Pen-Elayne on the Web

But He's Never Blown a Giraffe

So first CNN snips the portion of Larry King Live where Bill Maher outs (and, as Maher said, he's not the first to do so) a barely-closeted Ken Mehlman. And when I say "snip" I mean the whole kit and kaboodle, from editing out the video to censoring the show's official transcript to sending John Aravosis a cease-and-desist when he puts the video snippet up on YouTube. (John has directed folks to the Huffington Post, where you can still see it.) Now John reports that Mehlman is about to step down as chairman of the Republican National Committee, passing along this quote from CNN: "He's been on the gerbil wheel, as one of his close friends put it..." Now, you know, considering all the bad jokes about gays and gerbils, perhaps this was an unfortunate choice of animal, particularly as the expression is usually "hamster wheel," but there you go. As, apparently, does Mehlman.