Last week on the Sexist:

1. Meghan McCain Schooled, Spanked, Murdered: Political Debate or Snuff Porn?, because Paul Begala BDSM is not what I'd prefer to conjure up with my morning news.

2. 5C Commissioner Gigi Ransom Censured Over "Potential Hate Crime", because local politics can get a little too personal.

3. The Ten Creepiest Paul Rudd Stalking Tweets! because swoon.

4. Bacardi's Massive Internet Fail, because "Get An Ugly Girlfriend" was such a compelling Israeli ad campaign, it made waves over here in the states!

5. Big Penis Dating Site Reveals Inches Before First Date, because you don't want to walk into that shit without knowing the relevant details, amirightladies.

Photo by flirtykitty

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As you can see, Begala schooled, punished, crucified and murdered McCain in some sort of live televised pornographic snuff film! Given the creepy terminology the media's been throwing around here, I'm surprised no one has referred to the exchange as a "spanking" yet. Oh wait, yeah, somebody did.

The Huffington Post invokes the school-girl theme more subtly in its characterization of the interaction, writing that Begala "schools" her and that McCain was "taken to task" by him:

But McCain also pointed a finger at the Obama administration in Bush's defense, saying she felt that the Obama administration "has to stop completely blaming everything on its predecessor." When Maher asked McCain if she really thought this is what Obama is doing, McCain said "I do to a degree." A clearly annoyed Begala immediately shook his head and said "not to enough of a degree, I'm sorry not nearly enough." He then began to explain how President Reagan blamed Jimmy Carter for years, to which McCain responded blithely "you know I wasn't born yet so I wouldn't know." Going in for the kill, Begala fired back "I wasn't born during the French Revolution but I know about it." And it only got more embarrassing for McCain from there.

McCain is clearly no match for a televised debate with Paul Begala—few people are. Begala made a living ridiculing Republicans on CNN until 2005 on Crossfire (and that credit alone makes him calling Fox News a "comedy show" kind of hilarious). I don't disagree that the appearance was probably a bit embarrassing for McCain, but the popular reaction to this two-minute exchange has been uncomfortably gleeful. Somehow, watching a 48-year-old analyst verbally beat up on a 24-year-old blogger doesn't excite me as much as media reports have indicated it should. The whole clip makes me a bit ill, actually: the insane shrieking from the audience;Maher moving to physically shield McCain, as if she needs the host's protection from Paul fucking Begala; and later, the characterization of Begala as McCain's "teacher" who schools, punishes, spanks, and, uh, yeah, murders her for her comments.

If we can sift through the bloodbath for a second, I think the point should be made that nobody—even the seasoned political analyst—manages to say anything substantive in this video clip. McCain thinks Obama is blaming Bush for his problems—a pretty easy argument for anyone to knock down. Instead, Begala invokes Ronald Reagan's blaming of Jimmy Carter for no apparent reason. McCain's response—"I wasn't born yet so I wouldn't know"—doesn't work the way it should. But I see what she was trying to do with it: She was attempting a self-deprecating acknowledgment of her inexperience while making a fair point—Ronald Reagan is dead, has been out of office for 20 years, and is irrelevant to this discussion. Begala swipes the point aside—you know, what the fuck Ronald Regan has to do with this—by declaring that he knows about a bunch of things that happened before he was born. Cue the shrieks: She got ZINGED.

Of course, shows like Maher's are more about the zings than the issues, and McCain could probably use some more practice in both. Casting her as Paul Begala's school-girl, however, gets a little bit too close to political nerd erotica for my personal taste.

First the tattoos, and now this? However can this be? A Republican, who likes sex! I dare say I cannot handle this girl's rebelliousness much longer!

In her latest Daily Beast defense of Republicanism, Meghan McCain reveals "Why I Love Guns."

"So, yes, the girl who wants to legalize gay marriage and thinks the GOP is out of touch with progressive-minded Republicans is fiercely protective of her Second Amendment rights and finds it empowering, especially as a woman, to fire off a few rounds and get closer and closer to the desired target," McCain writes. "This is one issue where I’m red through-and-through."

McCain and I have a lot in common: I too, want to legalize gay marriage. I, too, think the GOP is out of touch. I also like to shoot guns. Do these facts, taken together, mean I'm "red through-and-through"? No—they mean that I hate the Republican party, but I do love fun.

So, Meghan McCain loves shooting guns at the shooting range. Next, we'll hear that she loves Slip 'N Slides, blowing bubbles, and tequila body shots. Guns are fun. Let's keep 'em in the range—in the hands of the "responsible, trained, and law-abiding citizens" McCain says deserves the right to use them.

Photo by Jon Haynes Photography

On Twitter. "Oh, Karl Rove follows everybody," you might say. "Meghan McCain notably declared Rove creepy for following her."

To which I might reply, were this conversation real: "That is just not true! An impressive 44,891 Twitterers follow Rove. He only follows 42,473. Plus, Meghan McCain doesn't even follow Karl Rove, though he follows her, making my margin of victory that much more impressive!"

"Yes!" I would continue. "I am among the 94.6 percent worthy of basking in the Glory of Rove's decidedly creepy user photo (above)! I have so much to @KarlRove!"

I would then take leave of you to gloriously sign in to my Twitter account and actually @KarlRove, only to find that the words would not come—I really have nothing to say to that guy. I would be redeemed, however, by discovering a new treasure: the @KarlRove Twitter feed. It's like being inside his head!

1. "Most of our nation wants our nation to succeed."

2. "Most people are ready to move on to the future, not live in the past."

3. "Most of the old school Republicans are scared shitless of that future."

But what does this all have to do with McCain being kind of a goth chick?

McCain then listed the many ways in which she is an enigma wrapped in a riddle trapped in a McCain body.

"I am concerned about the environment," she said. "I love to wear black. I think government is best when it stays out of people’s lives and business as much as possible. I love punk rock. I believe in a strong national defense. I have a tattoo. I believe government should always be efficient and accountable. I have lots of gay friends. And yes, I am a Republican."

It's great that McCain hasn't let her Republicanism impact her sense of style. But honestly, ushering gay rights into the Republican party is going to be a lot harder than desensitizing old white dudes to tramp stamps and goth pants, fashion choices that may seem rebellious to the John McCains of the world, but which all adults are nevertheless free to choose. The gay thing runs a little deeper, and the institutional barriers to full Republican acceptance of choices like gay marriage are a little more formidable—in most states, it's like, totally illegal.

I like McCain's vision of a Republican party that supports gay rights, but changing the party line is about more than being cool with having gay friends—it's about making these issues a priority within the party. The Log Cabin Republicans have survived as "Republicans" because they have been committed to upholding the party's identity despite its many gay rights failures. In order to be pro-Republican and pro-gay, you've got to work to incorporate gay rights into the traditional party rhetoric, so you can get the guys without the tattoos—and the gay friends—on board, too. With them, maybe best to emphasize the "government is best when it stays out of people’s lives" thing, and not just the "government is best when it's cool" thing.

"It could take the form of a full-time, or it could take the form of a three-quarter time or something like that," Hamilton told the Blade. "We haven't quite decided just exactly what we're going to be doing."

Hamilton admitted that while "the organization is currently able to pay its expenses," it can't "afford to hire a president with a salary in the range of hundreds of thousands of dollars." Hamilton attributed the discount search to the "times," which "call for lots of flexibility."

OMG—the Log Cabin Republicans should totally hire Meghan McCain as their new part-time president! She can lobby for the hipper, gayer Republican party part-time, blog about the hipper, gayer Republican party part-time, and still have time to maintain her Twitter account while penning her lavishly funded memoir. Who cares if she's not gay, and at times unconvincingly Republican? She sounds "flexible."

In the Daily Beast this week, McCain calls gay rights "one of the [causes] closest to my heart," and insists that "if the Republican Party has any hope of gaining substantial support from a wider, younger base, we need to get past our anti-gay rhetoric." Later this week, McCain is slated to address the Log Cabin Republicans at their annual convention, and she works hard on the Beast to build up the the gay conservative group's inclusiveness as a part of its "core Republican values," while dissing the Democrats for being the party that's really anti-gay.

"President Obama, for instance, is also against gay marriage—a dirty little secret many of my gay friends were shocked to discover during the presidential campaign," McCain writes. "But you’d never know it because he always 'sounds' so inclusive."

Actually, Obama's position on gay marriage is a "dirty little secret" only to the most willfully ignorant of armchair political analysts. Actually, Barack Obama made clear his opposition to gay marriage throughout the campaign. Why? Because the only fucking reason Democrats still adopt that position is so they can stand a chance in the general election, where they're facing off against the Republicans—you know, the party that actually doesn't want gay people to get married.

The Washington Blade has more bullshit to call on McCain's new number one issue. Blade editor Kevin Naff calls the Log Cabin Republicans "a rudderless group right now, bereft of leadership following the resignation of its executive director . . . and the departure of other key staffers." But "there are other problems with Meghan’s take on gay issues and the role of Log Cabin in fighting for them," Naff writes. "Chief among her shortcomings is timing."

Here's a dirty little secret for you: Barack Obama is not the only major presidential candidate to have opposed gay marriage in the primary! The point is not lost on Naff, who is miffed that McCain decided to wait until her father lost the presidency to reveal her whole-hearted support for gay rights. "It’s easy to adopt these 'progressive' stances when the campaign is over and you’re looking for a provocative gimmick to get yourself booked on Larry King and 'The View,'" writes Naff. "But when Meghan’s pro-gay views might have mattered, she was silent."

Then, it gets personal. "In fact, the Blade reached out to Meghan several times during the campaign for comment. We sensed that she was a new kind of Republican, one who doesn’t subscribe to the Rush Limbaugh-enforced code that the GOP remain beholden to the most out-of-touch Christian conservatives on the far right," Naff writes. "She declined all interview requests, while her father supported Proposition 8 in California and a constitutional amendment banning same-sex marriage in Arizona."

Let the record show that I have also found my attempts to contact Meghan McCain rebuffed. Meghan, if you're listening: I don't care that you're late to the party. I know you'll be in D.C. this weekend. The offer to down shots in Adams Morgan still stands, girlfriend.