By Kit-Bacon Gressitt

After the failure of a billion-dollar-plus wholesale bakery, a strident presidential election,a celebrated sex scandal (which would not be scandalous in countries less publicly vested in the whereabouts of folks’ dickles), and voter support for same-sex marriage in four states, thoughtful study and analysis of the outcomes is warranted. And what better place to find due consideration of lesson’s learned and key takeaways than in the media. Recent news stories and releases offered the following insights.

According to CEO Gregory F. Rayburn, the recent shutdown of Hostess Brands, maker of the iconic and non-biodegradable Twinkie, was the fault of dastardly unions.Certainly no responsibility should be assigned to executives, who cavalierly cut workers’
benefits while giving themselves hefty pay raises, or to hedge funds intent on bleeding the company of every last sanguine cent while the corporation tumbled through mismanaged bankruptcies.

This one is a bit of a stretch for me, given that the half-life of a Twinkie mythically rivals that of a spent nuclear fuel rod. I suspect the world is actually better off without the jovially packaged trans fats and Polysorbate 60 that are a Twinkie.

Perhaps what actually caused Hostess’ downfall is that Rayburn and his investors ate too much of their own junk (food).

According to the dratted liberal media, failed GOP presidential candidate Gov. Mitt Romney’s supposition that President Obama won re-election by employing political patronage — giving “gifts” to African Americans, Latinos and young people — was the sourly-grapish rant of a poor loser.

Bitter though he might be, Romney’s error was that he revealed only the tip of the gift-laden iceberg. Obama also doled out gifts to women and the LGBT community, and we gratefully swapped our votes for them. We received such largess as support for contraception, family planning and legal abortion; LGBT civil rights, including support for same-sex marriage; greater access to pay equity for women; two female Supreme Court Justices; and investment in clean energy — something all we giftees can enjoy.

Romney got this one pretty much right. Hell, Obama makes life feel like a perpetual birthday — I can’t wait to open the next package!

According to most major news outlets, retired Army General and former CIA Director David Petraeus — the much-ballyhooed savior of the coalition forces’ homesick derrieres in Iraq, the soldier’s soldier who taunted lesser men with his 2:50 marathon time — was toppled not by his hubris but by “Miss Fatal Attraction 2012,” because, however overtly or subtly it is implied, extra-marital affairs, particularly those involving men of renown, are always the woman’s fault.

Supposedly, all it took to knock out the nation’s quintessential warrior scholar was a wily vagina.

While this repeated suggestion is certainly sexist, it makes me feel rather powerful down there, and I can think of any number of targets against which I’d like to wield my mighty vagina: the Republican Party, the Catholic Church, many churches in fact. Indeed, imagine what could be achieved with a united effort — a platoon of vaginas, a brigade of fighting labia, an army of elite warrior vulva marching against the misogynist hordes!

According to the National Organization for Marriage (NOM), the November 6 election results — including popular and electoral vote victories for a pro-gay rights president, an increased U.S. Senate majority of 55 democratic and independent seats, supermajorities in the California Senate and Assembly, and four states’ same-sex marriage wins — indicated that had the election included a national referendum against same-sex marriage, it would have won with 55 percent of the vote. In contrast to his fanciful thinking, NOM President Brian Brown also went on the attack, indicating that the losses at the polls were the result of goddamned stingy donors, who contributed only half — half! — of what NOM budgeted for the campaign season.

“What is required to regain victory?” Brown asked in his Saturday missive. “People of faith are going to need to step up and help fund the cause.”

Although Brown might have a talent for fear- and hate-mongering propaganda, his analysis of the elections suggests that critical thinking is not his long suit — and that he’s really, really worried about holding onto his job in the face of dwindling financial support for his unworthy cause.

While I admit to the guilty pleasure of imagining Brown joining the ranks of Romney’s reputed 47 percent of the population on the government dole (a concept newly unpopular among Republicans), on a slightly more serious note, I must say that it surely seems many of those who reported their insights this past week have been befuckled by too many Twinkies.

Love,
K-B

Crossposted at Excuse Me, I’m Writing