Imagine Abraham Lincoln recruiting General Robert E. Lee to head the army of the Potomac during the Civil War.
Which makes about as much sense, if you think of it, as the Free Speech Coalition bringing in Bush Republican James Lee, with all his right wing baggage, to head up a campaign on behalf of the adult entertainment industry.
Or maybe Larry Flynt had it right. Flynt in comments made to AVN called Michael Weinstein a “Right Wing nut.”
Who knows? That could have been the it takes one to know one strategy behind bringing in Lee – having one ultra conservative engaged in mortal combat against the other, playing a game of political chess, anticipating moves. All that good stuff.
Only the strategy failed. Weinstein wound up making so many attempts, himself, at screwing the pooch, but still he managed to push through Measure B.
Measure B was the adult industry’s battle to win. While the strategy – the issue of government waste – had no passion, the porn performers certainly had more than enough to compensate for lack of it.
Still, at the end of the day, you have to ask yourself what the high priced Lee actually brought to the table, and if that’s the best he could come up with. Which is like hiring chef Gordon Ramsay for the evening to serve hamburgers.
In the classic case of take the money and run, Lee wore track shoes and failed the industry miserably. Besides his failure to extract filthy lucre from the pockets of Stuart Lawley for vital ad placement, Lee came up with nothing but a baffling array of assailable quotes including his contention that the industry is weighing any number of offers to move to other municipalities.
Weinstein, during the course of their debates, could have challenged Lee to name one, except Weinstein was just as incompetent at his end of the table.
Even today in the wake of the Measure B defeat, Lee came up with this absurdity: “While the AIDS Healthcare Foundation has tried to portray any move of jobs outside of L.A. County as unrealistic, the hard truth of the matter is that is exactly what this industry plans on doing now.”
Maybe Lee missed the election entirely, but the fact that the adult industry is now in the harsh national spotlight, I defy Lee to come up with the name of one politician who’ll put his head in the noose by extending an RSVP to porn.