This is just completely bizarre:

Order Blocks Harassment of Keillor

Oct 23rd, 2007 | ST. PAUL, Minn. -- Garrison Keillor has gotten a restraining order against a Georgia woman he claims has made telephone calls and sent him explicit e-mails and disturbing gifts, including a petrified alligator foot and dead beetles...

Keillor's filing said the e-mails and letters were often "disturbing, unintelligible and rambling," and in one, [the accused, Andrea] Campbell "graphically described making love to me."

He also alleged Campbell showed up at his home in St. Paul in July. His wife was startled awake early one morning by the sound of someone rustling around outside the family's house. She filed a police report.

Campbell denied the allegations in a telephone interview with the St. Paul Pioneer Press. She said she only wanted to show her gratitude for Keillor's work.

"I am unclear as to what the problem is," she said.

Campbell said Keillor had misunderstood the letters, e-mails, packages and phone calls. She said she was never closer to his house than the sidewalk.

"I believe that he's paranoid, or some woman, his wife, is upset and told him he has to do something about it," she said...

"It's transcendental love, that's all" she said. "Between a writer and reader."

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Former ABC consultant Alexis Debat called to ask that I post this, the write up of the results of an ABC investigation into his work, and proposals to change its hiring practices regarding ABC news consultants. I told him that ABC Senior Vice President Jeffrey Schneider had reacted to his sending that around with the emailed comment, "Lol. Does he think he is vindicated? He shouldn't. He is still a big liar." Debat says in response, "I don't think I'm vindicated. But it's a big statement." I used the opportunity of the conversation to ask Debat about parts of his earlier claims that did not check out - how he said it was an administrative misunderstanding on his part that he did not know he didn't have a PhD from the Sorbonne. He said that he changed thesis advisors and departments to the political science department but couldn't further discuss it. I asked him about the mysterious Rob Sherman, who supposedly conducted the interview for him with Senator Barack Obama. Debat said he had met him in a cocktail party in 2003, he was fifty-ish with gray hair, but he wouldn't tell me what cocktail party or why he would have agreed to such an arrangement. About the fake interviews with Obama, Hillary Clinton, and others published under his name in the French journal Politique Internationale, Debat says he was stupid to sign his name to those interviews but it's not fair to say he claimed to conduct those interviews. Asked further questions, he said he had only called to tell me to post the above and he had nothing else to say. More from the NYT.

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That "Take it easy, big fella" memo that Hillary Clinton's camp sent to Tom Vilsack? They're going to have to make a copy and send it to Charlie Rangel.

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There's one thing that can't be disputed about the evangelicals who attended the Family Research Council's "Values Voters Summit" in Washington D.C. this past weekend: they are all wonderfully nice people. They may view homosexuals as abominations of nature; they may want to run the United States based on biblical dictates; and they may see immigrants as a corruption of American culture, but they will wish God's blessing upon you a million times over.

As a reporter from Mother Jones at the event, I needed all the blessings I could get. My employer was a constant source of amusement to the attendees I spoke with.

"Who are you with?" asked a heavy-set attendee from Texas who I chatted with outside a Sam Brownback book signing.

"Mother Jones magazine," I said. "It's a national magazine covering prog—"

He cut me off before I could finish. "I read Mother Jones in college," he said, grinning. "Back when I was around your age, I believe. What did Winston Churchill say? 'A young man who is not a liberal is heartless, an old man who is not a conservative….'" He started laughing. I started laughing. Turns out, the end of the quote is "is an idiot" or "is a fool"—the Churchill Centre says the quote is a false attribution, so end it however you please.

Later, as I was perusing books like Last Days Madness and The Criminalization of Christianity, a skinny man standing nearby spotted my press pass and made a beeline in my direction. "Can I introduce you to a candidate?" he asked, pressing a piece of campaign literature into my hand. "Daniel Gilbert, a fourth-tier candidate who believes ordinary citizens should run against professional politicians and win. A strong conservative." I paused to read the handout, but hadn't gotten past the quote "I love America" before the man asked me what news outlet I was with.

[Read more]

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