Because the Republican National Convention was so damned goofy, Susie Sampson naturally files a spectacularly weird Tea Party Report from Tampa, featuring dimbulb Stephen Baldwin (with perhaps the most tongue-twisted explanation of one's opposition to gay marriage in history) and Newt Gingrich, expounding on his mission to the moon.

Favorite line: "Oh, then why not just marry your dog?"

Former Florida Governor Jeb Bush hoped to use his Republican National Convention appearance to rehabilitate his brother's shattered reputation. After claiming on Sunday that it was "unbecoming" for Barack Obama to continue to "blame others" for the economic calamity he inherited from George W. Bush, on Thursday Jeb suggested the President should be "spanked" for pointing the finger at Dubya.

Now, there are only a few problems with this approach, not the least of which is that most Americans agree with Obama. In 2004, then Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney defended President Bush from John Kerry by protesting that "The people of America recognize that the slowdown in jobs that occurred during the early years of the Bush administration were the result of a perfect storm." Worse still, even now Team Mitt whines that "Governor Romney inherited an economy that was losing jobs each month" back in the Bay State. As it turns out, President George W. Bush and his acolytes have never stopped blaming Bill Clinton for the GOP's lost decade.

Jeb's brother made that point during his final press conference on January 12, 2009. During a month in which Americans would only later learn that the U.S. economy shed a staggering 820,000 jobs, President Bush passed the buck forwards--and backwards:

"In terms of the economy, look, I inherited a recession, I am ending on a recession. In the meantime there were 52 months of uninterrupted job growth. And I defended tax cuts when I campaigned, I helped implement tax cuts when I was President, and I will defend them after my presidency as the right course of action. And there's a fundamental philosophical debate about tax cuts. Who best can spend your money, the government or you? And I have always sided with the people on that issue."

But while that fundamental philosophical question is still the subject of heated debate, the facts should not be.

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The Tampa City Council on Thursday said they would ask Florida Gov. Rick Scott to ban firearms outside the Republican National Convention later this year.

The council has already issued a citywide ban on items like pieces of wood, switchblades, slingshots, containers of bodily fluids and even squirt guns. A so-called "Clean Zone" around the convention area would prohibit string longer than six inches, glass containers, light bulbs, portable shields and gas masks. A smaller protest area would prevent demonstrators from having camping gear, bottles, cans and umbrellas. The Secret Service has said that only law enforcement will be able to carry firearms inside of the convention center.

But Tampa now needs Scott's help because state law prevents local governments from regulating guns. City officials believe that Scott has the executive power to temporarily suspend that law.

"We believe it is necessary and prudent to take this reasonable step to prevent a potential tragedy," council member Lisa Montelione wrote in a draft of the letter to the governor.

Tampa Mayor Bob Buckhorn has said that the state law makes the city "look silly."

"The absurdity of banning squirt guns but not being able to do anything about real guns is patently obvious," Buckhorn explained last week. "Given the nature and the potential dynamic of this event, I think it would make sense that you would not want firearms introduced into that environment by people other than law enforcement."

The mayor suggested that Tampa could "become fodder for the late-night comics because of something that has nothing to do with us and nothing to do with our ability to control the situation, and it's elevated by Trayvon Martin, obviously."

Legal experts told the Tampa Bay Times that in the emotionally-charged protest environment, another tragedy could take place that was covered by Florida's controversial "Stand Your Ground" law that allows gun owners to use deadly force in public places without a duty to retreat.

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Man, the comedy keeps writing itself:

Breaking news on Twitter from Politico's Mike Allen -- the 2012 Republican National Convention will be held in Tampa.

Florida has been a fiercely contested "swing state" in recent presidential campaigns, and Barack Obama's victory there in 20[08] was the Democratic Party's first since 1996.

The Politico is right--Florida is a critical "swing" state. There are some high visibility and politically strained battles going on there (I'm looking at you two, Crist and Rubio). But somehow I suspect that there was another element factored in to the choice of Tampa:

A reputation can sometimes be hard to shake and the city of Tampa has a reputation it would probably like to eliminate. For the past decade some have called Tampa the lap dance capital of the world.

Paul Allen, the founder and publisher of NightMoves magazine, says he hears about the city's reputation all the time. He believes the shear number of strip clubs in the Bay area has undoubtedly contributed to the city's rep.

"In greater Tampa Bay, I think the last count is around 56 different clubs that are adult-oriented," he said.

Another reason for the reputation is the city's role in the adult industry. "If you own a club in Oshkosh, Wisconsin and you want to book a feature (dancer) to come to your club, there's basically four people you can call. Three of those four companies are based right here in Tampa," Allen said.

You can't write comedy as gold as what the RNC does all on its own.

It looks like Marco Rubio has a bit of a PR problem. A couple of problems, actually. It seems he may have spent some Florida Republican Party funds on himself and his family for personal things instead of paying attention to the laws and limits on what he's allowed to bill on his expense account.

Marco Rubio's high-flying Senate campaign hit its first significant turbulence today as the former state House speaker defended using a Republican Party of Florida credit card for more than $100,000 in travel and other expenses from 2006 to 2008.

Rubio said the $109,618 he charged the party was for legitimate expenses he incurred while traversing Florida to raise money for the GOP, support its candidates and promote property tax reform. He also billed the state party for his trip to the 2008 Republican National Convention in Minneapolis after being asked to speak at "several events" as a representative of Florida's delegation, a Rubio spokesman said.

Well, that sounds about right. In fact, compared to some campaign disclosures I've seen this week, it might even be on the low end. Except for this, anyway:

In addition to the expenses Rubio charged to the GOP, Rubio said he used the party credit card for $16,053 in personal expenses that he paid for from his own pocket.

Yeah, not so much, because there's this:

The GOP also paid $1,000 to help repair Rubio's minivan after it was damaged by parking attendants at a Republican function, Burgos said.

The rules for party expense accounts really aren't that tough: If you submit hotel, travel and meal receipts, they have to be tied to an official party event. If you purchase supplies or equipment, they need to belong to the party, not your kids.

If your van is sideswiped in valet parking while you're attending an official party event, that expense needs to be submitted to your insurance company as an official claim. It doesn't get to go on the party American Express card. That's part of the cost of doing business in this free enterprise world of ours.

Rubio's status as the newest darling of the far right and teabag set earned him a place at CPACs podium, where he shared his naked hopes and dreams. I re-read his speech tonight with an eye to his alleged use of the GOP dime. The irony, it drips:

They [Liberals] think that the free-enterprise system is unfair, that a few people make a lot of money, and the rest of us get left behind. They believe that the only way business can make its money is by exploiting its workers and its customers.

Or...exploiting one's sponsor.

Our campaign finance system bites, and no group is better at gaming it than the Republicans. If former State House Speaker Sansom hadn't been quite so greedy, it would likely have been business as usual in Florida and just about everywhere else.

I downloaded Rubio's federal campaign disclosures for his race against Crist to see what spending was taking place there. Unfortunately I can't link it up here because it was faxed or scanned instead of entered as an electronic record. Still, there were some interesting tidbits. I don't really know what they represent, but they don't feel like campaign expenses, necessarily.

• $1,500 "registration fee" to St. John Neumann School
• Sandy Hook Fish & Rib House: $2340 (Travel)
• George P. Bush [sic]: $265.80 (Travel)
• Jess Yescalis: $3,789.79 (Travel)

These are the ones that jumped out at me after a few minutes. While they may be perfectly justifiable and completely in line with activities of his campaign, they seemed high to me, and I don't really see how the school fee fits in there at all.

I also took a look at the Florida Republican Party March 31st Federal report. On January 12th, $34,756.78 was paid to American Express. Here are some of the expenses charged to the party by the cardholder. I don't know who held or used the card, because the report doesn't match it up with a person.

• VIP Travel & Tours: $550
• Amazon.com: $1,396.69
• Citrus Center Parking: $219.84 (how long was that car parked there?)
• Dell Computer: $6,087.75
• Apple Computer Store: $10,329.75
• Lenovo: $1,878.72
• Delta Airlines: $4,246.60 (First-class, anyone?)
• Other miscellaneous items like tolls, miscellaneous air travel tickets, pizza, rental cars, and 1-800-Flowers.com make up the difference.

Sounds like a geek's paradise there, doesn't it? Whatever it is, it doesn't seem particularly...conservative.

Dan Coats on The Young Turks from the 2008 Republican National Convention

I'm not sure if it's possible to get a more Republican candidate for Indiana than Evan Bayh, but the GOP isn't going to go down without trying. Former Senator Dan Coats has announced this morning that he will challenge Bayh for the Senate seat in the 2010 Election.

But for all of his high profile--and Dan Coats certainly does have that within the Republican Party--I'm not sure the GOP is really learning the lessons of the tea baggers distrusting the incumbents and politicians when opting to promote Coats for the Senate seat.

To wit, Coats is a member of the C-Street Family, responsible for the failed ushering of Harriet Miers through the Supreme Court confirmation process. I think his quote on Miers, who failed to capture even Republican support shows his contempt for Americans:

She certainly has the capability to be an excellent Supreme Court justice. If great intellectual powerhouse is a qualification to be a member of the court and represent the American people and the wishes of the American people and to interpret the Constitution, then I think we have a court so skewed on the intellectual side that we may not be getting representation of America as a whole.

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Is Sanford completely off his rocker? I understand about love, but why is he giving passionate interviews with the AP? And does he think he'll save his marriage by telling them that his lover is his "soul mate?"

South Carolina Gov. Mark Sanford called his Argentine mistress his "soul mate" Tuesday, but said that he would try to fall back in love with his wife.

Sanford also admitted Tuesday that he saw Maria Belen Chapur more times than previously disclosed, and that he had "crossed lines" with a handful of women other than his mistress in the past -- but never had sex with them.

In a lengthy and emotional interview with The Associated Press in his Statehouse office Tuesday, the governor described five meetings with Maria Belen Chapur over the past year, including two romantic, multi-night stays with her in New York before they met there again intending to break up.

He said he met her two other times -- their first meeting in 2001 at an open-air dance spot in Uruguay and a coffee date in New York in 2004 during the Republican National Convention. He said neither time was romantic.

It was the first disclosure of any liaisons with Chapur in the United States and contradicted a public confession last week during which Sanford admitted to a total of five encounters over their eight-year relationship...read on

He's lied so many times already about this that it's hard to keep up. Did anyone really believe he saw her only three times in eight years? And now he admits to reaching out to other women too.

Sanford also said he had "let his guard down" with some physical contact with women other than Chapur and his wife, but "didn't cross the sex line." He wouldn't go into detail. Sanford said the casual encounters happened outside the U.S. while he was married but before he met Chapur.

Did Sanford tell the AP what the Bible says about "letting his guard down?" What does that even mean? It means that he's a player and has been for a long time.

Will his wife think he should be given a second chance after reading and hearing about all of this? Sanford is a mess and can't stop talking about "Maria." Isn't there a show on the BBC about Maria?

'How Do You Solve a Problem Like Maria?'

I think there's a reality show in this somewhere. Does Sanford really want to stay married? It certainly sounds like he'd rather have the media send love notes to Maria, his true soul mate than make up with his wife.

The very sick and twisted Rush Limbaugh continues on his path to hell as his lunacy knows no limits:

LIMBAUGH: The idea that torture doesn’t work– that’s been put out from John McCain on down– You know, for the longest time McCain said torture doesn’t work then he admitted in his acceptance speech at the Republican National Convention last summer that he was broken by North Vietnamese. So what are we to think here?

When the whole torture issue started to become public, why did John McCain say it didn't work? What did he get out of being honest on this topic? He knew that conservatives watch "24" like it's a documentary, so there was no upside for him unless maybe his own conscience made him come clean.

I'm not letting him off for his behavior on the military commissions or his flip flop on waterboarding, but what Limbaugh says is completely grotesque. As I've said a million times, conservative pundits can say just about anything without consequence. He uses propaganda put out by Hayden and Mukasey via the always-accommodating WSJ that Jon Perr wrote about on C&L: Mukasey Defends Bush's "Hypothetical" Torture

And as we've found out, nothing has come by the use of torture. NOTHING!

The debate over the significance of Abu Zubaydah’s role in Al Qaeda and of what he told interrogators dates back almost to his capture, and has been described by Ron Suskind in his 2006 book, “The One Percent Doctrine,” a 2006 article in The New York Times and a March 29 article in The Washington Post asserting that his disclosures foiled no plots. (His real name is Zein al-Abideen Mohamed Hussein.)

Of course there was Li'l Bush, who just didn't want to lose face, so I guess torture accomplished something, right?

"I said he was important," Bush reportedly told Tenet at one of their daily meetings. "You're not going to let me lose face on this, are you?" "No sir, Mr. President," Tenet replied. Bush "was fixated on how to get Zubaydah to tell us the truth," Suskind writes, and he asked one briefer, "Do some of these harsh methods really work?" Interrogators did their best to find out, Suskind reports.

And so they did.

This story reads like something out of a hard boiled, detective novel.

He met her in the bar of the swank hotel and invited her to his room. Once there, the woman fixed the drinks and told him to get undressed. And that, the delegate to the Republican National Convention told police, was the last thing he remembered. When (Gabriel Nathan Schwartz) awoke, the woman was gone, as was more than $120,000 in money, jewelry and other belongings.

The thief's take stunned cops. "It's very, very, very rare," Minneapolis Police Sgt. William Palmer said. "I can think of a couple of burglaries where we had that much stolen, but it's the first time I've heard of this kind of deal."

"It's embarrassing to admit that I was a target of a crime. I was drugged and had about $50,000 of personal items stolen, not the inflated number that the media is reporting from an inaccurate police report," he said.

Those Republicans sure know how to get involved in some very wild sexual situations. I'm changing my mind now and think that Republicans should go to Hollywood and make movies. They have very active imaginations. Schwartz was interviewed repeatedly and was a real wise guy.

During the convention, Schwartz wasn't shy about talking to the media. In an Associated Press article about Sen. John McCain's acceptance speech, Schwartz was quoted as saying that as far as oratorical skills go, McCain "has more experience in his little pinkie" than Democratic nominee Barack Obama.

In an interview filmed the afternoon of Sept. 3 and posted on the Web site LinkTV.org, Schwartz was candid about how he envisioned change under a McCain presidency. "Less taxes and more war," he said, smiling. He said the U.S. should "bomb the hell" out of Iran because the country threatens Israel.

Asked by the interviewer how America would pay for a military confrontation with Iran, he said the U.S. should take the country's resources. "We should plant a flag. Take the oil, take the money," he said. "We deserve reimbursement.

Sure, just bomb Iran and take their oil. Just brilliant. Well for brilliant republicans like him, there happened to be a story book ending.

A few hours after the interview, an unknown woman helped herself to Schwartz's resources.

Video Update: Sit Room's Abbi Tatton just reported on the story: Download | play Download | play

The internets were abuzz immediately when this strange shot of McCain during his RNC acceptance speech gave more ammo during closeups for another Colbert Report 'McCain Green Screen Challenge' to videophiles with a knack for chroma key effects, but what caught Josh Marshall's eye was the building being used as the backdrop with the green green lawn that was providing the fodder. Initial speculation that it was one of McCain's innumerable mansions quickly faded when his readers confirmed that it was actually Walter Reed Middle School in North Holllywood, CA (pictured on right, above), but why?

A local Bay Area reporter for NBC picked up on it and called the school to find out. The receptionist said, "We were all wondering that, What was that about? We don't know," but TPM is reporting that they do plan to release a statement. [see update below]

An odd fact, uncovered by TPM's Greg Sargent, is that the school actually served as the backdrop for Matt Santos' announcement of his presidential candidacy on The West Wing. Not really sure what to make of that, but it is quite an odd coincidence in any case.

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