I’m a bit sick of O’DonnellGate already, but TPM is doing yeoman’s work digging up all the crazy shit she said. My favorite so far is this:
American scientific companies are cross-breeding humans and animals and coming up with mice with fully functioning human brains.
And all this from a Claremont Institute Lincoln Fellow.
There’s a Burkean brouhaha raging: is O’Donnell a real Merkin who speaks too plainly for the ears of the elite or is she an idiot nutsoid? The truth is she’s a nutsoid who was nurtured by the creme de la creme of serious, high-brow conservative institutions (the same one that birthed Conor Friedersdorf published five or six op-ed length pieces that Conor Friedersdorf wrote early in his career. ). If she hadn’t talked so much about masturbation and “man pants” and man-mice hybrids, we’d be hearing about her prestigious intellectual pedigree.
Greenhouse Guy
Sorry, but that scott walker ad pisses me off. Go Barrett/Feingold/Kind/Schilling! +?
Glidwrith
I could be cruel and say that the mice are obviously functioning better than she is…
But seriously, a mouse is used to model a genetic disease and she comes up with some kind of bestiality take on it?
Belvoir
She’s the inspiration America needs right now. To pack up and flee the country.
beltane
O’Donnell seems to have been adopted by the wingnut welfare agency from the moment she found Jesus in college. How did this happen?
Steve
There is no reason whatsoever the conservative base should not love this woman. She presents well, she knows all the right catchphrases. We all know how this story works out: the more embarrassing dirt people turn up, the more it’s proof that the liberal gotcha media is here to take down yet another conservative truth-teller. Fortunately, the smart money says the middle will once again look on in horror.
mr. whipple
I’m trying to wrap my head around this, but can’t. Maybe a mouse can explain it to me.
beltane
I’m not sure I buy the mice with fully functioning human brains thing, but judging by the fact that people voted for this kook I am willing to consider the possibility that there are human beings who have been genetically altered to have partially functioning mouse brains. Didn’t Makato-Chen once warn us about this?
jl
O’Donnell doesn’t know what she is talking about. They implanted working human brains into dogs first, who quickly gained an important beach head in their conquest of humanity for mere pleasure of our evil hearted overlords.
Peabody and his pet boy Sherman predates Pinky and the Brain by 40 years. This is well documented and in the public record.
O’Donnell doesn’t know enough to be competent legislator. Case closed.
Edit: and Rosie and Lily, with their pet cranky dude, Cole, is also on public record, I believe.
Warren Terra
I for one welcome our human-brained mouse overlords.
Emily L. Hauser/ellaesther
A) “man pants”? Que?
B) @beltane: Because she’s extraordinarily pretty. That’s my guess. A woman that beautiful who wants not to seduce, but actively dissuade men? That’s special, right there.
ETA: Found it! “Mike this is not a bake-off, get your man-pants on.” Oh good Lord.
Warren Terra
Besides, are we worried by mice? Tunch looks like he’s eaten several “fully functioning human brains.”
Jibeaux
I’m doing sort of a “crazy quote a day” FB thing until Nov. 2. This was my inspiration and inaugural quote. Those of you with independent/apathetic friends, feel free to copy the idea. It just might work better than my usual M.O. Of “liking” ezra’s stuff.
Warren Terra
Also, don’t forget that the use of genetically engineered mice to study human brain function becomes a lot more sinister if you don’t believe in evolution, and so humans and mice aren’t related.
DougJ
@Emily L. Hauser/ellaesther:
Man pants.
She’s not extraordinarily pretty though, by the way. Better looking than Sharon Angle and Joe Miller, I’ll grant that much, but that’s about it.
Breezeblock
I’m quite prepared for our Idiot Masters. I have a house full of liquor (no, that is not a joke, bring your 10 best friends), and cable and intertrons ( to work the instant Netflix), and my right hand is still functional.
Oh, but don’t bring your friends while I am “excercising” my right hand.
As Yakov on vodka might say, “Wot a Fucking country..”
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@mr. whipple:
Wasn’t this some quasi-adult cartoon, Pinky and the Brain, or something?
Rachel Maddow was all a-twitter because C.O.D was on tape in ’96 hyping the theory that Bill and or The Clintons iced Vince Foster, thinking this tape will be her undoing! Maybe it’s that she was so young back then, but that was pretty standard fare for rightwing pundits back then, who didn’t have FoxNews yet. I’d be more surprised than not if Willam Safire or someone of equal “respectability” said there were “serious questions” about Foster. I’m pretty sure Richard Posner, then a federal appeals court judge, said Ann Coulter made a convincing case about the Mena drug trade and some woman who was found dead in the DC zoo.
Emily L. Hauser/ellaesther
@DougJ: I was probably typing “found it” just as you were typing “Joe Miller.”
I would suggest that you might be seeing her through your bitterness n’ disdain goggles. She is (and she certainly was back when she accepted Christ) very, very pretty.
Hey, if I can admit that I occasionally find Rand Paul cute, surely you can admit that this insane lady is pretty.
She’d be prettiER in a straight-jacket, sure, but that’s a quibble, really.
wasabi gasp
So a mouse found titty pix with the Goog. Impressive.
beltane
@DougJ: She wasn’t pretty enough to be one of their A-listers as it seems she has lived much of her life sleeping on other people’s couches. I’ve never seen someone with such a history of side-hugging boyfriends.
DougJ
@Emily L. Hauser/ellaesther:
Maybe you’re right, I honestly have a hard time thinking of political candidates that way. Anyway, I’m more after a Singer sewing machine heir type.
dmsilev
Did she misremember the plot to Flowers For Algernon and think it was a documentary or something?
Let me guess, the entire array of GOP candidates is some long running psychological experiment to see just how absurd a candidate can be before being laughed off the stage.
dms
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Emily L. Hauser/ellaesther: She used to be part of Bill Maher’s rotating “Young ‘Wingers I Wish I Could Fuck” guest list on the old ABC show, and she was indeed very pretty. Rachel said she got her start with Phyllis Schlafly. I seem to remember that back then she was affiliated with Jerry Falwell.
Steve
@DougJ: I am with Emily. She is extremely cute.
malron
I have found the proof that O’Donnell was right about the human rodent hybrid conspiracy.
Viva BrisVegas
@Steve:
Only until she talks.
beltane
@dmsilev: When they nominate Abby Normal for president in 2012 maybe we’ll see things start to happen.
SiubhanDuinne
Chwistine is vewy vewy scawy.
Davis X. Machina
Delaware is a small state. I live in Maine, which is also a small state. I’ve met both of our reps. I’ve met the last four governors. I’ve met one of our two senators, although they are of the wrong party, and know tons of people who’ve met them both. And I didn’t have to go out of my way to do it — just at fairs, graduations, dedications, and in one case, the checkout line at a Hannaford’s.
It’s going to be really hard for campaign professionals to maintain a manufactured, impermeable, persona for this woman. Too many people know her, or know people who know her, compared to the universe of possible voters.
She’s toast.
Allison W.
RALLY TO RESTORE SANITY
10-3-10 – National Mall – 2 to 3 hours
“Take It Down A Notch For America”
via The Daily Show/Colbert Report
hilarious.
Steve
@Viva BrisVegas: Some people say I have the same problem.
jl
@Steve:
“I am with Emily. She is extremely cute.”
I’m not so sure. She reminds me of crazy old Al Davis in this one:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-11313336
She adheres to ‘pride and poise’ too.
Steeplejack
@Warren Terra:
Win!
Damn, I hate getting here late. I was thinking the same thing as I read down the thread. Plus I have an informed umlaut rant that is now useless on another cold thread.
Needless to say, night shift checking in. Where’s that +1 that I need to get my chill on?
DonkeyKong
If we could pipe in Bobby McFerrin’s “Don’t Worry Be Happy.” on a national PA system North Korea style, I could get used to this Wingnutapocalypse.
wasabi gasp
I dread telling my girlfriend how totally fucking gay I am.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
O’Donnell has raised a million dollars in the last twenty-four hours.
Steeplejack
@Allison W.:
I love it. That’s a program I can get behind.
Davis X. Machina
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: I’ll be damned if I can figure out what they’ll do with it. Philly’s an expensive media market, but Delaware is a tiny state.
She’s run for Senate twice in the last four years, so she can’t spend it on name recognition.
Her handlers, if they have an ounce of sense, won’t spend it outlining her policy positions — people will hate them.
And there’s a ceiling on how much efficacy negative ads have — they work, but they don’t work in a linear fashion. Doubling spending on negatives ads won’t necessarily halve your opponent’s support.
eemom
Goddamn this blog is going to the Elitist dawgs.
Is Christine O’Donnell any more stupid than George W Bush? Is she? Huh??
No. She is not.
Only difference between COD and GWB is, she didn’t come from some hoity-toity blue blood rich ass family. No trust fund paid her college tuition, no sirree Bob. She did it the hard way — defaulting on her tuition until she wanted to run for federal office, like a REAL Amerikkun.
And now suddenly, EVERYBODY’s talking about all the “stupid stuff” she said.
Why is that?? Didn’t GWB say stupid stuff too? Well? Didn’t he??
But ya never heard anybody here make fun of anything stupid GWB said, didja? Huh? Didja?? No sirree — oh wait
hilzoy
So the actual story about the mice is that scientists have injectedhuman neural stem cells into fetal mice. Calling this “cross-breeding” seems a bit much — have I been I cross-bred with various inactivated viruses, not to mention novocaine? — but maybe this is what she thinks sex is like. On reflection, maybe that’s why she disapproves of masturbation — she thinks it involves sticking needles into yourself.
In any case, here’s the long version of why this should not make anyone nervous. Short version of one point:
Just imagine a mouse with an actual human brain. The internets inform me that the average human brain weighs 1.3-4 kg, while the average lab mouse weighs 20 grams. Poor mouse! Poor mouse’s aching neck! Poor exploded mouse cranium! Poor mouse’s mother, who had to give birth to a mouse with a human brain through a tiny mouse pelvis!
Presumably, this is not what O’Donnell is thinking of. It would have to be a mouse-sized fully functioning human brain. How would that work? Maybe it would be just like a human brain, only with very tiny miniature neurons. But there aren’t miniature neurons that work just like ours do, and if there were, you wouldn’t produce them by injecting normal-sized human neural stem cells into a mouse. Maybe, on the other hand, the brain would be made of normal human neurons, only many fewer of them, arranged roughly the way mouse neurons are arranged in a mouse brain. But in that case it would not be a normally functioning human brain.
Emily L. Hauser/ellaesther
@Steeplejack: I tell you what.
Allison W.
@Steeplejack:
here’s the website. good stuff
http://www.rallytorestoresanity.com/
lacp
This quote, above all else, makes me wish I could sneak down to Wilmington and pass for a Delaware voter. Folks, you’re only going to get an opportunity to elect someone like this once in a lifetime, ’cause Lyndon LaRouche ain’t getting the Democratic presidential nomination. If we’re going to wind up getting flushed down the porcelain bowl anyway, we should at least get some entertainment.
lacp
This quote, above all else, makes me wish I could sneak down to Wilmington and pass for a Delaware voter. Folks, you’re only going to get an opportunity to elect someone like this once in a lifetime, ’cause Lyndon LaRouche ain’t getting the Democratic presidential nomination. If we’re going to wind up getting flushed down the porcelain bowl anyway, we should at least get some entertainment.
General Stuck
O’Donnell looks like the Barbie Doll Ronald Reagan pulled out of his ass. I’d take crazy eyes Bachmann any day of the week. She has a black widow charm that cannot be denied.
DougJ
@eemom:
I liked the idea of this when I first read about it (maybe on Greenwald?), but when I read up on her a bit I concluded that she really is dumber than George W. Bush.
Michael
@Emily L. Hauser/ellaesther:
Meh. She’s a +8 on the drink scale. I’d have to be pretty hammered to try and tap that.
Marc
@Davis X. Machina:
She can spend it on rent, and clothes, and legal bills. Is this a great country or what?
Left Coast Tom
@mr. whipple:
She’s trying!
DougJ
@General Stuck:
I’m with you on that.
The Dangerman
Think of the poor Male Mice with the fully functioning human brain; they’re going to look down and be mighty damned embarrassed.
Cris
NIMH is a government agency, not a scientific company.
General Stuck
@hilzoy: Big Brain Mice could start a new market for making better mouse traps and get the economy moving again. On the other hand, it would make hell the lives of cats.
J.W. Hamner
The human animal hybrid fear is one I’ve never really gotten. I mean conspiracy theories are always pretty crazy, but you can usually understand where they’re coming from at least… but the abject terror in the face of chimeras is just freaking weird. I guess it’s a religion thing?
Maybe I’m just bitter that they discovered our plan to genetically engineer hyper intelligent rodents to sneak into their homes and steal their guns and gold bullion.
JWL
The monkeys NASA blasted into orbit returned as super intelligent beings. It’s quite likely they spearheaded this mice-to-man project.
Think it through. They’d surely desire to cultivate allies within the animal kingdom prelude to an inevitable coup against their nominal homo sapien overlords; indeed, they’d require them. God knows how many other species they’ve recruited.
General Stuck
@The Dangerman: Just think how small the copies of Playboy mag will have to be for the little fuckers to jack off.
DougJ
@hilzoy:
You’re overthinking this.
One: real Murkins don’t want brains of any kind in their mice.
Two: opposing mouse-brain implantation pisses liberals off.
James E. Powell
It’s a little sexist to be going on about O’Donnell’s looks. She has the genial good looks of a mid-market local news anchor, and the voice and demeanor of the same. Such people, male or female, are prized by the right wing. They can and do say hateful and ignorant things with the same warm smile that anchors use when they are delivering a story about a puppy.
I think there is way too much being put out about her bizarre remarks about masturbation, evolution, mice brains, and other assorted crazy things. The Democrats ought to be focusing on the policies she is advocating and the likely impact of those policies. That is, putting her bizarre ideas and chirpy smile aside, her ideas for government are really, really bad. Most people will reject her and them. There is a danger, as happened somewhat with Palin, that attacking her only makes her opponents look craven and weak. And if the right people hate her, that gets her votes. It already got her a million dollars.
So, let’s focus on what matters. She would be a horrible senator and would advocate for horrible policy choices.
AnotherBruce
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
Great, but she’s said so many insane things, that I think it’s only going to take one well placed ad to take her down.
kate r
someone shoulda told her back in middle school that the books “Mrs. Frisbee and The Rats of NIHM” and “Ralph and the Motorcycle” were FICTIONAL. But maybe the teacher did use that word, and the phrase “make-believe” would have been better.
General Stuck
@James E. Powell: I say destroy this gold plated whackjob by any means available. Let gawd sort out the political correctness.
blahblahgurgleblegblah
@mr. whipple:
The Rats from NIMH are out on a caper right now, but I think Mrs. Frisbee is nearby. Perhaps _she_ could help!
Left Coast Tom
@James E. Powell:
I think pointing and laughing at Palin in Fall 2008 over her idiocy was a perfectly normal thing to do, and the fact that her polls moved southward amongst everyone but Republicans, and stayed there, justifies doing what seems normal.
Steeplejack
@Allison W.:
I’m in! I especially like the “Don’t Click Here” button on the site.
Somewhere around here I have a photograph of myself next to the Stephen Colbert portrait when it was hanging in the National Portrait Gallery. Yes, I confess, I am a Colbot.
Steeplejack
@Steeplejack:
Uh-oh, wrong site. Now I can’t decide between “Rally to Restore Sanity” and “March to Keep Fear Alive.” Well, they’re both on the same day, so maybe I can do both.
wasabi gasp
@James E. Powell: Blow that sad trombone, daddy-o.
Mark S.
@General Stuck:
@DougJ:
You guys are crazy. I’d rather be married to Palin than spend a night with psychotic killer eyes Bachmann.
James E. Powell
@Left Coast Tom:
I get what you say about Palin, and exposing her as an idiot did help to shut down the McCain Fan Boy madness.
But the big difference this time is that it’s a mid-term election. All the wingers are coming out. The people whom we would expect to vote against O’Donnell are mostly going to stay home unless and until they are given reasons, strong reasons, to vote against her.
Focusing on her personality disorders and bizarre ideas allows the marginal voters to say “Who cares?” and sit on their asses, or even to join in the fun by voting for her. After all, insane people are entertaining.
A large chunk of the American electorate does not connect the person for whom they vote with the policies that the government adopts. They vote with the same thought and motivation as they choose television shows to watch or sports teams to follow. They are very easily hooked by that which entertains.
I would hope that Coons goes after O’Donnell’s policy choices hard. He needs to force her to defend them because they are not defensible.
Davis X. Machina
@ James E. Powell
True, but based on a faulty premise. Politics isn’t about winning elections, or governing, or policy, good, bad or indifferent. Not today. Not in this country, not now.
Politics is about me, my self-expression. It’s a glorious opportunity for social signaling. It’s a chance to let my friends and neighbors know, via the choices I make in
consumer productscandidates, who I am and how I feel.Why, if I could go to the town clerk’s office and register “Hollister” instead of “Democrat”, I’d do it on my lunch hour tomorrow.
Loneoak
Aw man, I can’t believe I missed this thread. I’m actually writing a paper at the moment about humanized mice, including the experiment that I presume she was trying to talk about. I have a long footnote about stupid shit W. and Santorum said about ‘human-mouse hybrids’ at the time which are entirely different things than chimeras. A human-mouse hybrid would involve sex, but a human-mouse chimera involves injecting a few cells, and these morons never bother to learn the difference.
Left Coast Tom
@James E. Powell:
I don’t see how that’s incompatible with others exposing her as an idiot.
It doesn’t seem that _Coons_ is relying upon repeated postings of “I Touch Myself”, nor should he. But she _is_ an idiot, and nobody inclined to make that point should worry about…touching that point.
mcd410x
Same things we said about George W. Bush.
A two term fucking president.
Blotto von Bismarck
I wonder if she knows the difference between therapeutic cloning and reproductive cloning. Surely she’s studied the issue, what with her concern over these man-beast creatures.
bago
Human brain average weight, 1300 grams. Average mouse weight weight, 20 grams.
Rudy
@J.W. Hamner: Well.. they wouldn’t have been discovered if they didn’t stop to masturbate every thirty seconds. So, in a way she was right all along. Stupid masturbation gene.
Brachiator
In her case, it’s about all she’s got. And if I lived in her state or were a political strategist, I might agree that one should take her more seriously as an opponent.
Fortunately, I can just mock her, and wonder why some voters are reaching deep down into the barrel of dumbfoolery to find people like her.
Odie Hugh Manatee
I don’t care how stupid she is, she is a threat. As crazy as things are now, if I were Coons I would be running against her as if she was going to win. There are a lot of stupid and apathetic in our country and between the two she does stand a chance. Hopefully Coons will focus on her crazy positions and leave the ridiculing of her to the rest of us. We love to point and laugh at stupid so let us do it and he can focus on the issues.
O’Diddily was cute when she was younger but she is starting to look roadworn now. I love brunettes (married one!) but her suspension is too Pontiac for my taste.
Conor Friedersdorf
Its weird to say that the Claremont Institute “birthed me.” A better description would be that they published five or six op-ed length pieces that I wrote early in my career. I got my start at The Student Life and The Inland Valley Daily Bulletin.
SRW1
.
Apparently, Mrs O’Donnel didn’t have the opportunity to read Douglas Adam’s seminal work ‘The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy’. Otherwise she would have known that this kind of a transfer would be a serious regression for mice.
On the other hand, as none of you slackers appears to have realized this issue in the preceding 77 comments either, I’m prepared to give her a pass on that.
kay
@Odie Hugh Manatee:
Well, he is. He’s not discussing her past (he doesn’t have to) and she’s apologizing for it. I think he’s handling it perfectly.
I think there’s a legit question on whether she cares about winning, actually. She’s doesn’t appear to have ever held any long-term job and she’s not 23, she’s 41. She’s a professional candidate.
What’s the downside to her, personally if she loses? She’s already a cable television personality and conservative activist, and she’ll do better financially with that career than in any elective office. Sarah Palin proves that. I could argue she’ll have more power outside government than in it, again looking at Palin. She doesn’t have to win. Conservatives and media will give her a platform win or lose.
There’s a huge upside to losing for a cable tv candidate: she doesn’t have to deliver on any of these promises, and, of course, she can’t.
DougJ
@Conor Friedersdorf:
Okay, I corrected it. I thought you had really started there in some capacity.
kay
@Odie Hugh Manatee:
He was smart enough to stay away from her past statements and positions.
Because you see from her response here what she would have come back with: he’s not a ‘gentleman’. He’s attacking the ‘lady’. Fainting and waving smelling salts would ensue.
We know from Palin’s run that female candidates like Palin think that’s a fruitful line of attack (lipstick-pig) although I personally think it’s manipulative and a bad long-term precedent to set for conservative women who want to run, or really women in general. Obama was smart enough to steer clear too, so Palin had to invent womanly-honor outrage every 4 days.
I do think it’s amusing (and completely hypocritical) that conservative women rely on this tactic so often.
You know, because they’re so tough, what with their affinity for firearms and their jeering references to ‘man pants’.
Someone needs to tell her her past statements and positions are relevant and fair game, because this isn’t a bake sale.
Marc
It’s less fun, but arguably more effective, to focus on her compulsive lying (e.g. about winning elections that she lost, or getting college degrees she didn’t have) or about financial troubles, or frivolous lawsuits (this will be very effective with GOP voters, by the way). The sex stuff will in fact backfire – you want even the religious right to view her as a nutcase, not to view her as a member of the tribe under foul-mouthed assault.
kay
@Marc:
Agree totally.
I think the financial troubles and campaign finance issues are really worthwhile areas to explore. There’s a very consistent pattern there, and it ties nicely into the dishonesty, which can be implied rather than stated.
He doesn’t have to call her a liar. He can just make sure she has to explain who was in charge of what funds, and where they went. She hasn’t declared enough income to live on, and she accepts money from donors. If there were public ‘matching’ funds used, she’s got some explaining to do.
kth
@DougJ:
BTW, “Friedersdork” needs to be a tag, not because Conor is a dork, but because the guy who coined it (Mark Levin) is such an asshole.
Tsulagi
Free market at work. What’s the problem? Oh yeah, forgot, scientists by definition are godless liberals.
Just when you think they can’t get any loonier, you find it was a thin glass ceiling. Can already see the message when Senator O’Donnell runs in ’12 following trailblazer Sarah’s heel steps: Vote Teapublican! Otherwise we’ll be overrun by human ameromice stealing your wifi to download p0rn and masturbate 24/7!
Erik Vanderhoff
Human-animal hybrids? Where’s my army of cloned centaurs?!
Roger the Cabin Boy
So, when you’re breeding humans with mice how exactly, uh, do you work that? Seems it’d be a bit awkward either way…….
And what if you ended up with humans with a fully functioning mouse brains? Well, that would explain the teabaggers…….
Brachiator
@Odie Hugh Manatee:
Hmmm. O’Diddily. How about Christine No’Diddily?
I’m sniffing a conspiracy by the Dairy industry. What kind of cheese might these mutant mice prefer? Half-brie?
oklahomo
You know, I never thought I’d see the day when Oklahoma’s two dingbat Senators started to look not-so-crazy. And they are crazy, but this … this … there are no words, only sounds of despair.
When do we just say fuck it and start appointing horses to the Senate?
jon
“Fully functioning human brains” aren’t necessarily as scary as some would have us believe.
Benjamin Cisco
Humanity would have been better served had O’Dontknowmuch not gone to sleep watching Stuart Little movies.
John Roberts
I don’t know about mice or man pants. I do know about pretty. And O’Donnell is not particularly so. Scott Brown, on the other hand, well now. I was a straight male until I saw him. (Yes, I’m still male.)
Christine does have big teeth and grins a lot, that’s a big plus in American politics and for the Tea Party in particular. They might be Angry at America but by God their candidates do smile.
fcc
Hell, we humans are cross breeding with other humans, and even then we have trouble producing fully functional human brains.