BALLS! BALLS! BALLS! and Links

Boots and balls and boots and balls and boots and balls and LIFTS

I asked the AI machine for “politicians in high-heeled boots,” and boy howdy did it deliver. (Source: Imagine.ai)

This last week, I recorded an episode of Slate’s The Waves podcast on the manhood obsession in American politics (or, as they called it, “Penis Politics”). And then roughly 3 seconds after I emerged from my recording-studio-slash-spouse’s-closet, there was a Penis Politics explosion, as the world started talking about…

~*~*~*~The Boots~*~*~*~

You see, Politico went and did something we in the biz call “reporting the living shit out of a story,” by which I mean they (1) scrutinized DeSantis’ shoes in press photos and then (2) called up three expert shoemakers to ask them, “Does it look like this guy is packing lifts in his boots?” (The consensus: “Kind of, yeah.”) There’s talk of “welts” and “shafts” and “insteps” and more details you ever thought you’d look for or care about on a politician’s shoes.

And then there was the fallout from bootfest, in which Trump’s spokesman Steven Cheung proceeded to make multiple meals out of this whole thing. An excerpt from one statement: