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You are here: Home / Open Threads / Don’t think of an orgy

Don’t think of an orgy

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Cal Thomas on the C Street shuffle:

The house on C Street in Washington D.C. referenced by Gov. Mark Sanford of South Carolina in his stream of consciousness confession of adultery on Wednesday bears no relation to the infamous “little green house on K Street” visited by President Warren Harding and members of his “Ohio gang” for activities that remain shrouded in speculation and innuendo, including unproven charges of sexual orgies.

By contrast, the house on C Street, which was the subject of a front page story in Friday’s Washington Post, has for some years been a gathering place for men and women of differing political persuasions to build relationships across lines that might otherwise divide them based on the life and teachings of Jesus of Nazareth.

[…]

I am told that the few Members of Congress who choose to make the house their temporary residence while in Washington pay an amount of money that would approximate what they would pay if they had rented a similar building in the area. There is no lobbying by people who seek the members’ influence, so far as I know.

I think he doth protest too much.

This is just the kind of piece that’s going to help Jon Meacham lure well-educated, high-information readers back to Newsweek, by the way.

Reader Interactions

38Comments

  1. 1.

    Laura W

    I can not recall a day here on BJ where there were more misleading and disappointing titles.
    I’m going back to Colbert.

  2. 2.

    NobodySpecial

    There is no lobbying by people who seek the members’ influence, so far as I know.

    If we’re having to go on what Cal Thomas knows, then I speculate that they roll in piles of lobbyist money naked in those rooms.

  3. 3.

    Cat Lady

    “Going to C Street” = “going hiking on the AT” for old Republican queens. This is going to get good.

  4. 4.

    Scruffy McSnufflepuss

    If Cal Thomas says it, then that’s good enough for me. This discussion is over.

  5. 5.

    gbear

    If we’re having to go on what Cal Thomas knows, then I speculate that they roll in piles of lobbyist money naked in those rooms.

    …with ‘Ballad Of A Thin Man’ blasting on the stereo.

    Cal always leaves the place with a headache and in a state of vague confusion and wonders why people in the house always tell the best jokes while he’s walking to his car.

  6. 6.

    Comrade Stuck

    I always liked Cal Thomas. Maybe because he was such true believing Dweeb, his Fox show was kind of like watching a Muppet version on the virtues of conservatism.

  7. 7.

    devopsych

    Members Responsible for their own Diaper Service and Wet Suit
    Maintenance. A mighty throbbing Jesus Pancake Breakfast, anteroom, this Sunday. Guest Sermonizer, Jeff Gannon.
    ,

  8. 8.

    Mike in NC

    If Cal Thomas says it, then that’s good enough for me. This discussion is over.

    Jesus H. Christ. Here in rural, coastal NC, we’re subjected to all sorts of wingnut stupidity, most of it leaking over the SC border. This includes the asshole Cal Thomas columns in the awful USA Today, as well as the rotten SC dailies. This fuckwad is a holdover from the Nixon administration who gets to air his Christianist GOP bullshit on a daily basis. He needs to be shot in the face by Dick Cheney.

  9. 9.

    demo woman

    Excellence in journalism!

    There is no lobbying by people who seek the members’ influence, so far as I know.

  10. 10.

    Scruffy McSnufflepuss

    @Mike in NC:

    Jesus H. Christ. Here in rural, coastal NC, we’re subjected to all sorts of wingnut stupidity, most of it leaking over the SC border. This includes the asshole Cal Thomas columns in the awful USA Today, as well as the rotten SC dailies. This fuckwad is a holdover from the Nixon administration who gets to air his Christianist GOP bullshit on a daily basis. He needs to be shot in the face by Dick Cheney.

    Cal Thomas is the greatest living American. I’d be HONORED if Cal Thomas shot me in the face. I wouldn’t let the doctors remove the pellets, because I’d want to keep them burrowed in my cheeks as sacred relics once fired from a gun held in the hands of Cal Thomas Himself.

  11. 11.

    Comrade Jake

    We were getting Newsweek at one point, then switched to The Atlantic. For the life of me I don’t know why we were ever paying for Newsweek.

  12. 12.

    Dennis-SGMM

    “Hey Cal, if we were to go over to a little house on C Street this Friday and you woke up Saturday with a huge hangover, a sore butthole and Vaseline smeared all over your ass would you tell anyone?”
    “No?”
    “Wanna’ go over to a little house on C Street?”

  14. 14.

    JGabriel

    By contrast, the house on C Street, which was the subject of a front page story in Friday’s Washington Post, has for some years been a gathering place for men and women of differing political persuasions …

    So how come I’ve never heard of any Democrats associated with it? Or is it one of those places that only runs the full gamut of Republicans, from fundamentalist to conservative?

    .

  15. 15.

    JGabriel

    Comrade Jake:

    For the life of me I don’t know why we were ever paying for Newsweek.

    What people won’t try to win the Publisher’s Clearinghouse Sweepstakes. It’s a tragedy, it truly is.

    .

  16. 16.

    Dennis-SGMM

    I am told that the few Members of Congress who choose to make the house their temporary residence while in Washington pay an amount of money that would approximate what they would pay if they had rented a similar building in the area stocked with lissome pool boys and barnyard animals.

    Fixt.

  17. 17.

    Kirk Spencer

    @JGabriel:Because you haven’t been looking?

    Jim Slattery (former rep from Kansas). Senator Bill Nelson. Bart Stupak (D-MI). Michael Doyle (D-PA). While Hillary Clinton hasn’t stayed at the place she’s connected to the organization.

    They try to stay out of the limelight. It’s rather frightening when you start digging.

  21. 21.

    iluvsummr

    @gbear: Sounds like he’ll be a fine, upstanding Libertarian presidential candidate for 2012, campaigning naked for the right to bear arms. I’d attend that rally.

  22. 22.

    JGabriel

    Kirk Spencer:

    Because you haven’t been looking?

    Possibly, though I was talking about “the house on C Street”, not “the Family” or “the Fellowship” in general.

    Also, links or cites for the names you reference, please? No point in the rest of us duplicating the work if you’ve already done it.

    .

  23. 23.

    LD50

    Cal Thomas is the greatest living American. I’d be HONORED if Cal Thomas shot me in the face.

    Would you apologize afterwards?

  25. 25.

    trollhattan

    Cal Thomas is Pat Buchanan without the humor or sparkling wit. Also.

    I can’t fathom why they give him column-inches in the local lubrul rag (interspersed with li’l starbursts and spinning bowtie, denim-hating herr Will). Goddamn that equal time doctrine.

  26. 26.

    Comrade Stuck

    It should be noted that dems have their own C Street abode. Instead of a haven for religious wingnuttery, it instead sounds more like Romper Room for un-house aging broke DFH’s.

    SOME of the most powerful Democrats in America are split over a most incendiary household issue: rodents. “I once had to pick up a mouse by the tail that Durbin refused to pick up,” complained Senator Charles E. Schumer of New York, referring to his roommate Senator Richard J. Durbin of Illinois.

    This characterization is not fair to Mr. Durbin, interjected another tenant in the Capitol Hill row house, Representative Bill Delahunt of Massachusetts. For starters, it overlooks Mr. Durbin’s gift for killing rats. “He will kill them with his bare hands,” Mr. Delahunt marveled.

    “Oh, will you stop with the rats,” said the annoyed fourth roommate, Representative George Miller of California. He owns the house and is sensitive to any suggestion that he harbors pestilence. It’s dicey enough that he harbors politicians.

    Think MTV’s “Real World” with a slovenly cast of Democratic power brokers. While Washington may have more than its share of crash pads for policy-debating workaholics, few, if any, have sheltered a quorum as powerful as this one. About a quarter-mile southeast of the Capitol, the inelegantly decorated two-bedroom house has become an unlikely center of influence in Washington’s changing power grid. It is home to the second- and third-ranking senators in the new Democratic majority (Mr. Durbin, the majority whip, and Mr. Schumer, the vice chairman of the Democratic caucus) and the chairman of the House Democratic Policy Committee (Mr. Miller).

    My heroes.

  27. 27.

    MikeJ

    It should be noted that dems have their own C Street abode.

    Splitting rent with housemates is a bit different from waiting for Hale-Bopp with whack jobs that want to take over the US government.

  29. 29.

    kommrade reproductive vigor

    Are we sure this isn’t Ms. Lopez writing under another byline?

    a gathering place for men and women of differing political persuasions to build relationships across lines that might otherwise divide them based on the life and teachings of Jesus of Nazareth.

    Ah yes. The fReichtard defense for everything. Just invoke Jesus twice a day to spread a thick shield of righteousness over the most despicable acts. If the unwashed masses ever question your behaviour you can shout “Shut up or I’ll tell my buddy Jesus on you!”

    Unless you’re a DFH or, God forbid, a kw33r.

    Here’s what I want to know: How is it that 99.9% of the people who spend their time flapping their lips about Jesus (a nice guy by all accounts) are such utter fucking unrepentant douchebags?

  30. 30.

    DougJ

    Splitting rent with housemates is a bit different from waiting for Hale-Bopp with whack jobs that want to take over the US government.

    Amen. If those C Street guys (and they’re not all Republicans, by the way) want to shack up together and pray on their own dime, they’re more than welcome to.

  31. 31.

    Comrade Stuck

    As long as the below is true, I don’t have a problem with what they’re doing, or who owns the house, or what rent they pay/

    There is no lobbying by people who seek the members’ influence, so far as I know.

    Amen. If those C Street guys (and they’re not all Republicans, by the way) want to shack up together and pray on their own dime, they’re more than welcome to.

  32. 32.

    Bruce Webb

    Reports are that they pay $600/month for a ‘room’ (as if they don’t have access to the rest of the joint). Why so cheap? Maybe because the property is carried on the tax rolls as tax-exempt religious.

    Meaning that members of Congress earning $186,000 per year or so are being subsidized further by the other inhabitants of the District.

    This isn’t like splitting the rent on a townhouse four ways.

  33. 33.

    Mary

    Sure is a lot of “I am told”ish references without any “by” tack ons. “I am told [by Jeffrey Dahlmer] that Dahlmer only invited young men over for spiritual fellowship” changes things a bit.

    In any event, Cal doesn’t seem to have touched base with Jeff Sharlet who did the Harper’s piece on The Family.

    I just have to point out that when the friendly Dem and Rep members of Congress combine increasing domestice poverty, backing two wars of aggression, creating millions of refugees, cluster bombings and combining children and white phosphorous, along with promoting the use of depravity and torture — I don’t get any big “hallelujah” goosebumps.

    And when the spiritual teaching they take away is that “King David didn’t resign and he even got to kill his lover’s husband, so why should I resign?” I’m going out on a limb here and saying that the New Testament isn’t a very prominent feature in their study.

  34. 34.

    Mary

    @Comrade Stuck:

    Take a look at that Sharlet article. Interestingly, Cal Thomas gets a mention in it. Sharlet went undercover and lived with the C-Street crew splitting time between Ivanwald and The Cedars. He talks about a southern guy, “Jeff C” who was a part of The Family and who, reacting to Sharlet’s “northern, half-jewish” persona felt pressed to make the point that Jeff C was a better Christian than Sharlet bc Jeff C loved black churches and Jeff C tells Sharlet:

    Loving black people, [Jeff C] told me, made him a better follower of Christ. “Remember that story Cal Thomas told?” he asked. Thomas, a syndicated columnist, had recently stopped by Ivanwald for a mixer with young congressional staffers. He had regaled his audience with stories about tweaking his liberal colleagues, in particular about when he had addressed a conference of nonbelievers by asking if anyone knew where to buy a good “negro.” Jeff C. thought it was hilarious but also profound. What Thomas had meant, he told me, was that absent the teachings of Jesus there was no reason for the strong not to enslave the weak.

    Hmm, Thomas doesn’t seem to mention his mixers at C Street and buying good negro jokes in his defense piece, does he?

  35. 35.

    Dave S.

    Having recently moved from Capitol Hill after nearly 20 years’ residence there, I call bullshit on “$600 will get you the equivalent elsewhere on Capitol Hill.” That is all.

  36. 36.

    Mike G

    What Thomas had meant, he told me, was that absent the teachings of Jesus there was no reason for the strong not to enslave the weak.

    What Thomas really admitted, without intending, was that absent his ‘Christianity’, he would have no moral compunction against owning slaves.

    So he has no inherent moral standards, just fear of punishment under his belief system if he acts on his real impulses.

    As for the strong enslaving the weak (and the connected exploiting and making suckers out of the non-connected), that is essentially the underpinning of Republican crony capitalism.

  38. 38.

    Slaney Black

    @Comrade Jake:

    We were getting Newsweek at one point, then switched to The Atlantic. For the life of me I don’t know why we were ever paying for Newsweek.

    Give it a couple months. You’ll be wondering the same thing about the Atlantic.

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