Plunderbund

After a string of recent dissings from John McCain and a large group of influential Evangelical leaders, Phil Burress is back to doing what he does best: acting like a fascist asshat.

The enquirer ran a story this morning about Phil and his angry band of nutjobs (Citizens for Community Values) sending a letter/petition to Cinci’s CityBeat asking them to “eliminate the adult services category” of advertising.

If you haven’t seen it, CityBeat is a weekly paper similiar to The Other Paper in Columbus or the Cleveleand Free Times. And if you’ve ever read any of these papers you know that the last few pages are full of adult-themed ads. I would guess it’s a big source of revenue for the papers.

Obviously the type of ads CityBeat runs are none of Phil’s damn business- and any sane person - Republican or Democrat - can see this.

As a matter of fact, Republicans should really be up in arms about this type of anti-business attack. Clearly Burress is trying to tell this company how to run their business- and that’s something any good free-market advocate should abhor.

Many Republicans have distanced themself from Burress (e.g. John McCain) but no one seems willing to risk standing up to him and his anti-business activity.

And the reason is obvious: no one wants to put at risk the fragile coalition the Republican party is trying to maintain between the relatively sane, pro-business conservatives and the totally, batshit crazy social conservatives like Burress.

CityBeat’s editor, of course, has no such concerns. And he published a a great response to CCV’s “letter” today on the CityBeat website.

In it he points out that exactly the same type of ads are published in the Yellow Pages - a book that is delivered to every household in Cincinnati. CityBeat, on the other hand, needs to be picked up at one of the distribution locations and it read by a much smaller audience.

He makes some good arguments, but the best part of the letter is the forceful language at the end:

We make decisions about our business every day and on our own terms. We won’t be bullied or intimidated by any outside force that thinks they can make those decisions for us.

i.e. go to hell, Phill Burress.

Damn straight.

It’s about time someone stood up to this asshat.

And while I would normally want Phil to crawl back into his hole and disappear, I’m starting to think that he could be the best thing to happen to Democrats this year by further driving social conservatives away from McCain.

Keep up the good work, Phil.