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Forget Lance Armstrong: Bill Bolling’s Ego must have stolen Lance’s Dope Stash

by Paul Goldman

Did you read Richmond Times Dispatch Reporter Jim Nolan’s interview with LG Bill Bolling in today’s edition of the paper? If Jim doesn’t get either a raise or a promotion, then there is no justice in journalism. Did he slip Bolling some Lance Armstrong juice? Do LG’s have to pass random drug tests?
Bolling better hope not.

I have read some stuff in my time, had to deal with a lot of big egos in my time: but I can tell you, without fear of contradiction, never has there been such a display of EGO as was streaking naked this morning across the RTD and the Internet.

To say that Bill Bolling thinks a lot of himself fails to capture what he sees in the mirror every morning.

In Robert Putnam’s book “Bowling Alone”, he talks about the decline in social interaction, using the metaphor of more people going out to bowl than ever before, yet not in leagues but alone.

Now we know why: It would not be possible to fit Mr. Bollings EGO into any bowling alley much less one filled with folks enjoying the night bowling on a team.

After reading the interview, I felt relieved in a way however: If he were Governor, we have to blast a big hole in the front of Mr. Jefferson’s Mansion, and blow the roof off the joint in order to allow Mr. Bollings head to fit. Where would Spielberg then film his Lincoln sequel?

Do you really have to be Siggy, or his daughter Anna, to get the Freudian thing going in the RTD this morning, or later today when Bolling Alone goes Solo again before the media at a press conference?

To understand what Bolling is doing, you got to forget about this “jones” for Mr. Cuccinelli. Mr. Nolan says they have an “icy relationship.” You think Jim? “Icy” is what happens to your sidewalk in the winter now and then. “Icy” is what happens when your ex- runs into you holding onto something half her age. What Ken and Bill have is way past “Icy”, it’s about as warm as the daytime on Planet Pluto. [Okay, I know they say Pluto is no longer a planet, just some rogue moon or something from somewhere. I ain’t buying it. Once a planet, always a planet. But whatever you call it, it is the only place in the solar system whose atmosphere mirrors a meet-up between Ken and Billy.]

What Bolling did yesterday had NOTHING to do with Cuccinelli. That’s the key to remember: The Cuccinelli thing offered the excuse, or if you like provided the catalyst, for Bill Bolling’s EGO to streak across the Commonwealth butt naked.

AND IF YOU TAKE A LOOK AT MR. BOLLING’S PICTURE IN THE PAPER THIS MORNING: You don’t need to be a porn movie director to realize just how ugly the shot of him streaking will be.

AND IS.

I ask you: What has Bill Bolling ever done to have such an EGO? He has been in Senate for years, and has been LT. Governor longer than any other Republican....EVER.

Can you think of one gubernatorial level achievement in his name? He doesn’t even have a LG level achievement outside of winning election.

He doesn’t point to one in the interview with Mr. Nolan and for good reason: it ain’t to be found.

RATHER: Mr. Bolling has been fortunate to run for the Senate from a strongly GOP district and then get elected twice as Lt. Governor. Even Governor McDonnell, in his statement praising Mr. Bolling for his service to the Commonwealth and wishing him well in future endeavors, COULDN’T THINK OF ANYTHING TO NAME.

In 1959, President Dwight Eisenhower in 1959 was asked what his VP Richard Nixon had done to qualify him for the Oval Office. IKE paused and said: “Give me a week, and let me think of something.”

To be fair, we need to let Governor McDonnell have another few days, indeed he can take to the rest of his term. There is nothing to date and one suspects Governor McDonnell has no attention of helping Mr. Bolling add to that resume. NOTHING.

HERE IS A FREUDIAN NUGGET FROM THE BOLLING STREAKING:

He says he decided to drop out of the GOP nomination fight in part because it “could create a lot of division in the party” and the GOP as they got ready for the 2013 campaign.

SAY WHAT? You dropped out in order to avoid creating division but you might run as a third party candidate because...THAT HELPS UNIFY REPUBLICANS?

Like I say, forget Cuccinelli: Think of what Bolling has now done to Governor Bob McDonnell.

Bolling praises McDonnell, then Bolling says he is the only one capable to continue McDonnell’s leadership: and then Bolling goes and does something that IS TOTALLY AGAINST EVERYING MCDONNELL BELIEVES IN!

Whatever you think of McDonnell, is a loyal guy and a loyal Republican. Indeed, I would say that McDonnell believes what Bolling has now done TOTALLY DISQUALIFIES HIM FOR GOVERNOR.

Or LG I might add.

Without the GOP, Mr. Bolling would be elected to nothing.

He is a total creature of the GOP party establishment.

So too is the entire Bolling political team.

BY HIS ACTIONS, Mr. Bolling has forced his big backer Congressman Eric Cantor, not to mention the Governor and the entire GOP state and national party, to treat him like a non-person.

Bolling is not now, nor has he ever been a rebel.

His whole thing was as a loyal GOP soldier.

THAT HE THINKS LITTLE OF MR. CUCCINELLI IS NOT NEWS.

And to be sure, Mr. Cuccinelli should see Bolling Alone as a warning, that he has serious political trouble with a key part of the Virginia electorate despite what his advisors might be thinking.

But for Mr. Bolling - a loyal right wing Republican whose record on the issues is basically no different than Mr. Cuccinelli’s or Mr. McDonnell or most others in the GOP high command - to now claim to be some “enlightened” Abraham Lincoln trying to liberate his party from the Whigs is mind-boggling to those with a mind for Virginia politics.

Bill Bolling has been, and remains, nothing but a GOP soldier, a go-along guy whose nickname had nothing to do with any issue or cause: rather it was “Twinky” which had to do with his love of food, not issues.

The great irony: Mr. Bolling has hurt Governor McDonnell far more than he has hurt Mr. Cuccinelli. The truth is, Mr. Bolling has done Mr. Cuccinelli a big favor.

Why? It forces Governor McDonnell to do more to help Mr. Cuccinelli. What Mr. Bolling failed to see - or perhaps he saw it but was so made at the Governor and thus didn’t care - is that Bob McDonnell has 2016 on his mind and thus must have Mr. Cuccinelli win in 2013. Whatever the Governor felt he owed Mr. Bolling for stepping aside, whatever the Governor felt he needed to show relative to Mr. Bolling to prove in public his being a loyal, decent guy, is NOW PAID OFF. The GOP nationally wants wins in 2013 in VA and NJ to start their comeback for 2016. That’s the way the cycle. The national GOP may not think much of Cuccinelli, but as the saying goes: He may be an SOB, but he is our SOB.

Unless Mr. Bolling starts his mea culpa for letting his EGO streak naked in public this very morning, the Governor HAS TO BE THROUGH WITH BOLLING.

Mr. Bolling has made a fatal miscalculation: he has put his EGO ahead of the Governor’s political need.

Right now, Mr. Bolling’s political team is standing by him from what I see in the paper. THAT WILL NOT LAST.

Mr. Bolling is out there alone, far more than he knows it.

READ THE INTERVIEW.

He actually thinks he is so much better qualified to be the Governor of Virginia than anyone else in the state. He belittles both the DEM and the GOP nominees.

He hints about there being a groundswell to make him the state’s first independent Governor in her history.

NEVER GOING TO HAPPEN.

Think of it this way: What is the best possible outcome for Mr. Bolling given what he says in today’s RTD?

ANSWER: That he is seen as having defeated Mr. Cuccinelli for Governor, thus probably sinking Mr. McDonnell’s national ambitions, gutting badly Mr. McDonnell’s legacy, infuriating the national GOP, and giving Democrats control of the Governorship, likely sweeping the whole DEM ticket in for the first time in 24 years.

I ask you: By any rationale calculation, to any rationale EGO, how does that benefit Mr. Bolling?

That is to say: The best he can hope for is to be the VA version of Ralph Nader in 2000.

If Mr. Bolling was a rebel WITH A CAUSE OTHER THAN HIMSELF, then maybe, just maybe, he could play James Dean.

Or Henry Howell, who bolted the segregationist lead DEM Governor’s hand-picked choice for Governor as a matter of principle in 1969, and elected liberal Republican Linwood Holton?

The anti-segregationist Howell then led a takeover of the VA Democratic Party from the last remaining segregationists, almost winning the Governorship in his own right.

Howell was a man of principle: he had a big ego but there was far more to him than that.

Bolling has never, ever, been a leader in any cause but his own ambition.

Nothing wrong with that, ambition is a good thing.

BUT BLIND AMBITION NOT SO MUCH.

It is true that in 1994, then Senator John Warner made twice defeated GOP GUV candidate Marshall Coleman an offer Marshall couldn’t refuse: and convinced Coleman to run a sure losing independent campaign in order to keep Oliver North from getting elected to the Senate.

It worked. But North had antagonized the Reagan’s not just Warner and many VA Democrats.

Cuccinelli may be conservative to the max, but he hasn’t made the enemies North made.

Could Cuccinelli self-destruct? Yes he could, he does play the moth to the flame too much.

But even if that happens, BOLLING HAS SHUT DOWN ANY CHANCE OF HIS BEING THE LAST MINUTE REPLACEMENT.

If Bolling were making his stand for some cause greater than himself, if he were putting it all on the line for something besides his own ambition, then perhaps we could withhold judgment.

He may fool me later today at his presser, and emerge not as Ego drive naked streaker but a man of principle willing to take on a thankless job.

Stranger things have happen no doubt. But if that guy has been hiding all these years in Bill Bolling’s body, being advised by Bill Bolling’s advisors, it has been the biggest masquerade since the Great Ball in France back in the 1600’s.