Get yourself a glass of something nice, first.

This is from a candidate forum from earlier in the evening, where Nikki Haley redresses one week’s worth of filthy innuendos in roughly five minutes, at the expense of Lt. Gov Andre Bauer. You should watch the entire thing…

See also Hot Air and Ace of Spades. [And here's some useful AmSpec background.] [And check out the quickly-remixed video here.]

…but if you must start at the good bit, start at 3:05: it’s the point where Nikki interjects into Bauer’s self-serving, passive-aggressive no comment on the games played by his staffer by pointing out that said staffer was paid by Bauer.   Bauer thinks he’s deflected it by saying that he fired the guy (while trying to insinuate that maybe it was because he didn’t want a dirty adulterer around).

Then Nikki lowers the boom.

“Y’all were fishing the story last night and you didn’t fire him yesterday,” said Haley. “Only when no one would take it seriously because he’s a paid consultant that you decided to fire him today.”

This (at 3:32) was Bauer’s response:

…and that was pretty much his response for the next forty seconds or so, which was roughly thirty-five seconds too long to make his eventual denial even remotely believable.  Particularly since it followed some pitch-perfect indignation by Nikki over what these vile accusations are doing to her kids.

As I mentioned earlier on Twitter: you can have your guts back, Lt. Governor.  Nikki doesn’t need new garters after all.

Moe Lane