Rocker Ted Nugent responds to a question during an interview before a concert at the House of Blues at the Mandalay Bay Resort in Las Vegas, Nevada in this 2007 file photograph. (Steve Marcus/REUTERS/File)

Ted Nugent: Will anti-Obama rant cost him more gigs?

By Peter Grier, Staff writer / 04.23.12

Will Ted Nugent’s harsh comments about President Obama rebound and hit the shock rocker in the pocketbook? It looks like that’s possible following Fort Knox’s cancellation of a Nugent appearance at the Army post’s annual summer concert.

Mr. Nugent had been scheduled to appear with fellow ’70s flashback acts REO Speedwagon and Styx on June 23 at Ford Knox’s Godman Army Airfield. But concert organizers last week decided it was time for Nugent to fly out of their lineup after he criticized Obama officials as “vile” and “un-American” and said that if Mr. Obama wins reelection, “I will either be dead or in jail by this time next year.”

On Thursday, Secret Service agents met with Nugent to discuss his comments, as it is illegal to threaten to president. Afterward, the agents said they were satisfied Nugent meant Obama no physical harm, but that wasn’t enough for the Motor City Madman to ride the storm out and keep the Fort Knox gig.

“After learning of opening act Ted Nugent’s recent public comments about the president of the United States, Fort Knox leadership decided to cancel his performance on the installation,” said a statement on the post’s Facebook page.

Someone else may step in and take Nugent’s place, according to the Fort Knox Morale, Welfare, and Recreation office, whose website lists ticket prices and availability, plus the phrase “special guest to be announced.”

Controversy could now follow Nugent wherever he is supposed to appear. Over the weekend, two city councilmen in Bangor, Maine, called for the cancellation of a Nugent show scheduled for July 8 on the city’s Penobscot River waterfront.

Concert promoter Alex Gray said Sunday the Bangor concert is still on. If people don’t like Nugent’s remarks, they can choose to stay away, said Mr. Gray, according to the Bangor Daily News.

Will Nugent be sorry he publicly expressed such harsh opinions about politics? After all, that kind of thing can be a long-term money loser for popular entertainers, given that their audiences by definition are large enough to contain voters from both parties. Hank Williams Jr. lost his status as provider of the theme song for “Monday Night Football” after he made an analogy involving Obama and Adolf Hitler, remember.

Politics can even be bad business for politicians. Look at Newt Gingrich. The former House speaker’s think tank, the Center for Health Transformation, filed for bankruptcy this month. The once high-flying center saw its fortunes decline dramatically as Mr. Gingrich himself struggled on the presidential campaign trail.

But let’s be honest: Nugent is not going to speak much differently in the future, since his rhetoric has been over the top since approximately the Carter administration. Perhaps the satirical publication The Onion best summed up Nugent’s verbal approach to the world with its classic 2002 headline, “Ted Nugent Talks That Way Even When Buying Socks.”

Nugent’s new business venture might even benefit from attention generated by rocker’s latest controversy. He’s launching a line of high-performance hunting ammunition, Ted Nugent Ammo. Its slogan is “kill ’em, grill ’em”: Noted carnivore Nugent insists that he eats the animals he shoots.

Read entire post | Comments

Maryland Gov. Martin O'Malley speaks to reporters on the last day of the state's legislative session on April 9, in Annapolis, Md. (Steve Ruark/AP)

Martin O'Malley for president in 2016? He drops a few hints.

By Linda Feldmann, Staff writer / 04.20.12

Martin O’Malley is often mentioned as a potential presidential candidate in 2016, and when asked Friday if he might run, he offered the usual “I’m too busy being governor of Maryland” response.

But Governor O’Malley didn’t rule it out. And when asked whether he’s had any discussion with his family, he allowed that the subject has come up with his two college-age daughters.

“My daughters will e-mail me when they see the honorable mentions with such tremendous leaders as Hillary Clinton and Andrew Cuomo, who’s done an outstanding job in New York, and Vice President Biden, who my daughters just adore,” said O’Malley, speaking at the centrist Democratic think tank Third Way in Washington. “They’ll e-mail me and say, ‘Boy, Dad, it’s nice to be included.’ So there’s that sort of talk.”

O’Malley dropped other hints that suggested the idea of running for president might have crossed his mind.   

“Anything that you hope to do later in public service always depends on your doing a good job at what you’re doing right now,” says O’Malley, who’s in his second term. “And so ... in some ways it’s a simpler time for me, because I know I cannot run again for governor. “

That means no need to carve out time to raise money for a reelection campaign, or pressure from the party to run again and hold the statehouse, he says.

These thoughts about a possible campaign came after he maintained he wasn’t thinking much about running.

“I also am the head of the Democratic Governors Association for the second year, and I suppose for that reason as well as the good job we’ve done in Maryland together over these last few years, people kindly mention me when they talk about what the future of our party holds,” O’Malley said.

“And that’s nice and it’s kind, but I don’t really spend a whole lot of time thinking about it, working on it, or worrying about it,” he continued. “The future – you know, the future will be, and what I’m focused on right now is what I have to do in the present. And that’s plenty for me.”

In the immediate term, O’Malley faces an impasse in his state legislature over a package of tax increases and spending cuts that, if not resolved by July, could result in deep cuts to education spending. Given the large Democratic majorities in the Maryland legislature, the unexpected meltdown was an embarrassment to O’Malley.

But in his conversation Friday with national reporters, O’Malley preferred to focus on the good news coming out of his state. O’Malley is all about metrics, and he came with an armful: Maryland public schools have been named No. 1 in the nation by Education Week magazine four years in a row. Maryland has also gone four straight years without raising tuition in its public universities. Violent crime is down to its lowest levels in 30 years. Over the past year, Maryland has had the ninth-best job-creation rate in the United States. Maryland has the highest median income in the country.

And, as O’Malley announced the day before, Maryland’s blue crab population is at its highest level since 1993 – not the basis for a national campaign, but certainly good news for a state that prides itself on its tasty crustaceans.

O’Malley, who appears often on national TV as a leading Democrat, also differed with President Obama’s emphasis on “fairness” as a campaign message.

“As I talk to people, yeah, they’re bothered by the income disparity as one symptom, but they’re more bothered by the fact that their husband or their wife might lose their job, or that they might no longer have health care, or if they have it, they’re going to have to part with a lot more money,” he said.

Addressing the issues of job loss, home loss, decline in the quality of life, and erosion of incomes is a more persuasive argument, O'Malley says, than the theme of fairness.

But, he added, there is a “positive platform” for Mr. Obama to run on, centered on themes of education, innovation, and rebuilding.

Over and over, O’Malley came back to education as an area where government can build for the future. So here’s an early guess: If he does run in 2016, he’ll pitch himself as the “education president.”

“I think one of the most persuasive points for our own reelection in Maryland among seniors was affordable college,” he said. “Why is that? Because they remember the GI Bill, because they have grandkids, because they know that education is the best indicator of economic security.”

“So,” he concluded, speaking about the Democrats’ overall message this fall, “I think opportunity is what this is going to be about.”

Read entire post | Comments

Former Virginia US Sen. George Allen greets attendees at the 64th annual Wakefield Shad Planking in Wakefield, Va., Wednesday. Allen is running for the Republican nomination for US Senate. (Steve Helber/AP)

Smoke the shad, press the flesh: a Virginia political ritual past its prime?

By David Grant, Staff writer / 04.20.12

Making his way through the throngs at the annual "Shad Planking" in Wakefield, Va., former Virginia Gov. George Allen ran into Bernard Blackwell, who reminded him of a 1996 trip he made as governor to Mr. Blackwell's grandmother's house in rural Northern Neck after a hurricane all but destroyed it.

Blackwell was at a loss for words after Mr. Allen, now a Republican candidate for the US Senate, recalled one key detail: He had come across the grandmother's stray dog in a nearby field. "I can't believe he remembered the dog," Blackwell said afterward.

At a moment when "super political-action committees" can flood the airwaves with unlimited amounts of money and campaigns are plunging into social media, the Planking – one of Virginia's oldest political festivals, where politicians break bread with regular Joes over smoked shad – shows that good ol' retail politicking still flies. 

"This is the way politics ought to be," Allen said in his keynote speech, "with people actually talking eye-to-eye with each other." 

While Allen and Democratic nominee Tim Kaine, another ex-governor and former head of the Democratic National Committee, have lots of events around the commonwealth, those appearances are usually targeted to key groups, such as members of their own political party, small-business owners, or veterans.

"How many places can you go in the state of Virginia that anybody can buy a ticket and walk up and shake George Allen's hand or Tim Kaine's hand or whoever and talk to 'em one-on-one?" says Stan Brantley, master of ceremonies of the Planking for the past 14 years.

But Kaine, Allen's Democratic opponent in the Senate race, didn't come. It's hard to fault him. He's not likely to win many votes at the GOP-dominated Planking, and his job is to win pulls of the lever or punches on the computer screen (or whatever) come November. Virginia political watchers and recent experience backs up the theory that the Planking isn't all that important for politicians on the left.

In 2009, Terry McAuliffe and Brian Moran, two Democratic candidates for governor, did go to Shad Planking. State Sen. Creigh Deeds (D), who wasn't in attendance, eventually got the nomination.

Even so, sticking one's neck out at the Planking can win a level of respect from even the harshest partisans. Mr. McAuliffe, a close confidant of Bill and Hillary Clinton, isn't exactly the type of person James Cupp of Warsaw, Va., would ever think about voting for: He says state Delegate and arch social conservative Bob Marshall (R) would have made the best choice for the Senate had he gotten into the race a bit earlier.

Yet Mr. Cupp respects McAuliffe for going into the lion's den.

"He wasn't beneath talking to folks even though they didn't agree with him," he says. "I give McAuliffe a lot of credit for coming down here."

Jim Campbell of Wicomico Church, Va., listed Sen. Mark Warner (D) right alongside GOP heavyweights like former Sen. John Warner among his favorite Shad Planking memories.

And in contrast to the soccer moms or suburban immigrant communities that represent the much buzzier keys to electoral victory in the Old Dominion, there are a few old-line rural Democrats around who speak for a Virginia Democratic Party before the booming northern Virginia suburbs pulled the party's center of gravity toward the Potomac.

"This is how you prove you're a good ol' boy – come on out here and have a little fun, let the Ruritans raise a little money, and press the flesh a little bit," says Darryl Merchant, a Democrat who also has a concealed carry permit, "and at least show the Republicans there are Democrats around."

Read entire post | Comments

In this 2011 photo, musician and gun rights activist Ted Nugent addresses a seminar at the National Rifle Association's convention in Pittsburgh. Nugent met with the Secret Service Thursday after he made statements that some critics interpreted as a threat against the president. (Gene J. Puskar/AP/File)

Ted Nugent meets Secret Service: Was he singled out?

By Peter Grier, Staff writer / 04.19.12

Ted Nugent has met with the Secret Service and there were no explosions of either a literal or metaphorical kind.

The longtime shock rocker met with two “fine, professional” agents in Oklahoma, where he’s scheduled for an evening gig, he said in a statement Thursday afternoon. Mr. Nugent did not barricade himself in his dressing room. The Feds did not haul him away in handcuffs.

Instead they all had a nice chat about Nugent’s recent harsh statements, such as his assertion at last weekend’s National Rifle Association convention that if President Obama is reelected “I will either be dead or in jail by this time next year.” The Secret Service apparently came away convinced that Nugent is only a threat to decorum, not the chief executive of the US.

“The issue has been resolved” and the agency “does not anticipate any further action,” Secret Service spokesman Brian Leary told the Washington Post.

Given how smoothly this confrontation went, we’ve been wondering, was Nugent just singled out for Secret Service attention? Or do agents do this every day, interviewing verbal flamethrowers all across America as their first line of US VIP defense?

We’re guessing the latter. As part of its approach to presidential protection, the Secret Service interviews hundreds of people every year to see if they’re real threats. In that sense, the Nugent meeting wasn’t special – it was just agents doing their usual job.

It has been a crime to threaten the life of the president since 1917, according to a recent Congressional Research Service report on the Secret Service and its mission. While Secret Service officials have indicated there has been no increase in death threats against President Obama as compared with his immediate predecessors, the exact number of serious threats a president receives, and the Secret Service reactions to them, is classified information.

Thus “the extent to which Presidents have been threatened or targeted remains a matter of conjecture,” writes CRS Homeland Security policy analyst Shawn Reese.

However, one can at least get a feel for the scope of this problem from the US Secret Service Annual Report for Fiscal Year 2010, the latest such study available. It notes that in that year the agency “produced more than 450 protective intelligence assessments.”

While those assessments may cover more than just presidential safety, they are a crucial tool for agents trying to sort out real threats from trash talk by attention-seekers.

In the 1990s, the Secret Service conducted a five-year analysis of individuals who had attacked or tried to attack prominent public officials. This Exceptional Case Study Project led to the creation of an in-house National Threat Assessment Center and still guides agents in their approach to protecting national figures today.

One of the study’s key findings was that potential assassins almost always attempted to communicate their intentions in some way prior to acting. Translated, this means agents follow up anything that might be construed as a serious threat. You never know.

“Threats should always be investigated; even if a threat is not an early warning of attack, making a threat is usually a violation of law, which is a valid reason for opening an investigation,” concludes a Secret Service guide to threat assessment investigations for law enforcement officials.

So in that sense Thursday's Ted Nugent meeting was just the same-old, same-old, for agents who’ve done it many times before.

Agents likely asked Nugent if he had ever made plans to attack the president, ever actually tried to get near the president, and so forth. However, in one key respect Nugent would be a very unlikely presidential attacker, according to Secret Service documents. Most real or attempted assassins want to achieve notoriety or fame, or solve some perceived personal problem. Disliking the president’s policies isn’t enough.

“Contrary to the general perception few assassins in the United States – even those targeting major political leaders – have had purely political motives,” says the Secret Service guide to threat assessment.

Read entire post | Comments

Ann Romney (C), wife of Republican presidential candidate and former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney (2nd R), greets police and their horses after a campaign rally at Montgomery Inn Restaurant in Cincinnati, Ohio March 3. (Brian Snyder/REUTERS)

Olympics vs. dancing horse: Which one defines Mitt Romney?

By Liz Marlantes, Correspondent / 04.19.12

In 2004, Sen. John Kerry, the Democratic nominee for president, found himself being mocked for, among other things, his love of windsurfing. The sport was used as a metaphor for Senator Kerry's "flip-flopping" in one of the campaign's most devastating ads, which showed Kerry on a board, flipping from one side to the other, as the voiceover listed his seemingly contradictory positions on issues.

Kerry's windsurfing also was portrayed as elitist – and somehow less than all-American – an implication that may have been even more deadly than the flip-flopping. (Of course, the all-American sport President Bush was most closely identified with – baseball – was in his capacity as a former team owner, not a player, which isn't exactly the experience of average Americans, either.)

Wednesday, ABC News took a look at a favorite sport of the Romneys that, in terms of its perceived elitism and foreignness to most Americans, makes windsurfing look like high school football: dressage (even the name is French!). As ABC's Matthew Mosk writes:

"The World Cup finals for the elite sport of dancing horses, known as dressage, opened today in the Netherlands without the presence of two of its most prominent wealthy devotees, Mitt and Ann Romney. The Romneys' horse, Rafalca, will compete, however, performing to music personally selected by the Republican presidential candidate."

The article goes on to explain that the Romneys are the owner and financial sponsor of a horse-and-rider team from California. It also notes that through the years the Romneys have owned or co-owned as many as eight dressage horses.

Granted, it's Ann Romney, not Mitt, who is the real dressage fan. But it seems her husband has supported her passion for the sport in ways beyond just funding it. (According to ABC, the music he chose for the horse's routine is from "The Mission" and "Rainman.") 

Last week, the website Gawker posted a video clip of Romney chatting with Fox News host Sean Hannity with a high degree of detail about the kinds of horses he and his wife own – though the comments themselves were overshadowed by the flurry over the "Fox News mole" who procured the video:

“She has Austrian Warmbloods, which are – yeah, it’s a dressage horse, it’s a kind of horse for the sport that she’s in," Romney said. "Me, I have a Missouri Fox Trotter. So mine is like a quarter horse, but just a much better gait. It moves very fast, and doesn’t tire, and it’s easy to ride, meaning it’s not boom-boom-boom, it’s just smooth, very smooth.”

Presidential candidates don't need to be athletic or even major sports fans. But most of them try to find a sport to latch on to – even if only recreationally or as fans. Everyone knows President Obama plays basketball. Other candidates have made a show of at least jogging on the campaign trail.

Romney has at times joked about his lack of athleticism in high school and college – and the irony of his being chosen to head the 2002 Winter Olympic Games in Salt Lake City:

“My oldest son called and said, ‘Dad. I’ve talked to the brothers this morning. We want you to know there’s not a circumstance we could have conceived of that would put you on the front page of the sports section.’" he told a crowd in Palm Beach, Fla., back in 2010. "So my life hasn’t exactly gone as I might have expected.”

For now, the athletic competition Romney is most associated with is the Olympics. His campaign no doubt hopes it stays that way. 

Read entire post | Comments

In this 2011 file photo, musician and gun rights activist Ted Nugent addresses a seminar at the National Rifle Association's convention in Pittsburgh. (Gene J. Puskar/AP/File)

How Ted Nugent might fend off the Secret Service

By Peter Grier, Staff writer / 04.19.12

Shock rocker Ted Nugent says he is meeting with the Secret Service Thursday to discuss recent inflammatory political comments, such as his assertion over the weekend that if President Obama is reelected “I will either be dead or in jail by this time next year.”

The Secret Service will want to know what Mr. Nugent meant, as it is illegal to threaten the life of the president. Nugent says he is happy to talk with the feds, though he finds the whole thing silly.

“The conclusion will be obvious that I threatened no one,” Nugent said Wednesday on Glenn Beck’s radio show.

What can the he say in his defense? Nugent's speech has been pretty harsh, after all. (In addition to the aforementioned verbal riff, in recent days he’s said the Obama administration is “vile, evil, [and] America-hating.” He has called House minority leader Nancy Pelosi a “varmint” and a “sub-human scoundrel.” He has tried to rally GOP forces with "we are Braveheart, we need to ride onto that battlefield and chop their heads off in November!”)

Well, we think we have a good idea as to how his talk with the Secret Service will go. Here are points Nugent and his heavy metal legal team are likely to make:

He don't speak good. Nugent’s words aren’t rhetoric, in the sense of being an attempt to convey coherent thought. It’s better to think of them as derogatory words strung together at random. Given that, where’s the threat?

After all, “I will either be dead or in jail by this time next year” could be seen as Nugent threatening himself, not the president. “Varmint”? To a hunter like Nugent, that’s a term of endearment. “Chop their heads off in November”? Whose heads are we talking about? Maybe Nugent’s ranch has way too many ground hogs.

The Onion perhaps best summed up Nugent’s verbal approach to the world with its classic 2002 headline, “Ted Nugent Talks That Way Even When Buying Socks.”

It's an act. Look, we’re not talking about Sen. Joe Lieberman here. Ted Nugent is the sort of person who’s been a guest star on "The Simpsons" – twice. Homer endorsed him for president, for goodness' sake. Nugent then promised to move the White House to Kalamazoo.

The point is that Nugent is a professional provocateur. As the Washington Post points out Thursday, he hasn’t actually been a rock star for more than 30 years. He makes money as a hunting enthusiast/reality show host/autograph seller.

In this context, the recent dust-up over politics is the best thing to happen to him since he cut himself with a chain saw while filming “Surviving Nugent: the Ted Commandments.”

How was Colombia? We know – you think Nugent won’t go that far. We say predicting how far Ted Nugent will go is a fool’s errand. The Secret Service has already ousted three agents in the expanding prostitution scandal linked to preparations for President Obama’s trip to Cartegena last  weekend for the Summit of the Americas. It is certainly possible Nugent will make some reference to this in his own defense.

Meanwhile, Democrats continue to call for presumptive GOP presidential nominee Mitt Romney to condemn Ted Nugent by name, possibly while signing a petition to keep Nugent out of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame forever. At this point we’re pretty sure that Mr. Romney wishes Ted Nugent had endorsed somebody else.

Newt Gingrich and Ted Nugent on stage together – there’s a moon colony gun fest we’d love to see.

In a matchup with Republican presidential candidate, former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney and President Barack Obama, latest polling data point to either a close race or an Obama blowout, depending on which numbers you look at. ((L.- r.) Jae C. Hong/AP, Carolyn Kaster/AP)

Mitt Romney vs. Barack Obama: a squeaker or a landslide? (+video)

By Liz Marlantes, Correspondent / 04.18.12

Throughout the presidential campaign so far, prognosticators have generally split between two possible outcomes for the fall: that this election will be extremely close and could go either way, or that President Obama will win big.

There's plenty of data right now to support both hypotheses. Those going with the "squeaker" prediction see the election as largely a referendum on the president's economic stewardship, and point to multiple polls showing Mitt Romney beating Mr. Obama on the issue of who is best able to handle economic matters. Bolstering this argument further is the fact that Obama and Mr. Romney are in a dead heat in the latest national polls – with Romney actually leading in the inaugural Gallup tracking poll by two percentage points. Given that Romney has just emerged from a bruising primary fight, it's reasonable to assume he could boost his ratings further in weeks to come.

"Obama landslide" predictors, on the other hand, see the election as less likely to be a pure referendum on the economy than a contest between two candidates – one of whom is dramatically more personally popular than the other (Obama bested Romney on likability by nearly 40 points in a recent ABC News-Washington Post poll). They point to the fact that Romney's favorability ratings are at historic lows for a presumptive nominee. And Obama is beating Romney handily among women and among Hispanics, and easily wins on a wide range of categories such as leadership, honesty, and which candidate best understands the concerns of average Americans.

So which side is right? Well, for what it's worth, the current betting on Intrade has Obama's odds of being reelected at 61 percent. But we'd add a few more points to the mix. First, there's always an inherent bias among the press and political classes toward predicting close elections. Reporters want to cover an exciting race, and campaigns want their supporters energized to turn out. And of course, no one actually knows what will happen, so saying it will be close is always a safer bet.

Second, among those who are predicting a blowout victory, virtually no one – with the recent exception of conservative commentator Dick Morris – is anticipating that victor to be Romney. (As we've written before, even many Republicans are not particularly bullish on Romney's chances.) By contrast, back in 2004 – a campaign that strikes many as similar to this year's, only with the parties playing reverse roles – there were a number of prominent "Kerry landslide" predictions. 

One argument often cited by the "landslide" camp, then as now, is that history shows incumbents tend to win or lose reelection by large, not small, margins. In 1980, Jimmy Carter lost to Ronald Reagan 49 to 489 in the Electoral College; in 1984, Reagan beat Walter Mondale 525 to 13; in 1992, George H.W. Bush lost to Bill Clinton 168 to 370; and in 1996, Clinton beat Bob Dole 379 to 159.

In all of those instances, the election could be interpreted as a referendum on the president's economic performance – which might actually suggest a Romney landslide. But you could just as easily make the case that each time, the public went with the candidate it considered more personally appealing –which would push the needle decisively toward Obama.

Of course, in 2004, George W. Bush broke with history and won by a relatively narrow margin (286 to 252) – though he did improve on his 2000 performance (where he won 271 to 266 and lost the popular vote), leading political scientist Joshua Spivak to recharacterize the historical pattern: Incumbents, he wrote a few months back, either win by a bigger margin than in their first election, or they lose. 

History may be made again this year, since it seems highly unlikely that Obama will improve on his 2008 results (in which he beat John McCain 365 to 173). But that doesn't mean it's going to be a squeaker. In fact, if the election were held now, using the most recent polling data available in individual states to determine which way they'd go, the results – as Daily Kos recently pointed out – would not be close. Obama would wind up with 341 to Romney's 197, in an election that would have to be characterized as pretty decisive. 

Read entire post | Comments

Ted Nugent performs at a concert at the House of Blues at the Mandalay Bay Resort in Las Vegas, Nevada in this 2007 file image. (Steve Marcus/REUTERS)

Ted Nugent: Worst political endorser ever? (+video)

By Peter Grier, Staff writer / 04.18.12

Ted Nugent on Tuesday doubled down on his recent political provocation, telling the Dana Loesch radio show that the Obama administration is full of “corrupt monsters” and “communist czars” and that House minority leader Nancy Pelosi is a “varmint” and “subhuman scoundrel.”

Mr. Nugent did not take back the assertion he made at last weekend’s National Rifle Association convention that if President Obama is reelected, “I will either be dead or in jail by this time next year.” The Secret Service has already confirmed that it will be visiting the aging shock rocker to determine if that phrase is an actual threat.

“See, I’m a black Jew at a Nazi-Klan rally ... because I have the audacity to speak the truth to identify the violations of our government,” Nugent told the Loesch show.

Wow. Ted Nugent identifies with Sammy Davis Jr. – who knew? Beyond that, we’ve got this question: Who’s happiest about Nugent’s visit to political crazy town – Democrats or journalists?

Democrats are certainly trying to take advantage of the moment, since Nugent publicly endorsed Mitt Romney last month, something the presumptive GOP nominee and his sons crowed about at the time. The Democratic National Committee has rushed out a rapid-response video that tries to hang Nugent around Mr. Romney’s neck, metaphorically speaking.

But Nugentgate has given some commentators the opportunity to set their umbrage machines to “stun." They’re calling on Romney to condemn Nugent by name, perhaps while shattering copies of the 1978 LP “Ted Nugent Double Live – Gonzo!” (The Romney campaign has issued a generic statement condemning divisive political speech.)

“Until the candidate condemns the rocker, we should all assume he’s fine with that kind of talk from a surrogate,” wrote The Washington Post’s Jonathan Capehart on Tuesday in an opinion column.

OK, we’ll agree that Nugent’s words are so far over the top that at this point, he’s approaching the outer rings of Saturn. (“We are Braveheart. We need to ride onto that battlefield and chop their heads off in November!” he said last week.) It’s illegal to threaten the president, as the Secret Service soon will be reminding him.

But Romney surrogate? As we wrote Tuesday, we’re not sure Ted Nugent is a Ted Nugent surrogate any longer. Many of his rants aren’t so much speech as derogatory words linked together at random. (See “black Jew at a Nazi-Klan rally,” above.) He earned the nickname Motor City Madman in the 1970s. He’s had 40 years to perfect that act.

One thing is certain: The Romney campaign is marking him down as the worst celebrity endorsement they’ve yet received. On Tuesday, Nugent not only said that he stands by his previous words, but he also said that Romney agrees with him.

“Mitt Romney knows what I’m saying is true. He puts it in the words for him; I put in the words for me,” Nugent told the Loesch show.

Well, Ted, think of it this way: You’re making big problems for Romney at the moment. What if he wins? Will he be grateful for you? Nope, he won’t. We figure there’s a good chance you’ll be in trouble with the White House no matter who sits in the Oval Office next January.

Musician Ted Nugent, shown here with Republican Senate candidate John Raese and Sarah Palin in 2010, said that he'd either be 'dead or in jail' a year hence if Obama is reelected. (Jon C. Hancock/AP)

Ted Nugent: Threat to Obama, or harmless loudmouth?

By Peter Grier, Staff writer / 04.17.12

Rocker Ted Nugent is in trouble for remarks he made over the weekend about President Obama at the National Rifle Association’s convention in St. Louis. The Secret Service intends to contact him to ask what he meant when he said in an interview that “if Barack Obama becomes the president in November again, I will either be dead or in jail by this time next year.”

It’s not legal to threaten the nation’s chief executive, which is why the Secret Service is getting involved. Although Nugent’s remarks could also be interpreted as a threat to kill himself, if you ask us.

In the same interview the aging Motor City Madman Nugent called the liberal block of the Supreme Court “evil, anti-American people” and said the administration in general is “vile, evil, [and] America-hating.”

Is this a problem for presumptive GOP nominee Mitt Romney? After all, Mr. Nugent endorsed Mr. Romney in early March, shortly after the Michigan primary. At the time this earned a thumbs-up from Romney’s son Tagg, who said on his Twitter account that “Ted Nugent endorsed my Dad today. Ted Nugent? How cool is that?! He joins Kid Rock as great Detroit musicians on team Mitt!”

Today Tagg may be wishing his Dad had landed the coveted Bob Seger nod instead. Democrats were all over this today, calling on Romney to disown the comments of a rocker the Democratic National Committee referred to as a “Romney surrogate.”

Romney did so, issuing a statement through a spokeswoman that “divisive language is offensive no matter what side of the political aisle it comes from.”

What will be the upshot of all this? Perhaps, just perhaps it will mark a moment when Washington’s umbrage-generation machine finally jumped the shark. If you get our drift.

Ted Nugent, political surrogate? We’re not even sure Ted Nugent is a Ted Nugent surrogate. Twitter is swarming with comments on this uproar at the moment. Generally, they can be broken down into three categories:

1. Ted Nugent is still alive?

2. Ted Nugent is more of a threat to music than politics.

3. This doesn’t even make the list of Top Ten Crazy Ted Nugent Moments.

In regards to point 3, Nugent in 2003 hosted a VH1 reality show titled “Surviving Nugent,” in which urban celebrities visited him at his Michigan ranch near Jackson, 70 miles west of Detroit, and competed in typical Great Lakes State outdoors activities such as skinning a Russian boar.

This was successful enough to lead to a 2004 miniseries titled “Surviving Nugent: The Ted Commandments,” during which Nugent injured himself with a chainsaw during filming in Texas.