The house-sized egos of people like Larry Craig and Bob Allen prevent them from letting go of political power, even as they face humiliation by their colleagues. It’s amazing. Look at what is happening to the pottysex-trawling Florida State Rep representing Merritt Island.
How humiliating is it for Bob? He’s been stripped of his committee chairmanship, his GOP colleagues are running the other way and Bob’s been banished to a corner seat near freshman Democrats. He hasn’t gotten the hint. It probably didn’t help that when he was arrested, he said to the officer “I don’t suppose it would help if I said I was a state legislator, would it?”State Rep. Bob Allen plans to miss a court hearing in his criminal case this week to return to a place he could find equally unpleasant: the Florida House.
“I suspect it will be extremely difficult and uncomfortable for him during the special session,” said Aubrey Jewett, a political science professor at the University of Central Florida. “The leadership has made it clear they want him gone.”
Allen, R-Merritt Island, is scheduled to go on trial Nov. 5 on charges of offering to pay $20 to perform a sex act on a male undercover police officer in a public park. He has said he is innocent.
Or maybe it was the litany of preposterous excuses. You know:
* Allen said he went to the bathroom to avoid a lightning storm that was about to start.
* According to his statement he was intimidated by the “stocky black guy” (the police officer) and there “was nothing but other black guys around in the park” and that he believed that he was about to be robbed.
* He also said that — he plans to run for the state Senate in 2010: “I’m waiting for the politics to say it’s OK to hug Bob Allen again — and they will.”
Howie Klein has more on Allen and Craig.
10 Responses to “Florida’s Bob “BJ” Allen getting GOP cold shoulder”
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I guess the lesson here is if you’re a white guy in a public toilet and the only other occupant is a stocky black guy who for whatever reason makes you feel intimidated, you should offer to blow him. Hmm.
I think I get it. If I, being a small white guy, am ever in a public toilet and feel intimidated by the presence of a “stocky” black guy–I should offer to blow him. Hmm.
Don’t forget David “Diaper Boy” Vetter.
Many GOPers carry water for their party, but Vetter is carrying a load.
Preposterous excuses: he went to the bathroom to avoid a lightning storm … he was intimidated by the “stocky black guy”
Outside it’s all arrogance, but (owwww) you can smell the deep-dish fear under the arrogance that their time of unquestioned, heirarchical authority has passed and it’s not coming back. They can’t just go roust a stocky black guy (for sham) and not have community blowback.
IMO, the ones that are fighting most viciously are the flying monkeys who have been behind the PTBs like camp followers, waiting for an in or for the one-armed slot machine they’ve been feeding quarters to pay off.
After his Senatorial ID didn’t deter the arrest and it became public, Craig had to spin it as error and try to extort support from his cronies (which he may still get, though unlikely.)
Correction, bicmon: You should offer to blow him and give him $20. I think the cash transfer somehow wards off lightning strikes.
Is the comments queue broken? My browzer (Mozilla) said the comments wouldn’t load, and my earlier comment, between 3 & 4, didn’t get off the queue. (NBD if it got sucked into the ether; I’m on public WIFI and am continually tweaking my security settings for an easy 2=way exchange to the inner netz so it may have been chewed in transmission.) Sorry for the tech-belch.
Oh good, another excuse to point out John Scalzi’s hilarious post on the whole “stocky black guy” angle. Sample quote:
What I find rather interesting is that Allen must believe, in some dim fashion, that people will actually buy this, and more than buy this, agree with it, which is to say that Allen believes that the average Floridan would think to himself or herself, “why, yes, when confronted with a park full of black men, a white man turning himself into some sort of ATM/suction device combo is an entirely rational response.”
“I’m waiting for the politics to say it’s OK to hug Bob Allen again — and they will.”
Bob has a long wait. House Speaker Marco Rubio wants Allen to disappear.
The two major Florida conservative blogs (Peer Review and State of Sunshine) have been silent on the Allen issue.
Unrelated topic: thanks for the Fasano post, Pam.
Is he going to start offering his fellow Republicans $20 bucks each to get them to sit next to him?
“I’m waiting for the politics to say it’s OK to hug Bob Allen again — and they will.”
Guess he’s thinking he’ll up the kitty to forty bucks and a BJ.