Patrick Murphy’s Mom Remains Silent On Issues

One of my favorite campaign mailers this fall was addressed to my mom and I. Apparently, one of my old schools gave my (and my mom’s) information to Mike Fitzpatrick’s camp, who in turn gave it over to his mother.

Yes, my mom and I — not, strangely, my dad, who (unlike me) still lives there — got a letter from Mary Fitzpatrick telling us what a good Catholic boy he was, how he went to Egan and how he loooooooves unborn babies. Okay, Mary doesn’t tell us that, but it’s certainly the real theme of the letter. Yes, Mike Fitzpatrick and Patrick Murphy are both Catholic, but Murphy is pro-choice. Mary even includes a photocopied column from the Bucks County Courier Times telling us how bad a Catholic Patrick Murphy allegedly is.

Here’s the kicker:

[Michael] has been there for me throughout my entire life. I am writing this letter to let him and everyone know I am there for him.

Awwwww. However, I think if I were running for U.S. Congress, my mom would write a nice attack letter herself and not just include a photocopied column from a newspaper attacking my opponent.

Full letter from Ms. Fitz after the jump.

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Adwatch: Patrick Murphy & Giant TV Screens

With the election tomorrow, there is only one more day to make fun of stupid political ads. The upshot is that there’s only one more day to watch them on television, a point I need to remind myself of every five minutes lest I think this is how things are going to be for the rest of the month.

Another upshot is that I have a lot of pre-packaged content this afternoon, leaving me able to nap under my desk while no one is looking. After the jump, the first of several Adwatches today, this one a look at a recent ad for Democratic House candidate Patrick Murphy, an Iraq war vet.

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Adwatch: Bucks County Kitchens

Today, Adwatch looks at Mike Fitzpatrick, Republican congressman for the Eighth Congressional District, and his recent attack ads toward his opponent.

The ads mostly just replay a clip of Patrick Murphy on Hardball, where he can’t tell Chris Matthews whether he would have voted for the Iraq war (which he served in), and they play up his inexperience. Let’s explore one of these attack ads, after the jump.

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Bah! Who Cares About So-Called ‘Rights’! This Is An Election!

We’ve been covering the anti-Myspace bill introduced by UPS man and U.S. Rep. Mike Fitzpatrick, for a while now, and it’s time to give someone else the floor.

First, a bit of background: Fitzpatrick’s bill, officially the (yuk yuk) Deleting Online Predators Act — DOPA, I presume? — would force schools and libraries to block children from viewing social networking sites, such as Myspace, Facebook, Friendster, etc. It’s unclear if this would block social networking sites that are more about, say, photo sharing, like Flickr.

Anyway, obviously this bill is trying to stop children from being the victim of old dirty men trolling for them online, or something, and that’s fine. Naturally, of course, it does nothing really to stop the problem of child predators, but it makes for nice election year press, doesn’t it?

Some of that nice election year press comes, conveniently, from Bucks County Courier Times columnist J.D. Mullane, who wrote about the issue today, specifically Fitzpatrick’s Democratic opponent, Patrick Murphy, who blasted the bill:

I told Murphy it was a blunder to talk about “constitutional rights” when the issue is protecting children from pervs.

It’s OK to be high-minded on all that “rights” jazz when you’re trolling for votes during primary season. But when the general election season begins, as it has, it’s best to respect the family-oriented sensibilities of the suburban heartland, which defines most of Bucks County, but especially defines where I live, Levittown.

In my house, children have no “constitutional rights.” I am the law, judge and jury. My word is final. Three weeks ago, I was at the top of my game in this role during an incident that involved, coincidently, MySpace.com.

With Mullane on the case, no predator is safe! And neither are your rights!

A blunder in race for Congress [Bucks County Courier Times]
May 19: Rhetoric On Anti-Myspace Bill Reaches New Levels

Rhetoric On Anti-Myspace Bill Reaches New Levels

Okay, Mike Fitzpatrick. (That’s him, at right, helping UPS deliver some packages. No, really.) You almost had us fooled. You were a Republican congressman who seemed pretty levelheaded, without any sort of wild extreme right-wing positions. And you seemed pretty on the ball. But of course, now, you have to go and try to block access to Myspace — and other social networking sites — from being accessed in schools or libraries.

(The bill actually blocks access for people under 18, but the thinking is that schools and libraries will just block it. Schools are mostly under-18 anyway, and almost all libraries don’t have room for a separate over-18 section.)

The Democratic candidate for house, Patrick Murphy, has rightly denounced the legislation as re-effing-diculous, and an overreaction that would do nothing to solve the problem of child predators online:

“You don’t protect children by infringing on people’s constitutional rights,” Murphy said Thursday. “It’s shortsighted and wrong. It’s a political ploy from a typical politician.”

A ploy? Indeed. It’s a typical election year ploy: Fitzpatrick gets to introduces this bill; he happens to be coincidentally up against a war vet would could prove to be somewhat popular one, too. (He’s a good guy, it seems, so he won’t attack his service record.) And so, when Murphy denounces the legislation, Ol’ Fitzy can paint him as a lover of child molesters:

“Pat seems more interested in the constitutional rights of online predators than he is about protecting young children,” Fitzpatrick said. “He ought to be ashamed for opposing it.”

Using the newly created Mike Fitzpatrick Overstatement Machine™, we’d like to translate our response — “this bill is more of a political ploy to win votes than something that will protect children; also, guess who doesn’t have computers at home: the poor” — into a Mike Fitzpatrick overstatement:

“Mike Fitzpatrick ought to be ashamed at creating this bill that’s just a ploy for him to win votes come November. He seems more interested in staying in office than helping his constitutients. Also, he’s introducing the worst bill since the Smoot-Hawley Tariff and he hates the Constitution.”

Look for more from the Mike Fitzpatrick Overstatement Generator™ any day now!

Heated exchange follows Fitzpatrick’s Myspace bill [Bucks County Courier Times]
Mike Fitzpatrick - Photos [House.gov]
Monday: U.S. Rep. Has No Friends On Myspace

The Shortest — And Therefore Best — Political Press Release Ever

In Bucks County, two Democrats are running for the right to face Mike Fitzpatrick, who seemed like a pretty good, head-on-his-shoulders legislator until he introduced an anti-Myspace-in-schools-and-libraries bill!

And so, one of these two guys — Andrew Warren and Patrick Murphy — must take down Fitzpatrick in the 8th district in the general election. I’d like to follow the good boys over at Wonkette and endorse Patrick Murphy, simply because of this press release:

LARRY OTTER ENDORSES ANDY WARREN FOR CONGRESS

LEVITTOWN, PA—May 14, 2006—In response to Larry Otter’s endorsement of Andy Warren, Josh Nanberg, campaign manager for Patrick Murphy issued the following statement:

“OK”

In addition to that, his campaign headquarters are in Levittown and his post-election party is at Georgine’s in that same wonderful Bill Levitt-designed town.

Official Wonkette Endorsement: Patrick Murphy [Wonkette]
Yesterday: U.S. Rep Has No Friends On Myspace

Blogicized: Winter be gone

• Ahh, yes: Let the pseudo-spring temperatures return! It was nice to see you, Old Man Winter, but don’t stick around for too too long. [Philadelphia Weather]

• The Phillies don’t have a front line pitcher this season. Please note: The preceding sentence could have been written pretty much in any year. [Beerleaguer]

• Patrick Murphy, running for Congress in Pennsylvania’s eighth district, once penned a column for a college newspaper. Of course, it was when he was a professor at West Point, so it’s not the typical “Cafeteria food sure does suck!” fare. [Above Average Jane]

• Reasons not to watch figure skating coverage this year: 1. There’s nobody you know. 2. One competitor didn’t put a hit out on another competitor this year. 3. The rule barring female skaters from wearing pants was recently lifted. [Pesky'Apostrophe]

Quickies: Temple of the dog and cat

• While I’m not as big of a fan of them as I am of puppies, kittens are pretty boffo too. But sometimes they can be used for evil. Or at least to reinforce gender stereotyping, or something. Readers are angry at Step Inside Design’s December/January issue, which had a kitten-filled cover to represent the “Women of Design.” The response: “But we honestly believe you can change connotations by re-appropriating them (especially with humor). That’s why it’s OK for Spike Lee to make a movie about minstrel shows but it would not be OK if Woody Allen did. Mel Brooks can get away for Springtime for Hitler, but Prussian Blue can’t … context is everything.” This is what as known as the “re-appropriating stereotypes cop out.” [Folio Magazine]

• In honor of the Chinese New Year — the year of the dog — here’s a list of the top 100 pop culture dogs ever. Krypto, Superman’s dog, lands at #19. I’m feverishly working on a Top 100 Puppies Ever list. [Retrocrush]

• Somebody at the BBC totally effed up and somehow the BBC spent some time filming in Bristol, Bucks County, as opposed to the version of that town across the pond. (Okay, they’re actually following around Iraq War vet and Democrat Patrick Murphy — who’s also running for Congress — which means give the liberal bloggers five minutes to start going nutso over this television appearance.) [Bucks County Courier Times]

• I want to live in this guy’s world, because I bet the mind-altering drugs are fantastic: “[The Washington Post has] decided to use their pages to mount a political campaign against progressive bloggers, who they’ve apparently decided are their sworn enemy. It’s absolutely paranoid and ridiculous.” [MyDD]

• Yes, if you’ve stepped outside today, Philadelphia is channeling 1849 London with all this fog. [Philadelphia Weather]