July 7, 2012

Thaddeus McCotter — after "nightmarish month and a half" — resigns from Congress.

He says:
The recent event’s totality of calumnies, indignities and deceits have weighed most heavily upon my family. Thus, acutely aware one cannot rebuild their hearth of home amongst the ruins of their U.S. House office, for the sake of my loved ones I must ‘strike another match, go start anew’ by embracing the promotion back from public servant to sovereign citizen.”
The quote about the match is from Bob Dylan.

And what will he do now? He says he faces "diminishing prospects" and is "both unwilling and ill-suited to lobby," but I think it's pretty obvious he's got a cool personal style and a way with words. And he's made a TV pilot:
"Bumper Sticker: Made On Motown" starred McCotter hosting a crude variety show cast with characters bearing the nicknames of his congressional staffers, his brother and a drunk, perverted "Black Santa." They take pot shots about McCotter's ill-fated bid for the White House while spewing banter about drinking, sex, race, flatulence, puking and women's anatomy....



Asked who would find the humor in the script funny, McCotter said... the show was "deliberately designed to be a train wreck" to further assault the dignity of the central character — McCotter the host, who is already humiliated from the presidential run....
S.E. Cupp appears in the pilot episode:
McCotter tries to ask serious questions of the columnist, while his sidekicks chime in by asking how she "keeps that great stripper bod?" and whether "D-Cupp" is dating anyone. In the script, Cupp is disgusted by the "train wreck" of the show.

It's unclear whether Cupp knew of her role in the pilot. Reached by e-mail, she didn't want to talk about McCotter.

McCotter also casts Stephen K. Bannon, the conservative filmmaker, as the reluctant producer of "Bumper Sticker." In the show, Bannon is not amused McCotter doesn't have a second guest lined up and McCotter has to interview Bannon instead.

Reached by phone, Bannon, who now runs Breitbart's media enterprise, said he didn't realize McCotter cast him in the script. He recalls McCotter emailing him an earlier version, but he chalked it up to "musings" McCotter would send periodically to Breitbart and himself after his presidential run failed.
This sounds like a fact pattern for a law school exam. Spot the legal issues.
... Bannon said he didn't take McCotter's scripts seriously, but rather as cathartic musings to burn off the anger and hurt from his book and presidential campaign flopping.
I hope McCotter is artistic and not crazy. If he's both, I hope he manages to channel the crazy into the art in a way that works somehow. I really liked him back when he was running for president (but failing to get enough of a percentage in the polls to qualify for the debates). The fake-talk-show format for a comedy series has been done many times, and it can be an easy way to crank out material. It's actively wrong to trick people into appearing in the show, especially when using your status as a member of Congress to lure journalists into sitting down for what they think is an interview. Sacha Baron Cohen tricks people into his comic sketches, but he gets them to sign a release before he uses them, and he doesn't use an actual real-life position of power as the leverage.

***

Leave your stepping stones behind, something calls for you
Forget the dead you’ve left, they will not follow you
The vagabond who’s rapping at your door
Is standing in the clothes that you once wore
Strike another match, go start anew
And it’s all over now, Baby Blue

20 comments:

traditionalguy said...

Thad seems like an outgoing and bold, shy man. That contradiction is a recipe for failure. He most likely wanted to get out of the public eye that he was fighting so hard to stay in all of the time.

LarryK said...

Very strange, but McCotter is too smart and intriguing (in more than one sense of the word) to write off. I'll be very interested to see what he does next.

mandy said...

I'm a huge Mccotter fan. He is a treasure on Redeye. I wish him well.

Paddy O said...

How one accepts defeat is a huge indicator of character. It seems that while interesting McCotter both way overextended himself and then is almost entirely unraveling. Which is sad, but it's also a big reason why he should not become President.

lemondog said...

26 years in elected office is 18 years too many!

edutcher said...

Have to agree with Ann on the crazy part; he sounds as if he's just burned-out.

A great many people that long in DC succumb to DC-itis and become part of the problem. He sounds as if he never did, but it took its toll.

The whole thing smacks of Ionesco.

Bob Ellison said...

It's a sad story. McCotter inspires enthusiasm because he's wryly funny and plays the guitar. But he seems to be tragically foolish as well. I'd go to his bar, but I wouldn't vote for him for public office.

leslyn said...

Since he fancies himself a wordsmith and a comedian, he and Sara P could go on tour together. Neither of them finished their job, and they can use this to show others the path to success. They both seem to like performing.

edutcher said...

Interesting how people like leslyn are still so afraid of Miss Sarah.

Lefties like her set out to make it impossible for her to do her job and then call her a quitter.

The irony is, she (Mrs Palin) is doing more damage to them now than when she was Governor.

PS Was that treasonous?

leslyn said...

Not treasonous at all, edutcher. Glad to see you're making progress. ;)

But "afraid" of Sara P? Not hardly. Difficult to be afraid of someone you think is silly.

Chuck said...

There is a huge, as-yet-untold story about McCotter.

The one and only reason that he is not runnning for a safe re-election to the House, with a strong future for leadership, is that his nominating petition, with a ridiculously low signature requirement, was turned in with an overwhelming number of forged, fraudulent and/or photocopied signtatures.

The nominating petition was so laughably bad that it is now thought to have been a deliberate fabrication, and in fact a fabrication that was intended to have been caught.

Either the most incomeptent Congressional campaign aide in the world is responsible, or McCotter was the victim of campaign sabotage by an insider.

To be sure, McCotter signed off on the affidavit portion of his petition. That part makes it implausible for him to go to the press and claim that he didn't know and it is all a terrible mistake.

But this case is under investigation. And still, no one in the press has really figured it all out.

There is a much bigger and more interesting story to be told, I suspect.

leslyn said...

The nominating petition was so laughably bad that it is now thought to have been a deliberate fabrication, and in fact a fabrication that was intended to have been caught.

My first thought was, "He wanted it that way."
Even after that scandal he couldn't wait another month to resign so that the state doesn't have to schedule THREE elections to replace him.

Yes, I think there's more to this story.

Blame my suspicious mind, it's a leftover occupational habit--looking for the out-of-place object.

Roger J. said...

But "afraid" of Sara P? Not hardly. Difficult to be afraid of someone you think is silly.

Indeed it is

Bayoneteer said...

McCotter is still smarting at how he was massively punked by someone on the inside of his staff. Thad could have gotten the 1000 signatures all by himself over a weekend just by standing outside of a shopping mall had he tried. Somebody screwed him. Humiliation is one of the things that is hard for pols to get over. Add betrayal and it's a toxic mix.

Conjecture: I think McCotter was looking to be Michigan's governor at some point and that serving in Congress just bored him.

jacksonjay said...

He seems a little too eccentric and a little guano crazy to me!

leslyn said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
leslyn said...

And what will he do now? He says he faces "diminishing prospects"

Weep, sniff. Why should he have to do anything? He's got that nice Congressional pension. And health care. And...well, you get the idea.

And you thought teacher benefits were excessive!

victoria said...

I think Thad needs to get his meds adjusted.


Vicki from Pasadena

Ralph L said...

Where's Althouse's post on Michigan's talking urinal cakes?

leslyn said...

Whenever a politician invokes their family as the reason for a precipitous out, it's a sign that something stinks somewhere else.