The XX Factor

Christine O’Donnell Under Federal Investigation

File under “Least Surprising Post-Election News”: Christine O’Donnell is under federal investigation for misuse of campaign funds.  The accusation that O’Donnell mainly runs for office to avoid having to hold a real job that makes real money is hardly a new one.  During the primary against Mike Castle, O’Donnell’s campaign manager for a 2008 bid for Senate recorded robocalls accusing O’Donnell of living off campaign donations. That the same accusation is being floated now should be no surprise.

And file under “Second Least Surprising Post-Election News”: O’Donnell is responding to the investigation by fronting like there’s a conspiracy to take her down because she’s such a powerful and threatening figure. Since she’s publicly denied practicing witchcraft, I have to wonder where all this might come from.  Perhaps she feeds off laughter aimed in her direction, and one day when she’s absorbed enough power from the pointing and laughing, she’ll erupt, female-action-hero-style , into an ass-kicking machine that will permanently remake the state of Delaware into a conservative paradise where everyone’s too busy praying and making money off capitalist enterprises to find time for more carnal pleasures.

It’s hard not to feel sorry for O’Donnell, though.  You can see why she picked “right-wing charlatan” as a career path, since it seems like the easiest way on the planet to be swimming in millions in no time.  Just weep over a couple of broken hymens, denounce poor people for needing help, and get your hair done regularly, and soon you’ll be cashing multi-million-dollar book advance checks, right?  If Sarah Palin, Glenn Beck, and Mike Huckabee can do it, it should be easy.  And yet O’Donnell can’t even get it together to do this.  Her lies are just a tad too silly, and her grin is needy even beyond the attention-whore displays of her competitors.  But what other options does she have?

Photograph of Christine O’Donnell by Jessica Kourkounis/Getty Images.