Greg Orman explains the clown/clown car distinction to Bob Dole.

"I want to assure you that this is not true" — that Orman did not call the 91-year-old Kansan patriarch a clown — "and is not my opinion of you in any way, shape or form. My reference to a 'clown car' was commenting on the near-endless number of political supporters of Senator [Pat] Roberts who have piled out of Washington to support him, none of whom I think are clowns. I certainly wasn't calling you - or any of the others supporting Senator Roberts - a 'clown.'"

For some reason, this makes me want to show you this photo I took back in March 2011:



Originally blogged under the title: "Everybody wants to take a photo of a man wheeling the large pile of shit that has a 'Hello My Name Is Scott Walker' sign stuck in it." I'm thinking of saying something like: There, it's clear that the man means to say, Scott Walker is shit. He's not simply a man riding in on a shit wagon. He is a pile of shit, being wheeled around on a small vehicle that may or may not be specifically purposed as a shit wagon. And even if that were a shit wagon, it wouldn't mean that if any given person were to take a ride on the shit wagon, that would make him shit. When you take a hay ride on a hay wagon, that doesn't make you hay.

But then, who rides in a clown car other than clowns? And what makes a car a clown car aside from its being full of clowns? There's no specifically purposed vehicle known as a clown car. It's just a Volkswagen Beetle or some other such small car.

Now, I do get Orman's point. "Clown car" was a funny way to refer to a seemingly endless supply of surrogates that the GOP sent into Kansas to help Roberts, and there is something ludicrous about a candidate who depends too heavily on surrogates. So there's deniability. But, come on, Orman called Bob Dole a clown.  He handed Roberts a gift there, he knows it, and he had to walk it back. Ludicrously.

IN THE COMMENTS: CWJ said "Althouse, The candidate's name is Greg Orman not Gary." Corrected. Thanks. I must have confused him with Gary Oldman.



AND: Rejham said: "'Greg Orman, not Gary.' Ha! Gary Orman was great on Laugh-in though..." Oh, yeah. Gary Owens...