Nothing Like a Good 'Ol Diversion

The scarier things get, the more Americans turn to traditional diversions. Chaos looms in the Middle East. Syrian troops are machine gunning anti-government protesters from helicopter gunships. NATO has stepped up its bombardment of Libya. Civil war threatens in Yemen.

Closer to home, catastrophic tornado and flood damage has barely abated even as drought punishes Texas, wildfires consume Western forests, and what's predicted to be a dangerous hurricane season begins.

As U.S. economic recovery falters, congressional Republicans play Russian roulette with a national debt limit they raised seven times under George W. Bush -- fiscal blackmail like that the CIA has used to destabilize unfriendly Third World governments.

Thankfully, we have the masturbatory fantasies of Rep. Alexander Portnoy to divert us.

Excuse me, Rep. Anthony Weiner. Not even the fertile imagination of Philip Roth could have invented a sex scandal without any, you know, actual sex. Nevertheless, there's a definite resemblance between the protagonist of Roth's hilarious 1969 novel "Portnoy's Complaint" and the Very Horny Congressman. He even looks a bit like Richard Benjamin, who starred in the movie.
~ from Anthony Weiner's Willing Partners by Gene Lyons ~