On October 14th, 2010 after one too many bourbons someone (I won’t say who) might have drunkenly logged into GoDaddy.com and purchased a bunch of domain names with delusions of being the next great web media titan. One address in that batch of domains was thedrunkenconservatives.com. That’s right folks, October 14th marks the one-year anniversary of The Drunken Conservatives. It’s been a long, booze soaked, road where done everything from stirring up crap with the local Republicans in Phoenix to Dr. Suessian rebuttals to smoking bans in Minnesota. We’ve had a great time doing it and we appreciate everyone who has visited our little site over the past 12 months.
If you’re a regular reader of The Drunken Conservatives you might have noticed some changes recently. We have been posting fewer articles, removed some features, and the headlines haven’t been updated as much. You could be be asking your “What’s the deal guys?” Have we been off on a boozy Vegas bender living the high life with celebrities? Are we spending all our free time sitting in our smokey, leather clad drawing rooms having heated discussions with Charles Krauthammer and George Will about the future of conservatism? Are we having problems getting Internet connectivity from our yacht anchored off the Azores during our around-the-world cruise? While all of these scenarios are totally, 100% plausible they are not the reason why our little blog is seemingly losing some steam. The incredibly boring reality is that we have both gotten very busy in our personal lives and that has taken away from our ability to consistently crank out quality content that we would proud to show off to our legions (ok…dozens) of fans.
To be perfectly frank the site hasn’t grown as much as we’d hoped it would so when the one year anniversary of The Drunken Conservatives came about we were faced with a choice: Do we want to keep the site going or do we call it a blog and go our merry ways. Our decision falls somewhere in the middle. The Drunken Conservatives will stay up, but we won’t be posting on any sort of regular basis. We don’t want to take down all of the articles that we’ve worked on over the past year because there are many people who have stumbled onto the site by searching for random things that we’ve covered and found it very useful. In addition to that our highly tuned political instincts tell us that 2012 might be a big year for politics so we will still be posting occasionally when there is something we feel we need to weigh in on. There just won’t be any rhyme or reason to when that happens. If you still want to keep up with what we’re doing the best way to do so is to like us on Facebook. If we have something to say that’s how we’ll announce new content.
Blogging on a regular basis has been a fun and intellectually stimulating way to spend our free time and if anyone has something they’d like to blog about we’d highly recommend you do so. It’s easier than you think to get started and if you’d like some advice we’d be happy help. Thanks to everyone who has encouraged and supported us over the last year. We really do appreciate it. Now, it’s time for us to go have some cocktails. We hope you’ll do the same.
-Jeffry Kohl & R. Patrick Sullivan
Teddy Kennedy.
The very name sends conservatives into fits even after the man’s death.
I could write about his family legacy or his role in pushing massive, crappy liberal legislation through the Senate, but instead, I’m going to talk about the man’s drinking, because…
Teddy had a thirst.
Teddy’s thirst began in earnest after the assassination of his second brother, Robert Kennedy. Maybe feeling the tremendous weight of the Kennedy family legacy on him for the first time made Teddy feel that he needed to repress his anxieties and feelings of inadequacy with the bottle. After all, up until this point, even though he was a Senator from Massachusetts, Teddy was seen oftentimes more as the family screw-up, or the “lesser” of three great brothers more than anything else. After Robert’s assassination, Teddy was the only man to carry on the legacy for the Kennedy name. Almost immediately after Robert’s assassination folks started to talk about Kennedy being the ’72 Democratic nominee to take on Nixon, but Teddy was beginning to get thirsty, and that unshakable thirst would keep him from the White House.
In April, 1969, Kennedy went on a fact finding trip to Alaska with other Senators. They were up there to report on the conditions the native Alaskans lived in. Teddy, it seemed was up to report on the conditions in the local bars as he looked for a new one to camp out in at each stop. His drunken shenanigans on that trip were generally covered up by reporters. Other Senators along for the trip were disgusted by Kennedy’s antics. For instance, on the flight back to the continental states, Teddy began sipping from a flask that formerly belonged to his brother Bobby. Soon good and tight, Teddy began sprinting up and down the aisle of the plane yelling “Eskimo Power!” Then Kennedy started wildly belowing throughout the plane about how he was going to get his “ass shot off” like Bobby. Frantic aides tried to sooth the soused Senator, but his glassy-eyed, disheveled and rumpled form could not be fixed. Upon landing though, Teddy picked up his son and used the child to shield his terrible, scotch-soaked appearance from the waiting press cameras.
Just a couple of months later in July of 1969, Kennedy’s thirst permanently derailed his Presidential ambitions. Teddy was at a party on Chappaquiddick Island on Martha’s Vineyard that was a reunion of sorts for women who worked on Bobby’s Presidential campaign. We’ll never know for sure if Teddy was drunk or not, but it was a summer party with lots of pretty girls and his wife wasn’t around. I’ll let you do the math.
Around 11:15pm, Teddy decided to take the keys from his driver and give Mary Jo Kopechne a lift home even though she left her purse and room key behind at the party. Teddy drove off a bridge and as the car began sinking in the water, got out of the vehicle himself. Then… who knows what happened. Teddy says he dove over and over again to get Mary Jo out. Then he went back to get two chums from the party to help dive for her. Failing to get her out, Teddy says he swam across a huge channel with dangerous currents back to the mainland, and drifted off into a peaceful sleep. The next morning he was joking with fellow hotel guests before his two chums got to the hotel and started to yell at him for not calling any authorities. Finally the three went back to the island where Ted made two calls… to friends and advisors, not the police. During this time the car had been seen and reported. The police, with the help of a diver, got Mary Jo’s dead body out of the car. Teddy heard about the police being involved, made a few more calls to some advisors, and then finally took the ferry back to mainland Edgartown and made a statement to the police, some ten hours after the incident occurred.
Much later it was reported Teddy would ask people if they had heard any good Chappaquiddick jokes lately. He also named his dog Splash.
Many questions remain about the incident to this day, but one fact remains, it made Teddy even thirstier.
Teddy began to go wild in Washington DC in the seventies. The town, filled with hard-drinking politicians, was nonetheless shocked at Teddy’s propensity for liquor and chasing women.
He missed out on the ‘72 and ’76 elections and spent his time carousing in DC, while his wife tried to keep their family going in Massachusetts. To deal with the constant stories of Teddy’s infidelities and the embarrassment of Chappaquiddick, Teddy’s wife Joan developed her own drinking problem.
Finally in 1979, Teddy decided to challenge the incumbent President, Jimmy Carter for the Democratic nomination. According to the book, Rendezvous with Destiny by Craig Shirley, Teddy needed to get himself in better shape for the campaign. Teddy lost some weight by giving up ice cream. Also, there were public questions about his alcoholic wife, but those truly in the know knew Kennedy had his own problems with hooch. To get himself under some kind of control, Teddy tried to curtail his boozing, which was proving to be a challenge as a normal Washington DC lunch could turn into a Bacchanalian feast if Teddy was around:
Teddy also liked the sauce. A prominent Boston politician was in Washington on business and had lunch with the senator. Prior to dining, Kennedy polished off a couple of highballs, then plowed through an exceptional amount of wine during their meal and afterward downed a couple of snifters of Courvoisier. Kennedy’s guest, himself no stranger to drink, was nonetheless aghast at the senator’s prodigious noontime thirst and asked Kennedy, “Do you do this every day?” Kennedy sheepishly replied, “Yeah pretty much.”
Teddy lost the nomination to the incumbent Carter and resumed his own wild ways in Washington during the eighties. Here are some snapshots:
- Once he tried to lure a sixteen year old staffer and her friend into his limo for a little fun by waving a wine bottle out the window and propositioning her.
- Involved in a barroom fight at 2am with a heckler in New York
- Senator Chris Dodd and Teddy smashed each other’s autographed pictures in a DC restaurant while both out of their minds on the sauce
- Senator Chris Dodd and Teddy also drunkenly tried to have a public three way with a waitress in another DC restaurant by forming a “waitress sandwich” (Senator + Waitress + Senator) on the floor
- At an uptight Nantucket dinner party, guests looked on in horror as Teddy made a bawdy toast and then tried to seduce the daughter of the host.
Welcome to another Chapter in the DC Book Club.
Dick Cheney.
I like him and I thoroughly enjoyed reading his new memoir, called In My Time: A Personal and Political Memoir
Cheney came from a very solidly middle class if not lower middle class background and from a family of staunch Democrats. His high school years in Wyoming with his now wife Lynne, who was also his childhood sweetheart, were truly the stuff of an Ozzie and Harriet ideal 1950s existence. But it’s here that Dick veered off course a little. He got a scholarship to Yale yet flunked out due to low grades and hard partying. He then went into manual labor and freely enjoyed his shots and beers at the end of a tough day with his coworkers. Two DUIs followed. While sitting in jail for the second one, Cheney vowed to turn his life around and here is where the political journey really takes off.
Cheney seemed to always be in the right place at the right time and know the right people to have his career continually moved up in Washington DC. Dick’s dedication to the job, intelligence, and hard working demeanor only helped him along. Truly a self made man, Dick’s rise was always due to his own merits rather than an influential family member pulling the strings.
Cheney shares his stories candidly from his days as Chief of Staff in the Ford Administration all the way up to the Vice Presidency with a stint as Secretary of Defense in between. He tells who he agreed with and who he didn’t. He also tells about times he thinks he acted wrongly in retrospect, although most of the time, he discusses times he thought he was right and administrations wouldn’t listen to him.
While Afghanistan and Iraq take up a lot of the VP years, surprisingly so does North Korea. Cheney spends a lot of time talking about how he was in disagreement with both the State Department and ultimately the President on their North Korea policy and seems pretty bitter on the course that was ultimately chosen.
Ever expect a huge disaster and then are pleasantly surprised? That’s what I encountered when I dealt with the Phoenix public works department last week.
My city-supplied trash can was falling apart and I needed a new one. I was definitely dreading dealing with the bureaucracy to get a new one, but I couldn’t put it off any longer and gave the city a ringie dingie.
There was no number on the trash can, so I called the water department as I’m billed for my trash services on the water bill.
The nice person (!) at the water department told me I needed to call public works and gave me the number. After calling, in somewhat record time I had an actual person on the phone. I explained my problem and she looked up my record. She claimed the city showed I had two trash cans, but I assured her I had only one. She told me I needed to leave it out and they’d be by in the next five or so business days to get it. If it wasn’t done in a week’s time, I should call back. This was on a Thursday. She also helpfully suggested I let me HOA know I would be leaving my trash can out.
Ok, so far so good.
I tried to contact my HOA to no avail, so when I got home and put the container out, I put a note on it explaining that I needed to leave it out. I never got a nasty gram from the HOA so I’m assuming someone on the board can read.
Anyhoo, by Tuesday when I left for work, the container was not picked up, but they still had a couple of days to get it. Later that day I was called by a Connie at the public works department. She wanted to check things out with me.
This has nothing to do with politics, but it does have to do with booze so I figured it was fair game for TDC. I have long maintained that babies and toddlers are just little tiny drunks. Now this brilliant trailer for the short movie “Las Palmas” by Johannes Nyholm has proven it beyond a shadow of a doubt. I hope you laugh as much as I did.
If you’ve paid attention to politics at all over the last week you know that speculation 
about whether or not New Jersey Governor (and one of TDC’s favorite politicians) Chris Christie would jump into the Presidential race has been hot and heavy. General dissatisfaction with the GOP field has left many major donors on the sidelines waiting for a Reaganesque white knight to ride in and save the GOP from the likes of a bumbling Rick Perry & wishy washy Mitt Romney. Christie has repeatedly said that he won’t run for President in this election cycle and he reaffirmed that last night in a speech to at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library.
I have gone back and forth over whether or not Christie should run but for the most part I’ve come down on the side that he sit this one out. Don’t get me wrong, I love Chris Christie. I don’t love him like I love my wife. I have no desire to make out with him or spoon with him on a cold winter night (even though I’m sure he’d be plenty warm). I even own the domain chrischristiefanclub.com and hopefully one of these days I’ll actually have time to build it out. I think he’s the most refreshing politician to come along in years, maybe in decades. I find his straightforward, unapologetic style a welcome change from bland breed of poll driven, interest group pandering politicians that dominate the landscape in Washington today. I love that he’s not afraid to make people mad even if it’s at the cost of some endorsements. I certainly don’t agree with him all the time, but I think he could be the that white knight that brings disenfranchised conservatives like myself back to believing that the GOP is something worth fighting for.
So why would I rather him sit this round of elections out? Good question. The reason is this: If there’s one thing we should have learned by having Barack Obama in the White House it’s that experience counts. It’s tough to believe but Christie has only been in office for two years and I think in his heart he knows that’s not enough time to prepare him to be President. For me, one of Christie’s endearing qualities is that that he is confident in his ideas and willing to be confrontational, but still retains the humility to admit that he might not be ready to be President. We live in the age where politicians can become rock stars overnight and that distorts our perception of their abilities. Just because you can make a good speech and people want you to run doesn’t necessarily mean that you are ready for the big time (Right Mr. President?). As bad as this GOP field is my instincts tell me that Christie follow the path that Sarah Palin should have followed: Stay in office, become a seasoned executive and prove that conservative ideas do work. To me, that’s building something for the future rather than just taking advantage of the whims of the moment.
I certainly won’t shed any tears if he does decide to jump into the race but my fear is that it’s too late and he might actually damage his credibility if he gets in now. I would rather see him build his brand & become a seasoned leader. Now stranger things can certainly happen (remember McCain was considered down and out at this point in the last election cycle) but I have a feeling that, as painful as it is, conservatives might be stuck with the turkeys that are running right now. Lord help us all.
-JK
As frontrunner Rick Perry continues to have subpar debate performances, the question remains for conservatives and Republicans. Who will lead us?
If you’re a reader of conservative blogs and commentaries you’ve already known that Perry’s record on immigration was pretty soft. Apparently being very pro business in Texas (which is a good thing) requires one to be pro illegal immigration to keep that cheap labor coming across the border (which is a bad thing). The issue though for me wasn’t Perry’s stance so much as how he would handle answering questions about it. And in the latest Fox news debate, he didn’t answer questions about it too well. He also just didn’t look good in general. Conservative voters are watching these debates, Governor Perry. It is time to start brushing up and practicing. Romney obviously takes these debates seriously and it shows.
Of course the media is pushing for Romney. They see another McCain (with better hair) waiting to be put up as a sacrificial lamb against “The One,” but it doesn’t have to be like that. The media is preaching that Romney is the only one who can win swing states. However, this would be a time where true economic conservatism, when communicated effectively, could really win the day in all fifty states. It appears so far that Perry is not the one to communicate such a message well. And Romney is keeping to a playbook of Democratic-lite in these debates. Does Romney really have it in his soul to go after the jugular against Obama in a way that McCain wouldn’t in 2008? I ultimately don’t think he does.
It’s getting disheartening, because Obama is becoming increasingly beatable the more this thing moves forward, but no clear front-runner has emerged to take him on effectively on our side. I think Perry has less serious liberal mistakes in his background than Romney does, but he better start explaining them better and practicing his message. Herman Cain is the only candidate to actually release a detailed economic plan he actually runs on, but while winning the latest straw poll in Florida, he hasn’t really caught on with conservatives or Americans in general.
Who will take the mantle, run a serious campaign and beat Obama in 2012 before the country truly slides off a cliff?
Who will lead us?
-R. Patrick Sullivan
I came across a fun website, and got little work done on the job the past two afternoons.
You need to check out The Suits of James Bond Website by clicking here. What does this have to do with politics? Not much I must admit. However, I figured since we review Bond novels, we could also talk about what he wears on these hallowed internet “pages.” Bond does like to drink, so that’s a good enough reason to include him here for me.
The Suits of Bond website goes into quite some detail mainly covering the many looks of the film James Bond, but also delves into the fashions of the literary 007 as well.
Do you like Connery’s narrow lapelled grey checked suits? Perhaps instead you’re more into Roger Moore’s fat ties and safari look. They’re all there including Dalton’s rumpled look, Brosnan’s Brioni suits, and that great dinner jacket Daniel Craig wore in Casino Royale. Don’t even think I could forget Lazenby’s atrocious golf outfit from On Her Majesty’s Secret Service. It’s covered too.
The level of detail on suits by the author of the site is mind boggling with even calls being place to Sir Roger’s old tailor for research. The author also talks quite a bit about the fashion don’ts that have cropped up in the Bond films.
It’s Friday and you’re probably dreaming of weekend cocktails. Your mission, should you choose to accept it is to secretly while away the hours at work killing time until the whistle blows by visiting the fashion stylings of one Mr. Bond, James Bond at the Suits of James Bond.
-R Patrick Sullivan.