---

The Breast… uh, Best… of ‘Chicago Republicans’

-By Warner Todd Huston

A tempest in a tea pot has roared into Chicago and this time it edges toward the risque. Riling the tongue cluckers is a website called Chicago Republicans which featured a post that ostensibly was to be about taking John Edwards and Bill Clinton to task for their exploitation of women. But the text of the post isn’t what is raising eyebrows. The photo accompanying the blog post shows some very healthy… er… lungs, if you will, of a very pretty woman.

The post titled The Female Century vs The Hetaerae Century & The John Edwards “Affair” features an artsy photo by Russian photographer Vyacheslav Potemkin of nude model Natasha Volkova and has tongues wagging all across the nets tonight. The post was written by Lumi Boldovici a Romanian immigrant and blogger at the Chicago Republicans site.

Sadly, many of the sites posting stories about this incident are tsk tsking “the Chicago Republicans” for featuring the nudie shot and claiming that the “Chicago GOP” should be ashamed of itself. The problem is that the site featuring the nude photo is NOT a “Chicago Republican” site. The blog is operated by Tom Swiss but this site has no connection to the party itself and is operated as a group blog. Granted Swiss is the political director of the Chicago GOP but his site is not paid for by the party nor is it run by the party. It is Mr. Swiss’ own privately funded and operated site.

Since the Chicago social networking site WindyCitizen had an entry about the nude photo and soon after the Capitol Fax blog picked up the story several GOP candidates began to express concern over the whole thing. GOP Gubernatorial candidate Bill Brady is reported to have asked that his ads be removed from the site.

One thing is obvious about how this story was reported initially, however. Most of the websites that first reported the story assumed that the Chicago Republicans Blog was an official blog of the Republican Party of Chicago even though it is an independent project and not connected to the party.

Too bad none of these so-called journalists did much leg work to find out the truth before jumping on the salacious aspect of the story. Here are just a few of the websites that carried this story (as you’ll see most have been updated to reflect the facts).

• WindyCitizen.com
• Capitol Fax blog
• Chicago Sun-Times
• Mediaite
• Chicago Current
• The Huffington Post
• Newsweek’s The Gaggle Blog
• Chicago NBC

In a post answering to the critics, website operator Tom Swiss refused to take the photo down and stood beside his fellow blogger, Lumi Boldovici, on First Amendment principles. Swiss operates the political consulting firm GOP Media.

It all amounts to a ho hum as far as I am concerned. If it isn’t sponsored by any political party and is run by a fellow in his role as an private citizen, I have no major problem with it. He can post what he likes and I can decide if I want to continue returning to his site based on its content. It’s really just that simple.

I also have a major problem calling the photo in question “porn.” It really doesn’t rise… er, shall I say fall… to the status of porn. If you want to see the image click over to the Chicago Republicans post to see it.
____________
“The only end of writing is to enable the reader better to enjoy life, or better to endure it.”
–Samuel Johnson

Warner Todd Huston is a Chicago based freelance writer, has been writing opinion editorials and social criticism since early 2001 and is featured on many websites such as Andrew Breitbart’s BigGovernment.com, RightWingNews.com, CanadaFreePress.com, StoptheACLU.com, TheRealityCheck.org, RedState.com, Human Events Magazine, AmericanDailyReview.com, and the New Media Journal, among many, many others. Additionally, he has been a frequent guest on talk-radio programs to discuss his opinion editorials and current events and is currently the co-host of “Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Conservatism” heard on BlogTalkRadio. Warner is also the editor of the Cook County Page for RedCounty.com.

He has also written for several history magazines and appears in the new book “Americans on Politics, Policy and Pop Culture” which can be purchased on amazon.com. He is also the owner and operator of PubliusForum.com. Feel free to contact him with any comments or questions : EMAIL Warner Todd Huston

Fair Use: This site may contain copyrighted material the use of which has not always been specifically authorized by the copyright owner. I am making such material available in my efforts to advance understanding of political, human rights, economic, democracy, and social justice issues, etc. I believe this constitutes a ‘fair use’ of any such copyrighted material as provided for in section 107 of the US Copyright Law. In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, the material on this site is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research, educational, or satirical purposes. If you wish to use copyrighted material from this site/blog for purposes of your own that go beyond ‘fair use’, you must obtain permission from the copyright owner.