D. Hayworth, having spent an entire generation indoctrinating impressionable young students into IslamoDemoCommieFascism. /wingnut
FS
Since when is a person required to give up his or her day job to run for office? Or hold office, for that matter?
RSA
Okay, this is getting to be like shooting
fishold men ina barrelthe face, but Google says that young Dennis Lennox is chapter president of the group Young Americans for Freedom. You’d think young go-getters would be hip to the InterTubes, but apparently not. At the top of their current home page:rā¬nato
it’s right there in the Wingnut Book of Political Etiquette, among other rules such as:
It’s OK for a married family values GOP politician to continue serving if he’s banging all the prostitutes he can, but not OK if the same sort of pol is engaged in any kind of gay sex.
It’s OK to
criticizesmear any soldier or officer in the military if he has the temerity to criticize a GOP President or the mission, but if you criticize a soldier or officer who toes the GOP political line, then you are guilty of treason and probably dream of raping babies when you sleep as well.Any member of the military who criticizes a GOP President or the mission after they leave the service, automatically renders their criticism invalid because they should have spoken up while they were serving, even though this is forbidden.
It is treasonous to criticize a GOP President when the nation is at war.
No matter how many Republicans are caught taking bribes, chasing teenaged pages or sucking cock in public restroom stalls, if you can find one Democrat anywhere who did something wrong then Democrats are just as bad and the Republicans’ behavior is automatically justified.
In the event the President or pol in question is a Democrat, none of the above apply and pretty much anything goes.
When all else fails, holler,
“Chappaquidick!”“Clinton did it tooooooo!”If it seems like they are just making this shit up as they go along… it’s because they are. Think Calvinball.
rā¬nato
Let me guess… Stephen Colbert wrote the copy for their site?
lee
I am pretty sure Phil Gramm did the same thing here in texas.
rā¬nato
Dennis Lennox sure is a pretty boy, isn’t he? Not that I’m questioning his sexuality or anything. I’m sure he’s totally Not Gay.
RSA
I think that making judgments like that is far too difficult based on photographs. (Okay, it’s an ancient link, but I found it entertaining years ago–I’m surprised it’s still reachable.)
SPIIDERWEBā¢
The first word that came to mind when I first read about this was:
STALKER
KCinDC
A fauxhawk and a popped collar?
And you’ve heard of a man of many hats? This guy didn’t want to mess up his hair, so he decided to be a man of many shirts instead.
The Other Steve
I was thinking Obsessive Compulsive Disorder.
But that’s three words, unless you abbreviate as OCD.
Punchy
I grew up and went to college with the this guy (Dale L., not the douchebag).
I’m amazed as liberal as most campuses are, that he’s not harrassed to the point of violence. He’s being so in-ya-face dickish, I’m surprised no one’s popped him yet.
canuckistani
It would help if he lived in East Germany.
Mike
The GOP has always been sensitive about conflict of interest.
daniel rotter
I’d like to add to Renato’s list:
Labeling people who hated then-President Clinton as “Clinton haters” was over-the-top criticism. Labeling people who hate President Bush as “suffering” from Bush Derangement Syndrome is legitimate.
Anti-government rhetoric from the left=anti-American. Anti-government rhetoric from the right=patriotism.
It is perfectly consistent to react to liberal-policy-espousing celebrities with the attitude that “actors should stick to acting, singers should stick to singing,” etc., all the while voting for Arnold Schwarzenegger for California governor and Fred Thompson for U.S. President.
David
I am proud to say that when my college’s director of medicine ran for Congress as a Democrat, the college Republicans did nothing of this sort.
Peter Johnson
Why should this clown be able to run for Congress on the public’s dime? Could he do it from a regular job? I don’t think so. This what the tenure system wreaks.
OniHanzo
Cry me a river, PJ.
OniHanzo
And if you’d read the article you may have stumbled across the following before shooting your mouth off:
rā¬nato
Add to the Wingnut Book of Political Etiquette:
Any Democrat who earns a salary from the government must refrain from any sort of political activity, since the money which puts food on their table is also subsidizing their political activism.
JC
Don’t tase me bro!
Abe Froman
Teh only thing Dennis Lennox is missing is teh Penny Loafers with the Penny’s in them ala David Spades character in PCU.
Peter Johnson
Boo hoo. I bet the job gives him free access to an email account and to library facilities. If he’s using those to further his political ambitions, then the university can and should be sued.
Abe Froman
Wait a minute now? Politicians can’t use library’s anymore? Now i know King Georgie has never seen the inside of a library, but PJ why would that stop other politicians for using a library?
John S.
Such concern.
Were you as breathtakingly abhorred by the antics of Lurita Doan or the many others in the offices of the White House that have illegally used the public dime to advance their political ambitions and those of the Republican party? Do you think we should sue the Bush administration as well?
I’m gonna go out on a limb and guess no.
Peter Johnson
Was Lurita Doan running for public office at the time? That’s what I thought.
Keep bringing up the distractors, guys. It’s working great for you so far.
laneman
Brilliant, ab-so-lutely, brillarnt
Not just the quote, but the entire skreed is on target that jebus is weeping. Well, I am, anyhoo.
chopper
the bastard! running for office while getting a free email account!
do you have any idea how silly you sound?
Punchy
OT, but still about journalism:
Holy Wow. I simply cannot believe this.
Cyrus
I’m sure you have evidence that he is, and just forgot to link to it.
The Other Steve
Not surprised. After seeing that Arnold interview, it appears the Bushies learned from Katrina.
Manage the message better.
cleek
psst. running for office isn’t the only way to advance one’s political ambitions.
Zifnab
Wow. Do you ever get tired of being wrong, Pete? Seriously, at some point, doesn’t it become physically exhausting? He still hasn’t mentioned two words about Gingrich running for office while still holding a professor’s position.
And hey, here’s a super fun one. Rep Rob Bishop (R-UT 01), teaches classes while Congress is in recess. Oh my goodness gracious. Someone call the authorities!
I bet he gets a free email account and library card and EVERYTHING! When will the madness stop?!
Bulworth
An assistant professorship at Central Michigan University a “prestigious position”? I don’t mean any disrespect, but…
Dennis-SGMM
Fourteen seconds of googling turned up Gary Peters’ website: petersforcongress.com. Gary’s contact email is there too. Ten seconds of nslookup revealed that the site is hosted by a for-pay service named terrabox.
No wonder conservatives are doing such a bang-up job with the netroots.
RSA
As I mentioned above, Newt Gingrich was apparently running for public office while employed by the University of Georgia. I await his denunciation.
Grouchy Marxist
Oh, cut him a break, he’s only a kid.
It takes years and years to work up to ONE wetsuit, let alone TWO.
laneman
free e-mail account….
only a maroon could not have one.
It is a non-issue
Teabag Pete Johnson
On behalf of Peter Johnson, I will denounce Newt Gingrich for running for public office while still employed at the University of Georgia. But Newt had a Contract
Againstwith America, which makes it a-okay.Sock Puppet of the Great Satan
“..questioning assistant professor Gary Peters about campaigning for office while holding a prestigious position at the university.”
Assistant Professor. At Central Michigan University (a fourth-tier university in U.S. News’ rankings). Prestigious.
Right. Almost up there with being a Fellow of All Souls, Oxford, that is.
Jeez. They are clueless, aren’t they.
cleek
i never signed any such contract
Abe Froman
Thanks!!!! as i clean my morning cup of tea out of my keyboard!
sneakerchad
One can tell just by looking at his picture that he is nothing but a massive attention whore. He is probably just pretending to be a “conservative” just to be controversial and get more attention. Pretty sad really.
Gus
I frequent the BJ comments quite a bit, but usually at work or while watching TV, so I don’t pay very close attention. Isn’t Peter Johnson a spoof?
rā¬nato
Peter Johnson is slipping. He still hasn’t written, “Clinton did it tooooo!!!ONE!1!111!”
rā¬nato
if he is, he’s a rather subtle one… so difficult to tell the real wingnuts from parody these days.
Cyrus
John seems to think so, since he’s taken to calling Peter DougJ.
Peter Johnson
I don’t support Newt’s candidacy either. I never have.
Next objection, please?
Dreggas
Well this one is obviously a STRAIGHT young republican afraid to be viewed as “sweet meat” by the Mark Foley’s and Larry Craig’s of Congress. So this is just a clever way of making sure he doesn’t lose in a rousing game of strip poker with aforementioned congressmen and the rest of the congressional pages.
tBone
Yes:
Dial it back a little, Pete. When you spread the spoof on too thick, it scares the fish away.
fecapult
Sue for breach?
Cinderella Ferret
C’mon haven’t we missed The Most Important Issue? Our young friend hates America! NO LAPEL FLAG PIN. Without question he is a Liberal just trying to make Real Americans look bad. That pretty much proves my point, eh?
DragonScholar
What it comes down to is stalking is OK if you claim it’s political. Oh, and if you’re a Republican. Otherwise the right-wing noise machine will throw a hissy fit and run to their fainting couch.
Honestly, this personalization of politics seems to be just a few steps away from outright invasion of privacy and violence. If it’s OK to stalk someone for political ends, where does it stop?
Peter Johnson
Classy name.
Zifnab
You don’t like tea?
Zifnab
And Rob Bishop? Where’s the denunciation there? The letter drive campaign? The “Get Bishop off Government Welfare” petition? The small asian in the bushes with the camera?
Unless you denounce all the teacher-Congressmen, you’re a hypocrite, Johnson.
T&SPJ
I was going to go with “Squathumpin’ Petah.”
Peter Johnson
I’m not familiar with Rob Bishop. Could you send me a link?
For the record, I don’t support anyone using their position at a university as a springboard to entering politics. Doesn’t matter if it’s this guy, or Newt, or Rush Holt.
Zifnab
here
Peter Johnson
Zifnab, those are high-school courses. So I don’t think it’s much of a comparison. High-school teachers don’t have the same history of political bias that college professors do.
DougJ
Admit it, though. You loved him in Flock Of Seagulls.
Dreggas
Yes but they are in our kidz headz when they’re still impressionable OMGODZZZZ!!
28 Percent
I was going to say something truly retarded about how the Central Michigan library facilities might be holding the only known copy of Sun Tzu’s The Art of Direct Mail which, although available to the general public for research purposes, was not intended to be studied by anybody with a partisan agenda, or for anybody belonging to any group that is perceived to have now, or to have ever had, a political bias. Since we don’t know whether or not that book exists, or if it does exist, if Central Mich has it, and if it has it, if Peters has read it, the only responsible thing to do is to fully investigate the matter. Of course, even if we didn’t find the book, that wouldn’t prove by itself that the book didn’t exist and that Peters hadn’t read it – the only way to be sure of that would be to follow Peters with a video camera so that if he tips his hand, we’d be there to catch him. If the MSM won’t step up to the plate and supply this kind of hard-hitting journalistic effort, it’s up to young patriots like Lennox here to fill in the gap.
It was going to be a grand construction of inanity. But Peter Johnson beat me to the punch.
jcricket
You mean like the one Laura Bush was wearing recently? :-)
But wait, I thought headscarf wearing was for traitorous liberals bowing down before the Caliphate/Sharia?
Two…contradictory…ideas…in…head…hurtz…brainz…
Seriously, this kid is a fucking loser, but he’s learned from the whole parade of fucking losers that is the activist Republican party base these days. If they’re not peeping through windows, they’re perfecting the art of hissy fits or feigning outrage at the latest faux scandal. That’s all that Republicans have anymore – outrage, faux scandal and trumped-up smears.
As atrios might say, this has been another edition of “what digby said“
John S.
Of course not, she was appointed to a comfy government position where she misused taxpayer funds to throw strategy parties on how to keep Republicans in the majority.
BUT TEH PROFESSOR!
You fucking boob.
rā¬nato
OK, add that one to the Wingnut Handbook of Political Etiquette… ‘it’s much worse when a college professor does it, than when a high school teacher does it!’
by the way, I recall quite clearly a high school American History teacher who was a wingnut, for instance he insisted on indoctrinating us impressionable young teenagers that the Civil War really was all about “states’ rights” and had nothing to do with slavery. It wasn’t until I was a bit older that I had the intellectual maturity and knowledge to rebut that specious argument.
Peter Johnson
Was he running for office? That’s what I thought.
Smarter moonbats, please!
canuckistani
So professors shouldn’t be allowed to run for office because of their known liberal tendencies? What nonsense. Everyone who has been to university knows that academics are drunkards, adulterers, gamblers, perverts and criminals, and are thus a natural fit for the GOP.
rā¬nato
Peter, if (as alleged) you are trying to be a humorous and a parody… you’re not doing a very convincing job of it.
Which means you are an ideal candidate for Fox News Channel’s ‘The Half-Hour Comedy Hour’ writing staff.
Dreggas
At the risk of sounding half-wingnut. The south seceded over states rights (their right to keep slaves and to use them to further rig the electoral process). The civil war came about in response to that secession so in some ways states rights was a cause of the civil war later it became more about the slavery issue itself with the emancipation proclamation being signed in 1862, after the start of the war.
Of course secession came about when lincoln was elected especially based on part of his campaign and his statement that “Government cannot endure permanently half slave, half free…” etc. However this, at the time anyway, was a reference to the southern decision that a slave equaled half a free man so 2 slaves equaled one free citizen and therefore, based on population, called for more representation in congress and, if I am not mistaken, more electors in a presidential contest. Lincoln called them on it and starting with South Carolina, the states seceded.
RSA
Which is pretty confusing; DougJ’s posts were generally smart and funny.
Dreggas
DougJ was just kicking it up (or is that down?) a notch.
jenniebee
There’s no denying that “state’s rights” talk fueled the fire, but the idea that the South seceeded because of a direct threat to their right to self-determine is ludicrous. The 1860 Republican platform specifically did not threaten slavery where it was already in existence, abolitionists were still considered a lunatic fringe, and there were even concessions being made to strengthen the Fugitive Slave Act (to the extent that the Act itself was pushing tenth-amendment violations because it verged on criminalizing northerners who did not actively work to find and return runaways in their midst).
Rather, the South was able to read the writing on the wall – they realized that their power relative to the north was slipping and that the only body in which they could maintain parity with non-slave states was the Senate, which they could only continue to do if they could keep up the kind of bloody skulduggery pro-slavery agitators got up to in the Kansas territory. The more you look at ante-bellum politics, the more you see a south engaging in goalpost moving and outright blackmail of the rest of the country (give us what you want or we’re outta here we mean it), all for the purpose of creating more allied slave-holding states. Republicans were letting it be known that they wouldn’t give in to the blackmail anymore, but they absolutely did not tread into anything that could be fairly characterized as a violation of state’s rights.
If you’re looking to a real cause for southern secession, look no further than thirty years worth of escalating polemics coming out of publications all over the south, exploited for all it was worth by politicians who were more than happy to have something to use to distract their constituents from Whig calls for stuff like “public education” and the Homestead Act and those pesky infrastructure-building projects. Sound familiar?
Julie
Really? What about Tom Osborne? Or is it just professors who shouldn’t run for office?
In that case, what about Glenn Johnson? Johnson’s a tricky one because, on the one hand, he’s a college professor and former member of the Liberal Media. But, on the other, he’s a business-friendly, small town mayor, volunteer firefighter and the Voice of Washington State Cougar Football.
RSA
Not to sound snotty, but an industry-paid-for position at Central Michigan University (the other, not-as-good CMU), a chair that can be held by someone who hasn’t finished his Ph.D. at Michigan State, is hardly a springboard.
Redleg
Julie,
Speaking as a Husker, I won’t have Tom Osborne’s name bandied about.
Speaking as a liberal, go ahead and make your point.
tBone
Indeed. Do not take the Lord’s name in vain.
Julie
I was raised by Huskers, so I don’t bandy the name lightly. :)