I always wonder if people in Iowa get tired of their unique role in national politics:
Ankeny police charged a staffer for Republican Tim Pawlenty’s political action committee with public intoxication and trespassing early this morning after he banged on a stranger’s door and tried to enter what he thought was his home, records show.
Ankeny Police Lt. Ed Hamilton said Stacy and Kevin Steward, of 1805 S. W. 38th St. in Ankeny, called 911 to report that a drunken man was trying to enter their home. Police found an intoxicated Foster in the yard and asked him what he was looking for, Hamilton said. He said he was trying to go to the home of his friend, state Rep. Erik Helland, R-Johnston, where he’s been staying.
The Steward family told KCCI-TV that Foster vomited in their backyard and scared their 15-year-old daughter, who went to investigate why the family dog was barking at 3 a.m. and found Foster trying to get in the back door.
“His arm was in my back door, trying to get in, and I screamed and I went upstairs to my parents’ room and I continued screaming,” Chloe Steward told the television station. “And then my dad opened his safe and got his gun out, and just stayed inside.”
Best of all, this seems to be his full name:
Ben Limbaugh Foster
h/t here
shortstop
This is by far the most exciting moment of the Pawlenty campaign, past, present or future.
piratedan
no doubt, he didn’t even to remember to ask the Stewards how they felt about Pawlenty….
calipygian
If he was anything like his namesake, he would have been high on oxy and trying to break into the house of a teenage boy.
GregB
His sister is Ayn Limbaugh Reagan-Thatcher.
tkogrumpy
Filed under making our tribe feel good.
p.a.
sounds like a setup- what kind of counter tops are in that kid’s house?
Lavocat
From the You Just Can’t Make This Shit Up Department.
“Vote Pawlenty or we’re gonna send over some drunken college kids to puke in yer yard at 3 in the morning!”
Not the greatest slogan for election. But it IS catchy!
Trinity
@calipygian: FTW!
Backbencher
The best part is the address he gave to the police when he was arrested is the home address of the Republican whip in the Iowa House of Representatives
Marmot
Oh man. But for the grace of FSM go I.
Except for the middle name. What the hell?
Edit: And the Republican part too. Again, what the hell?
Zifnab
Would it be inappropriate to suggest 2nd Amendment remedies at this time?
Bulworth
I really hate when that happens.
joeyess
Now, if Limbaugh were a normal person and read this story, one could imagine him shaking his head in exasperation while muttering “stupid fucks” under his breath.
Alas, Limbaugh isn’t a normal person and this will probably be viewed by him as a sign that he is truly admired by real ‘murkins.
PaulW
Damn, this makes me feel old. When the kids we named after the blowhard we grew up listening to from the 1980s onward are now old enough to get arrested on their own… sniff… (begins singing “Circle of Life”)
Ash Can
@shortstop: Hell of a lot more exciting than Pawlenty himself could ever be, I’m sure.
Poopyman
I don’t see what any of this has to do with Andrew Sullivan.
"Serious" Superluminar
Does Andrew Sullivan have anything to say about this?
"Serious" Superluminar
@Poopyman
aww, beat me to it. Still, I guess it’s appropriate we have multiple posts mentioning him…
joeyess
A new thingamajigger for the revolving dewhickey at the top of the page.
Ben Limbaugh Foster Puked in My Yard!
I would write a book with that title but I wouldn’t know where to begin.
cleek
if that was my name, i’d change my middle name the second i was legally able. then i’d change my first name because it would probably remind me of that middle name. then i’d change my last name, to punish my parents for being so fucking stupid.
i’d become Cleek Awesome Bratwurst.
Paul in KY
@Zifnab: I would suggest in a real emergency that the weapon (not necessarily a gun) be a little more handy than inside a safe.
joeyess
@cleek:
That’s hilarious.
Bill Murray
@Bulworth: really. How big does the safe have to be for dad to crawl inside. and how big was the gun that needed to be removed so that dad could stay inside the safe?
Chris Wolf
Nothing more pathetic than a Tuesday night drunk.
Paul in KY
@joeyess: The naming of young ‘Limbaugh’. Oughta be a story in there to warm an ole teabagger’s bag.
gnomedad
OT, holy shit:
Doctor Who rehabilitates President Nixon
I assume the 18 minute gap will be addressed.
asiangrrlMN
@cleek: Bwahahahhahhaha! First belly laugh of the day.
You know what they say: any publicity is good publicity–especially when you have the personality of a limp dish rag like Chimp Pawlenty.*
*And, it’s still pub by proxy, which is fitting as Pawlenty can’t generate any sparks on his own.
MikeJ
This sounds like the set up for a Hillary Clinton campaign commercial.
“When the Republicans come to throw up in your back yard at three in the morning, who do you want…”
jibeaux
He stuck his arm in the door of a fifteen year old girl whose dad had a gun? This story ended remarkably well for Ben Limbaugh Foster.
Bill Murray
@cleek: would your first child then be Mashie Johnsonville Bratwurst?
kay
@asiangrrlMN:
I’m going to continue to pretend he was canvassing:)
We don’t know. This might be how they’re training them in GOP circles.
jibeaux
@cleek:
And yes, that is awesome. I just had a smoked kielbasa at J. Betski’s, that comes with the little fries with paprika mayo. If you haven’t been there, you have to try that. I have to limit my visits there to once a month. I am German and genetically engineered to seek out smoked meats, though.
aimai
I missed the headline the first time I read this post. Can haz rotating tag, plz? I think this deserves to be its own category.
aimai
chopper
just cut out part of the sentence and it sounds much more interesting.
maya
This: Osama Ben Limbaugh Foster
Much better.
Joey Maloney
I just want to say – I’ve been a canvass crew manager. This is far from the worst thing I ever saw happen in the field.
Mnemosyne
Amateur. Robert Downey Jr. actually managed to get inside the wrong house and fall asleep in their kid’s bed.
gnomedad
One of Rush’s exes re-married?
cleek
@jibeaux:
mmm J. Betski’s. yum, indeed. wife and i are both German-ish, too.
Woodrowfan
He was born about 1987. Was Limbaugh even a big radio host yet, or was he still a small-timer somewhere??
Jay in Oregon
@gnomedad:
There’s a teaser on the BBC website that shows Nixon talking to the Scary Little Girl on the phone and you see a reel-to-reel running in a couple of scenes. So my guess is, yes.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/doctorwho/dw/videos/p00fxf06
EDIT: Hey, that link doesn’t work in the US anymore. Foul!
noodler
“Foster was hired as a full-time Iowa aide last fall and moved here from Alabama, where he graduated from college in 2009. The hire signaled that Pawlenty, a two-term Minnesota governor who didn’t seek re-election last fall, was seriously seeking the Republican presidential nomination.”
Hiring this clown signals TPAW’s serious? On the other hand, a mid week bender can hit the spot from time to time. Is it a long drive back to IA from WI? Where was he on Tuesday evening?
cleek
@Woodrowfan:
i think he started doing political talk in 84, but wasn’t nationally syndicated till 88.
Laertes
That’s commendable good judgment on the part of the dad. If he’d tried that at the houses of several gun owners I’ve known in my time, they’d definitely have shot him.
Many (though not all) of the gun owners I know clearly lusted to put a bullet in someone, and spent a good deal of their time fantasizing about the day they finally got to do it. They’d spend a lot of time discussing the fine points of the laws about when you were or weren’t permitted to use deadly force, but mostly just agreed that it was better to err on the side of killing. They had a little mantra they loved to repeat:
“Better to be judged by twelve than to be carried by six.”
These guys would get a huge hard-on reading that story. Drunken idiot, arm through the door, frightened daughter? Door and canvasser would each have 6 to 16 holes in them. (Depends on whether it was whats-his-name with his Ruger Super Redhawk or whats-his-name with his Glock with the special magazine.)
scav
@Jay in Oregon: Moff could just leave The Doctor as the motivating force that started Nixon recording everything — although he could also plant the seed about fixing problems by erasing irritating bits (entirely doctoroid). I’m also unavoidably reminded of the reel-to-reel in The Empty Child which was another Moffat effort, no? Ah, The Oncoming Obsession to ease the pain of mere reality. ETA: Ah, it was Gatiss that last used the erasing tape solution wasn’t it. /geek (I hope)
trollhattan
@Laertes:
The moment that gun was released from the safe, freedom rang out all over Ankeny, Iowa. With Liberty Sauce(tm).
We know where the middle name came from, but is Ben for Ben Stein? Because that would rule.
My bro lives in Nashua, NH, and is far too acquainted with primary poly tikking. Poor sod is already inundated.
Jay C
@Woodrowfan:
YMMV, but Rush Limbaugh IS “still a small-timer” – just with a larger audience.
@scav:
It may just a personal quirk (and the subject for for a separate thread), but AFAIC, the worst foe Dr. Who has ever encountered – worse than The Master, worse than the Daleks – is one Steven Moffat. His other on-screen foes have usually tried, and consistently failed to destroy the Doctor: Moffat, by ripping out the character’s soul (and replacing it with Matt Smith) seems to have succeeded where the others failed….
Comrade Scrutinizer
@scav: Gotta say, though, that I like Moffat better as a writer than as show-runner. Not enjoying this incarnation as much as the last two (although Gillian’s easy on the eyes.)
Lol
@9: Close but the actual best bit is that his Republican host got busted for a DUI last year. Can’t make this shit up.
Comrade Scrutinizer
@Jay C: And Crayola Daleks? Srsly? Davros is turning in his salt cellar!
scav
@Comrade Scrutinizer: Agreed on Moffat as writer over runner although I’m totally for a post-RTDavies revamp (many good stories, simply hated the season enders). But I’m rather liking M.Smith as he’s brought back the seriously odd. Less said about those Daleks the better although I rank the bloody spitfires and the shark carriage as even worse. Oh, and as Ben Foster is the conductor for the Welsh National Orchestra of Wales we almost make topical, although a dedicated thread is probably to be desired.
SRW1
Am I right in thinking that if dad had followed Republican-favored use of his gun, there would now likely be one entry of ‘Limbaugh’ in the ‘intruder shot on sight’ statistics.
shortstop
@Joey Maloney: Don’t tease us! Tell us stories! I’ll ask Cole to make us a pot of tea.
TooManyJens
@scav:
They really were one train wreck after another, weren’t they? He just could not string a coherent story together to save his life. Instead he would just throw more and more shit in the pot — Daleks and Cybermen! Tinkerbell!Jesus!Doctor! Everyone’s the Master! Everyone’s the Doctor! Oh, look, Rose is back again! And I’m seriously never forgiving him for what he did to Donna.
JR
Not positive, but I think this is the same Ben Foster who ran the University of Alabama Students for McCain ’08 organization.
Going from that to drunkenly puking in the backyard of a random stranger’s house is, I believe, what’s called a “lateral move” in human resources circles.
Gustopher
There’s more to this story that people keep missing: T-Paw is corrupting the youth of America.
Young master Limbaugh never puked in someone’s yard at 3am on a Tuesday before getting involved with T-Paw’s wicked web of decadence. What other sins has that poor boy been led to by the dark powers of T-Paw’s tempting?
ThatLeftTurnInABQ
@gnomedad:
Spoiler alert.
They trace the call and find out that it is coming from inside the house!
[cue scary music…]
JR
@shortstop: I can’t really say this one is a topper, but a race I worked in Florida involved a shitload of paid canvassers brought in for the last two months. A few weeks before the election one of our canvassers got himself arrested at 2:30 in the morning at a gas station after telling a cop to go fuc& himself. He got taken down to the station, gave his employer as our campaign, and gave his job as “Political Operative.” He was on a plane back home by ten a.m., his face and a description of his arrest were on the internet by noon, and the reporters were calling by 2:00.
Will737
Now that Blog Headline was just mean. [OK I admit I’m laughing.]
It looks to me like the arch conservatives are out to get this guy, and by doing so, get Pawlenty. Look at the incredible detail in the Houston (not exactly a local interest there) FOX News piece that was the first detailed piece that appeared on the web. It included the fact that Benjamin Foster was the first full-time hire that the Pawlenty campaign made in all of Iowa. It included the fact that Ben Foster was staying with Iowa Republican State Rep. Erik Hellan, “who was charged with drunken driving just last year” and the “reported fact” that Eric Hellan is also a Pawlenty supporter. Now no one but Republicans would have detail like that. Especially this seems true given that Pawlenty’s campaign or Ben Foster himself basically erased Ben Foster from the web entirely. Gone are: facebook, twitter, flickr, linked, etc.
Plus, this Houston FOX News report goes on and on at great length with someone from an anti-Drunk Driving organization about DUI being a “violent crime” and about enabling, etc. All this is despite the fact that DUI was not actually charged yet at last look, and despite the fact that no one was actually hurt here. See http://www.myfoxhouston.com/dp…