The case against Ben Quayle
1. He’s unqualified. He doesn’t have a profession. He’s trained as a lawyer, recently started an “investment firm.” He hasn’t held a job in his life for more than a year or two.
2. When the nation, two years ago, was facing challenges on several fronts—mismanaged wars, soaring deficits, an economy falling down a sinkhole, Quayle was nowhere to be seen.
3. Did he offer his opinions or advice? Take a public stand? Maybe even point out that, as a Republican, he was troubled by the holy mess his party had gotten the country in?
4. No. Instead, he was helping a friend get a porny web site off the ground. It was called Dirty Scottsdale, with a plan for establishing itself as Skank Central for the sleazy nightlife crowd.
5. When the economy was collapsing, Ben was writing for the site under the name Brock Landers, and went on a search for “Scottsdale’s foxiest first lady!”
6. Ben moved to the district recently and got a congressional campaign going. His main funding source: Friends of his daddy’s! Former president Bush held a fundraiser for him in Texas! In Texas—for a guy from Phoenix who’s done nothing his entire life.
7. Then it came out that Ben had a skanky past. When questioned… he denied it. Then changed his story. Then said “My response has been consistent.”
8. The Arizona Republic, which used to be owned by his family, helped him out by carefully not going into any detail about his involvement with the porny web site during the Republican primary.
9. In that primary he got about 22 percent of the vote. It was a crowded field; that was enough to win. Even Republicans don’t like him.
10. To get attention, Little Benny ran a commercial saying “Barack Obama is the worst president in history.” Sane people know that Barack Obama isn’t even the worst president of the 21st century.
11. He dodged debates with his opponent, Jon Hulburd, finally agreeing to one half-hour session.
12. His public events have been nil. PHXated’s repeatedly asked his campaign for a single time he’s made a scheduled public appearance. There hasn’t been one we know of.
13. His campaign has also refused to answer basic questions about his positions. There are candidates running for ASU class president who have more substantive issue pages. Does he think woman should be jailed for having an abortion? Should gays be allowed openly to serve in the military? To our knowledge, Quayle has never answered these questions.
8:47 AM
New Times on Ben Quayle: Does James King heart Ben Quayle a little too much?
The paper’s James King profiles the candidate at length. There’s a very funny graphic, by Jamie Peachey, that portrays Quayle as the 40-year-old virgin:
The story, while not a puff piece, lets Quayle off the hook on a couple of issues, notably the Dirty Scottsdale tale.
Besides being a hypocrite by being a family-values Republican with a history of working for a skanky, woman-hating web site, Quayle lied about it when he was first asked.
New Times is a good paper and King is one of its typically strong reporters.
But this doesn’t wash:
[I]t turns out that Quayle didn’t lie — he just didn’t volunteer information about his association with Dirty Scottsdale.
The Politico reporter who first called Quayle didn’t ask him whether he had written for the Web site. She asked if he was involved in the founding of The Dirty, to which Quayle answered no.
The reporter’s next question was, “You had nothing to do with it?” Quayle contends he thought the reporter still was referring to the establishment of The Dirty and answered no again.
[…]
But the damage was done. The claim that he initially lied about his involvement made the front page of the New York Times.
That’s plainly total bullshit.
Here’s the original Politico passage:
“I did not have a role in founding that site,” Quayle, a lawyer who runs a small Scottsdale investment firm, told POLITICO in an interview Tuesday morning when asked whether he was one of the original contributors to the sex-themed site.
“I was not involved in the site,” he said when pressed about whether he had any role.
In other words, Quayle tried to weasel around the question by framing his first answer carefully. (Note how the reporter includes her original question.)
But then, of course, she pressed him, and he specifically said he wasn’t involved in the site, when asked if he had any role.
It’s one thing to try to lie when asked a question like that, and it’s another level of deceit to try to pretend that your lie had been successful when it plainly hadn’t. That’s what Quayle’s been doing since.
King has it entirely wrong and should correct the story. Quayle plainly lied.
I think it’s fair to beat up on King about this because he’s given Quayle a pass as well on his cheesy little family mailer in which he posed with two little girls, even though he doesn’t have kids.
And finally, Quayle is never asked about his right-wing views.
Among other things, King could have asked him about his position on abortion, and specifically to what extent he would criminalize it if he had the chance.
He could also have asked him about the astate’s medical marijuana initiative—and whether he’d ever tried it himself.
11:47 AM
1Live-blogging the Ben Quayle/Jon Hulburd debate
It’s over.
Simons says the tape will be up on the KAET web site, but it’s not there yet.
I assume it will be on this page.
PHXated will post when it becomes available.
Incredibly, it’s almost over. Closing statements. Schoen goes on some more about manufacturing jobs.
Quayle says he wants to “bend the cost care curve down” in health care. Yeah, that’s always been a big GOP priority. He says he’ll work to repeal the health care bill.
Hulburd says repealing health care is a fairy tale. He says he’s going to go back and act like legislators.
Will Quayle kick the new kids on the health care rolls off? Hulburd says he likes part of the bill, not other parts.
Elect someone who will deal with this as an adult, he says. Hard to argue with that.
Simons asks about immigration reform. A bad question: “Is it needed, how do you do it?”
Quayle wants “a barrier from the Pacific to the Gulf.” He natters on about drug cartels. He wont' talk about reform until “we secure the border.”
Hulburd tries to attack Quayle from the right on this, saying that Quayle has been arguing for a guest worker program. Quayle says only after the border is secured.
Hulburd hits Quayle hard; he notes Quayle’s getting a lot of his money from Cerebrus capital.
Quayle says Hulburd’s getting money from a union. Hulburd says he’ll give back his $10K in union contributions if Quayle gives back the $80K he got from Cerebrus.
Tarp was not the way to go, Quayle says. He says the banks were that much in trouble.
Jesus these guys are bush league. Tarp was a Bush initiative supported by both parties and economists on both sides.
Hulburd says Tarp was a terrible idea, a disaster. Simons says, so should we have let the fire burn itself out? He says yes, the rich people got bailed out by the Titanic. He’s wrong.
Schoen notes than Greenspan has said you can’t cut taxes with borrowed money. He says the tax cuts are jsut going to blow out the deficit. He should be asking both Quayle and Hulburd to address that issue.
Tom Schoen
Simons asks a hard question of Quayle: Business, he notes, aren’t putting their money to work; they husbanding it, buying back shares and the like.
He babbles in response, not answering the question. None of it makes sense.
Simon turns to Schoen, who says he was once sued for defamation, too. I don’t think he needed to volunteer that. But he seems not to be an idiot on the economy.
Hulburd sounds good on the economy too. Even under Simons questioning he sticks to his support for extending the Bush tax cuts.
Quayle keep[s nattering on about “uncertainty.”
(This is a bullshit Republican talking point. Rich people had certainty. They knew their tax cuts were going to end this year; the only uncertainty was whether they could con Congress isn’t extending them.)
Quayle says Hulburd was using blatant lies in ads. When asked, Quayle says it was a lie that he’d pretended to have kids in a mailer. (Which he did.) Hulburd notes that it wasn’t a lie.
The moderator keeps hitting Hulburd, not Quayle. “He says he’s regrets the association,” he says to Hulburd. “Why isn’t that good enough?”
Jesus.
Quayle says he’s been tested in the primary. He says he’s been candid the whole time. (He hasn’t.) He has a deer in the headlights look.
He attacks Hulburd for having been sued for defamation and fraud. Hulburd says the suits were nuisance suits and dismissed with prejudice.
Quayle says something stupid, too: “It didn’t go through the proper trial.” He tries to make it sound suspicious. Well, if they were dismissed, they wouldn’t have “gone through the proper trial” … because they were dismissed.
The moderator asks a dumb question of Hulburd: Why harp on Quayle and Dirty Scottsdale? Hulburd says because character matters.
To that question, Quayle says it’s because he’s going to go to D.C. and fight for the people. Jesus. He says watching actions in D.C. the last year and a half is the best experience anyone could have.
Moderator Simons asked Hulburd why he’s qualified. Hulburd says it’s a fair question, and notes his social, business and personal experience. He stresses he work as a lawyer and family man and volunteer work for Children’s Hospital.
Schoen, the libertarian, shows a chart, demonstrating the decline in U.S. manufacturing jobs.
Hulburd begins, and goes on the attack. He ridicules Qualye for an ad with a wildly inaccurate ad about the federal deficit and goes after him for his involvement in Dirty Scottsdale.
Quayle says it’s “one of the most important elections in the country’s history.”
Quayle tries to attack Obama and the health care initiative.
It’s starting. An “open exchange of ideas,” moderator Ted Simons says. Interruptions are allowed. there’s a libertarian there, too, Michael Schoen, a former prosecutor.
The Ben Quayle-Jon Hulburd debate is scheduled to last for an absurd 30 minutes.
It will be broadcast on Phoenix’s public TV station, channel 8, KAET.
Stay tunes for live-blogging when it begins at 7 p.m. PDT.
(Out-of-state readers please note Arizona doesn’t recognize daylight savings time, it being a comminist plot of some sort, and is a consequence operating currently in the Pacific time zone.)
PHXated’s complete coverage of the life and times of Little Benny Quayle is here.
The complete Brock Landers story is here.
PHXated’s interview with Jon Hulburd is here.
The weird little story about whatever it is that Ben Quayle’s wife does is here.
Braham Resnik to Ben Quayle: “What have you ever done to ‘knock the hell’ out of anything?”.
6:49 PM
The Hulburd-Quayle debate is tonight
It will air at 7 on channel 8.
Incredibly, the Quayle campaign agreed only to a 30-minute session.
The Hulburd campaign says Quayle turned down an offer for a prime-time debate from channel 12, the NBC affiliate.
The Arizona Republic, either through complete incompetence or as part of a campaign to help Ben Quayle ascend to office with as little public examination as possible, has no mention of it that I can find on its web site.
The session is being taped at 4 this afternoon. Hulburd’s campaign manager, Ruben Alonzo, will be tweeting from the session, which is closed to the public. His handle is @ralonzo.
3:15 PM
Jon Hulburd's first TV commercial
Hulburd is the conservative Democrat running for the 3rd district Congressional seat being vacated by John Shadegg.
His first TV commercial continues to hammer on Dan Quayle for everything you’d expect.
2:53 PM
Braham Resnik to Ben Quayle: "What have you ever done to 'knock the hell' out of anything?"
Ben Quayle on 12 News' “Sunday Square Off.” Resnik’s questioning is tough, and it’s worth watching.
We learn:
Quayle’s had five jobs in eight years, and couldn’t cite an example of anything he’d “knocked the hell out of.”
Won’t give back his large contributions from Cerebrus, his father’s company, which got a $4 billion bailout from George Bush.
And for the first time Quayle says he “regrets” writing for DirtyScottsdale.com, though he still lies once or twice about his involvement with it to keep his run going.
8:18 AM
Jon Hulburd on Ben Quayle's "theater of the absurd"
The Hulburd campaign held a conference call with local bloggers this a.m.
Hulburd came across as very knowledgable. He spoke calmly and with authority, and with a fairly high level of granularity about almost every issue.
On a couple of subjects—extending the Bush tax cuts for the rich, and ending the estate tax—his positions are indistinguishable from the Republican economic policies that nearly destroyed the country. (And that have beggared Arizona.)
When pressed on these points by the largely liberal contingent on the phone, he stood his ground.
But one most other issues he came across as fairly sane: He was pro choice; in favor of ending don’t ask don’t tell; he supported the cap and trade initiative; he advocated green and alternative energy policies, particularly for how they could help improve Arizona’s economy.
On trade he was more moderate, saying he was for “fair trade,” not “free trade.”
The highlights, however, were when he went after his opponent, Ben Quayle.
On Quayle’s “Obama is the worst president in history” ad:
“Part of my response has been muted out there. … I don’t want to be in a position of making this a big issue, because it plays into stupid Ben Quayle and his stupid ad.
“There are twelve different reasons it’s not just factually wrong but that it’s the wrong messenger, even if you’re on the right.
“Everything about it, visually and scripted, is repugnant and silly. It’s a theater of the absurd.”
But he noted that the ad might have motivated voters in the primary and that his campaign was on the lookout for the next similar gambit.
Asked about Quayle’s weaknesses, Hulburd offered a long assessment.
Specifically setting aside Quayle’s involvement with the skanky Dirty Scottsdale web site, Hulburd said Quayle was vulnerable in three areas: Professional, political and social.
“The social stuff. He’s barely been here. As a father of five I’d like to see him spend a couple of years juggling school schedules and changing diapers and doing what regular people have to do.
“He has no life experiences both in the Valley or elsewhere that I can tell you about that make me think the guy gets it.
“From the professional standpoint, I don’t think one year at Snell & Wilmer [a law firm at which Quayle was an associate] qualifies him for anything…. And what has he done for the community? His bio is thin as a reed …
“He’s done very very little if anything as far as community works.
“And then this political piece is fascinating. [The Vernon Parker campaign] was trying to push him as an empty suit. I think that’s what he is. … and it galls me that he could simply come in here and so cavalierly pick up this very very important seat.
“If I scrabble and work hard and get it, we all know if I get it I’ll be under attack instantly. If he gets it he’s there until he’s our next senator.”
Hulburd was asked about Quayle’s carpetbagger status.
“He’s making a big deal about it the wrong way. He should do what I do, which is say that like a lot of you I come from somewhere else and move on. [Hulburd has actually been in the valley for nearly three decades.]
“And what he does is say he’s fourth generation and that he has all these amazing ties in the valley, which is a load of shit.
“He bought a house in the district last December.
“And a month later his new congressman, John Shadegg, announces he’s getting out, and a month after that he gets in, and a month after that he gets married.
“And in that three- or four-month period, if I were 33 years old my head would explode. It would change your world.
“He has no ties to District three, it’s silly.”
Previously in PHXated:
The complete Dirty Scottsdale tale.
So … what exactly does Ben Quayle’s wife do?.
How the Arizona Republic took a dive on the tawdry Ben Quayle/Dirty Scottsdale story.
1:04 PM
UPDATE: TheDirty.com libel suit
The AP reported yesterday that a Cinncinnati cheerleader had won a default libel suit against the proprietor of a site called “the Dirt.com.”
The Arizona Republic reported that as a judgment against the site we all know as TheDirty.com, the place where Young Benny Quayle undertook some of his early nightlife epistolary efforts.
PHXated repeated the news (see orignal post below), even correcting the AP’s error.
Turns out the story was half right in about three different ways.
TheDirty is the site that said the cheerleader had VD. But the suit was filed against a different site, TheDirt.com, which ignored it and got a default judgment of $11 million against it. Hilarity has presumably ensued.
Politico has the story here.
It contains these entertaining passages from Eric Deters, the plaintiff’s attorney, about TheDirty.com founder and Quayle literary amanuensis Nik Richie:
“We’re still going to serve that S.O.B. personally,” Deters said of Richie. “I’m going to make that dirty, rotten, mean, vermin bastard pay. He’s a piece of dirt.”
When asked what he thought about Quayle blogging for Dirty Scottsdale, Deters – who has been following national media coverage of the political novice – called it “absolutely disgraceful.”
“He ought to be ashamed of himself,” Deters said “He’s another lying little weasel politician. That’s not slander; that is my opinion.”
Updates as they happen.
The original post:
One of the grimier things about TheDirty.com, the web site Ben Quayle wrote for and helped found, is now hateful many of its postings are.
As we’ve mentioned before, they basically come down to “she has VD.”
The practice seems to have cost the site and its founder, Hooman Karamian, who goes by the name Nik Ritchie, $11 million.
From the AP:
LOUISVILLE, Ky. — A gossip website has been hit with an $11 million judgment for libel and slander after posting false accusations about a Cincinnati Bengals cheerleader.
The judgment against Dirty World Entertainment Recordings, which runs the site Thedirt.com [sic], came Thursday after the site did not respond to a lawsuit brought by Sarah Jones. The high school teacher’s picture was posted on the site along with an accusation she had been exposed to two venereal diseases.
Richie is the guy who told Politico that Quayle had helped him get the site going and had written for it under the name Brock Landers.
10:40 AM
Newsflash: Arizona Republic readers learn about Ben Quayle's porny alter ego
In its campaign wrap-up story today, the Arizona Republic tells its readers that Ben Quayle might not be the ideal GOP candidate to replace John Shadegg.
Why?
Well, turns out the sanctimonious family-values candidate used to write for, and palled around with the founder of, a sleazy web site in Scottsdale.
His nom de skank was Brock Landers, the name of a porn actor in Boogie Nights.
As PHXated has noted here and here, while the story has been a national news staple for the past two week, the Arizona Republic has apparently never mentioned it in its news pages.
(We have yet to find an actual printed story in which this was mentioned; the paper has run a couple of wire stories on the web site. It certainly has not done what you’d expect, which is routinely make reference to an ongoing scandal in a major local political campaign.)
Until today, that is… two days after the election he was running in.
11:14 PM
Ben Quayle cancelled his own victory party
From Politico:
After a cascade of accusations and ever-shifting denials that he wrote for a raunchy website under the name of a fictional porn star, it seemed even Ben Quayle thought he was going to lose a 10-way Republican primary in Arizona.
Quayle, the son of former Vice President Dan Quayle, went so far as to cancel a victory party he had planned to hold Tuesday night to watch the returns in the race for the GOP nod to replace retiring Rep. John Shadegg in the 3rd District.
6:34 AM
Confidential to Ben Quayle: On Wednesday, give us a call!
Your big primary is Tuesday. You might be the GOP nominee in the race to replace John Shadegg in Arizona’s 3rd congressional district.
We have to be honest. We hope you win.
The primary, that is.
Last week it was revealed you used to hell around Scottsdale with the guy who founded Dirty Scottsdale.com, a skanky nightlife web site now morphed into The Dirty.com.
You used to write for the site under the name Brock Landers, a man embarked on an epic quest for Scottsdale’s hottest foxiest chick or somesuch, while all around you the site posted porny photos of club denizens with a lot of speculation about venereal diseases.
A classy operation!
This was two or three years ago.
Now all of a sudden you’re a family values Republican who borrows other peoples' kids so you look like a family man.
Anyway, like we said we hope you win, because you’d be vulnerable in the general.
But, here’s the deal.
The Dirty.com has really taken off. You seem to be a web guy with a magic touch.
And be honest: Is the search for Scottsdale’s hottest chick really over?
We think you’re the guy who can help find her—and help PHXated find its groove.
So, like we said, we hope you win on Tuesday.
But if not .. on Wednesday, drop us a line!
The complete Ben Quayle story is here.
5:01 PM
The complete Ben Quayle/Brock Landers links list!
Once upon a time, not so long ago, there was a wee little web site, Dirty Scottsdale.
On the site, folks sent in pics of marginal nightlife people, to which was paired commentary distinguished as much by its grammatical uncertainty as its utterly skanky content—generally asseverations about venereal disease and the like.
One of its early noted contributors was a guy named Brock Landers.
Landers was a man on a mission, namely to find Scottsdale’s First Foxy Chick.
This was in 2007.
Flash forward three years. Dirty Scottsdale is now a network of sites, all published under the name of The Dirty.
And meanwhile, a young man named Little Benny Quayle decides to run for Congress. This is a venue open to him if not too many other folks of his fairly undistinguished life work because he happens to be the son of a former vice president of the United States.
All is going well (well, fairly well), until a bombshell drops in a story on a national political web site.
The story says young Quayle had been a writer for Dirty Scotsdale, under the name “Brock.”
In the story, Quayle denied that it was he!
Politico: Quayle denies link to Scottsdale site
“I was not involved in the site,” Quayle said.
But the story quoted the site’s founder, Nik Richie, who would seem to have been in a position to know, saying that Quayle had posted eight to ten times on the blog.
Soon, he weighed in with his version of events on The Dirty.
The Dirty: I Think It is Time ….
He wrote:
Since the beginning (DirtyScottsdale.com) three years ago, I have gotten the same question from the DIRTY ARMY from all over the world: “Who is Brock from the Dirty Celeb Brock’s Chick?”
I have kept it a secret until right now… the mystery man is Ben Quayle aka Brock Landers, the son of Vice President Dan Quayle. If you are a DIRTY ARMY Republican, vote for Ben Quayle because he was one of the original creators of DirtyScottsdale.com which evolved into TheDirty.com.
Phoenix’s 12 News then ran this report, which features Quayle changing his story, saying:
“I just posted comments to try to drive some traffic."
KPNX 12 News: Quayle linked to thedirty.com: Congressional candidate was trying to help out
That got Politico back into the action.
Politico: Ben Quayle changes story on web site
The site took an uncharacteristically harsh tone with the political neophyte:
Ben Quayle had a hard time getting his story straight Tuesday….
And not just about writing for the site:
Richie also told POLITICO that Quayle introduced him to attorneys at the Phoenix law firm where he worked, Snell & Wilmer, so his Internet site could incorporate. But Quayle told POLITICO Tuesday morning that he couldn’t recall whether he had made the introduction.
Later in the day, however, Quayle confirmed to several Phoenix TV stations that he introduced Richie to an intellectual property attorney at Snell & Wilmer.
“He wanted an IP attorney, and I referred him to one,” Quayle told 12News. “I don’t know if they met or not.”
The story also said that “Brock”’s full name was “Brock Landers.”
At this point, the guy who founded Dirty Scottsdale and the Dirty.com is getting mad that Quayle is denying his association.
He responds:
The Dirty: Ben Quayle is Brock Landers
Richie links to what he says is some of Quayle/Landers' best work:
The Dirty: Brock’s Chick
Wondering where Quayle got the name Brock Landers?
Meanwhile, Politico gleefully stays on the story:
Politico: Quayle’s bump on road to Congress
Politico: Quayle Lashes out at political foes
Says Quayle:
“It is amazing that the media will take a casual acquaintance and turn it into something tawdry, taking the word of a smut peddler at face value."
New York Times op-ed columnist Gail Collins takes a few swipes at Quayle, too.
NYT: More American Idols:
Consider Ben Quayle, the son of the former vice president. He’s running for Congress in Arizona. He’s been accused of both using a phony family in his campaign pictures and helping to found a local porn site. In response, he’s come up with a new ad in which he announces that Barack Obama is the “worst president in history,” swiftly bemoans “drug cartels in Mexico, tax cartels in D.C.” and concludes that “somebody has to go to Washington and knock the hell out of the place.”
Talk about a clear agenda for change. Although Quayle does show a terrible disrespect for the records of Warren Harding and James Buchanan.
And more locally, the right-wing blogger Greg Patterson says the game might be over for Young Benny Quayle.
Espresso Pundit: If this is true then Ben Quayle has no chance of going to Congress…:
The site is awful and if it’s true that Quayle is one of the founders and authors then his political career is over.
His prediction:
If it’s too late and Quayle’s name and money let him squeak through the primary then he will get crushed by CD 3 Democratic nominee Jon Hulburd (who will go on to be crushed in 2012 by Jim Waring or Dean Martin).
To distract attention, Quayle reveals himself as a noted presidential historian, contending, in a new TV commercial, that “Barack Obama is the worst president in history”:
Everyone chuckles for a day, and then goes back to asking about Dirty Scottsdale.
Meanwhile, on the national level, Quayle keeps lying. He tells ABCnews.com, too, that he only knew Richie through referring him to a lawyer.
ABC News: Ben Quayle Denies Blogging for Racy Website.
“I am not Brock Landers,” Quayle says.
Then, on Friday, Quayle lied a few more times on CNN’s John King show.
Amusingly, King is less interested in Dirty Scottsdale than he is in Quayle’s recent contentions about Obama. (“He’s only been in office eighteen months!”)
CNN: John King USA.
“I’ve been consistent with my story from the beginning”
“I had no affiliation with that website.”
Displaying, perhaps, his father’s way with handling a gaffe, Quayle, incredibly, keeps denying he was Brock Landers to the Associated Press:
AP: Like father, like son? Quayle stumbles in Arizona
Asked about the site this week, Quayle told The Associated Press that he “wrote a couple of satirical and fictional pieces for a satirical website” but that he quit doing so once the website shifted its editorial direction away from satire. Richie says the site’s content and tone have not changed from the days when Quayle was connected to it.
When asked if he wrote as Brock Landers, Quayle said: “There’s all sorts of posts under that alias and that’s not me. That’s really all I’ve got to say about that.”
Back in Arizona, the Arizona Capitol Times advances the story, discovering that Quayle’s involvement went back deeper than previously known:
Arizona Capitol Times: Quayle’s ties to ‘The Dirty’ founder began in 2005
Recalled Richie, referred to here by his real name, Hooman Karamian:
“There were chicks all over the place, trying to hook up with celebrities,” Karamian said. “We moseyed around the bar and casino tables, just making fun of chicks.”
Karamian, who made a comment on his website about a “crazy hooker” in Tahoe said he was referring to that night, but said he was only talking about a woman that he and Quayle had assumed was a prostitute and on drugs.
“I said (on TheDirty.com), ‘Hey, do you remember that crazy hooker?’ because we saw some hooker who was acting crazy,” Karamian told the Arizona Capitol Times. “I wasn’t implying that he had sex with a hooker at all.”
Thanks for clearing that up, Nik!
On Saturday, the Dirty bites back some more:
The Dirty: Ben Quayle is the Pinocchio of politics
… And on Sunday, a little more:
The Dirty: Brock Landers’ aka Ben Quayle’s Family Values Campaign
10:22 PM
Ben Quayle lies on John King
“I’ve been consistent with my story from the beginning,” he says.
“I had no affiliation with that website.”
11:47 AM
Politico continues to dog Young Benny Quayle
Politico’s latest encapsulation of Quayle’s situation is hard to argue with:
Republican congressional candidate Ben Quayle’s glossy campaign photos and polished talking points paint for voters a portrait of a longtime Arizonan, accomplished attorney and family man who will bring a “new generation” to Washington.
The claims reflect the small biographical exaggerations that often accompany a political newcomer’s first campaign. The reality is that Quayle has held three jobs in four years, posed for pictures in campaign literature with children that were not his, and grew up in Washington with a famous father, former Vice President Dan Quayle, whose influential friends have given generously to the younger Quayle’s campaign.
But Quayle, 33, has had to confront a much bigger credibility issue this week after a blogger revealed that he had once been a contributing writer for Dirty Scottsdale, a raunchy, sex-themed website that covered the club scene in his adopted home town before morphing into the national gossip site TheDirty.com.
[…]
Quayle’s connection to the site has undercut the carefully honed image of a conservative with strong family values, and his inept handling of its disclosure brings up a different association with the Quayle name – his father’s gaffe-prone history.
Meanwhile, Quayle released a new campaign commercial today, in which, he calls Barack Obama “the worst president in history.”
… which is pretty funny.
Quayle’s father, of course, is frequently cited—here and here for example—as among the worst vice presidents in U.S. history.
And Young Benny Quayle himself isn’t exactly going to go down as one of the best congressional candidates in history.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2008/aug/22/uselections2008.usa
10:05 PM
By the way ... where did the name "Brock Landers" come from?
… Apparently from the film Boogie Nights.
Young Benny Quayle took the name from an interesting character.
I haven’t seen the film recently, but it comes from a film-within-a-film, “Brock Landers: Angels Live In My Town,” in which our hero, the massively endowed Dirk Diggler, casts himself as an omnisexual crime-detecting stud:
Brock Landers: You still hungry?
Jessie St. Vincent: Starving.
Brock: [Unzipping pants] Then feast on that.
The video above is just the fake film credits.
You can see the full raunchy scene with the dialogue here:
8:55 AM
A second (and more important) big unanswered Ben Quayle question
… did wife Tiffany know about his moonlighting gig looking for Scottsdale’s Firstest Foxy Lady?
I read that the man the Sonoran Alliance calls “Benny” Quayle was married “recently.”
Quayle’s double life as the skanky Dirty Scottsdale’s Brock Landers was about three years ago.
8:49 AM