I am a shameless whore. I will do anything and everything to bring people to the Haire of the Dog blog. I will mention Ron Paul in a post for absolutely no reason. I will write a headline that promises a lot more than it delivers. Heck, I will even promise to wash your car, babysit your two-year-old, and massage your tired and corn-covered feet. I do not care.
Which is why I was barely able to contain my jealously last week when a story by City Paper News Editor Greg Hambrick dominated the paper’s online page views. On any given day, this story in question — which is more than two years old by the way — gets well over 25 or 30 views. But last week, it was simply too much. Thanks to a link on the Huffington Post, this story managed to receive approximately 10,000 hits in a single week. Frankly, I can’t take it anymore. Those hits should be mine.
So, I have to take matters into my own hands. I have to do what I have to do to make sure that the hit count for Haire of the Dog goes through the roof. The time has finally come for me to ask the question that political junkies across the land are asking — and that Greg already did two years ago: Is Lindsey Graham gay?
There, I said it. And I have an answer. One that should satisfy everyone once and for all. And that answer is: 42.
I kid. I kid. That was just to establish my geek cred.
But seriously, I have an answer. And believe you me, I really pounded the pavement to get it. I’ve had off-the-record conversations with folks who were never on the record in the first place. I’ve taped together shredded public documents for hours on end, no matter how often I received paper cuts. I’ve sent Freedom of Information Act requests to Santa Claus, the man who knows who’s been naughty and who’s been nice. I’ve made promises to my family that I will never, ever run an ill-conceived commentary on He Who Must Not Be Named By Comedy Central.
As a result of all of this hard work, I have an answer, um, make that a question: Who the hell is William Gheen and when did he get the key to Lindsey’s closet … not that Graham has anything in that closet except for a much cherished T-shirt from John McCain’s failed 2008 presidential bid?
Well, apparently, William Gheen is the head of the anti-illegal alien org, Americans for Legal Immigration PAC, and the rube who started the most recent round of the tried-and-true “Is Lindsey Graham gay?” game. It’s a fun game for sure, one that I regularly play with the entire family. It’s way better than board game night.
But back to Gheen and his half-assed allegation that those on the left may be blackmailing Lindsey Graham with the, um, “truth” about his sexuality in order to get him to support decidedly anti-conservative legislation. Addressing this is really quite simple: South Carolina voters may want to know whether Lindsey is gay or not — after all, these rumors have been around a long, long time — but those questions haven’t stopped them from electing Graham again and again.
The thing is no one really gives a flying squirrel if Lindsey Graham is what former S.C. Democratic Party chair Dick Harpootlian called him, a “little too light in the loafers.” In fact, it seems as if the whole gay thing doesn’t bother Sandlappers as much as folks think. After all, there are at least two other big-time South Carolina politicos who’ve been at the center of the are-they-gay-or-are-they-straight debates — current S.C. Lt. Gov. André Bauer and state Senate President Pro Tempore Glenn McConnell. And like Lindsey, these rumors haven’t stopped either of these men from being re-elected. That said, André’s time in office may have finally run its course — for reasons that have absolutely nothing to do with questions about his sexuality.
Just as this column has nothing to do with Lindsey and everything to do with increasing my hit counts.
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