GETTING WEIRDER

Darrell Issa, the millionaire congressman who bankrolled the recall effort only to drop out, has now issued a bizarre threat:

Congressman Darrell Issa (EYE’-suh) is afraid that Republican state senator Tom McClintock and actor Arnold Schwarzenegger will split conservative support — and guarantee a victory for Democratic Lieutenant Governor Cruz Bustamante (boost-ah-MAHN’-tay) if California’s governor is recalled.

So now Issa says one of the two Republicans must drop out — or he’ll dramatically reverse his stance and start calling for the recall to be defeated.

Not that I can imagine anyone would listen to this guy, but the level of self-absorption here is amazing. (And what’s with the phonetic spellings? Does anyone who’d be reading the story not know how Bustamonte and Issa are pronounced?)

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James Joyner
About James Joyner
James Joyner is Professor and Department Head of Security Studies at Marine Corps University's Command and Staff College. He's a former Army officer and Desert Storm veteran. Views expressed here are his own. Follow James on Twitter @DrJJoyner.

Comments

  1. Steven says:

    I think that some in CA are starting to think that if the choice is between Davis and Bustamante, they would prefer Davis. This is probably, in Issa’s case, a political calculation vis-a-vis 2004.

    And I noted the pronounciation guide thing as well–muy weirdo.

  2. Paul says:

    and why not give a pronunciation guide to Schwarzenegger?

    Weird

  3. Anonymous says:

    Silly, but newspapers, the league of women voters, unions and all sorts of people provide voting recommendations all the time. People can listen or not (in this case not), but hey, it’s a free country and he can say what he wants, and since he did bankroll the recall, the press is going to publish what he says (compared to some nobody like me).

  4. The pronunciation guide is given because the story is edited to be read on-air, either on a prompter (for TV) or just as a loose sheet. (I think the AP does separate “radio” versions of its stories, which is the version most TV stations get.)

  5. James Joyner says:

    Chris: Makes sense. And since most on-air personalaties are morons…