Uhh, it looks like it's not just the RNC
We had never heard of a member of Congress holding a fundraiser at a Las Vegas burlesque nightclub... until now.
And the culprit is card-carrying conservative Rep. Pete Sessions (R-Tex.). The same Pete Sessions who scolded Janet Jackson and Justin Timberlake for forcing "their liberal values upon the rest of the country" after their infamous 2004 Super Bowl halftime striptease.
But that was then.
Now we learn that Sessions held a racey (for Washington) fundraiser for his leadership political action committee last year at Ivan Kane's Forty Deuce nightclub in Sin City. A description of the club on its web site, which features a scantily clad dancer, reads: "A blue light silhouettes the sax man as one of the sexy, sensual dancers slowly slinks down the stairs to the stage and leans out over the crowd, holding on with only a handful of the world-famous curtain of pearls! Jaws drop and drinks are ignored as the tempo picks up and the dancer steps up, shedding boa, gown and gloves towards the electrifying finale.
http://voices.washingtonpost.com/...
"Dirty Deuce is a strip club"
"Uhhhh, no, it's what I would call a burlesque club... there is no nudity"
Still...
This is how the club's owner, Ivan Kane, describes his brand of burlesque.
Ivan Kane: The key component would be to have girls who were dancers taking their clothes off, not just girls taking their clothes off.
And how would Sessions be so confident in his knowledge of Forty Deuce? Because he attended and hosted fundraisers there.
Mary Ann Akers reported this on July 29, 2008. Her source is a Marketplace interview from last year.
Pete Sessions both planned and attended the fundraiser at this event, and spoke about it openly. Yet last year the MSM never picked up on Mary Ann Akers' report, the Family Research Council never condemned Sessions, and his position was never seriously on the line. And it's not like the GOP was doing well in Congressional elections in 2008-- remember they lost 3 key races and many people were predicting even worse House losses in 2008 than actually materialized.
In contrast, Michael Steele never planned, or attended the strip club fundraiser and fired the person responsible.
So what gives? Is it a racial double standard? Of course, Sessions is a southern good ole' white boy. It's one thing for conservatives and tea baggers to hate on Obama. It may be racism, but it also may be just irrational fear of his policies. I am Progressive but believe that opposing Obama from a conservative side does not make one racist. But is Steele, a fellow conservative by all counts, being held to a higher standard by the GOP than Pete Sessions, head of the NRCC in 2008? If Steele is forced out for an event that he was not directly involved while the GOP's fortunes are surging, while Sessions was never even seriously challenged for clearly being involved in the same culture while the NRCC's fortunes were plummetting, I think we can conclude the answer is yes.
And is the GOP today trying to scapegoat Steele to deny more systematic hypocrisy and moral corruption at the highest levels of the Republican establishment when it comes to "family values"? The answer to that may be yes as well.