You Know Who Else Spelled "Crystal" With a K? The Nazis!

Someday we'll all raise a glass of Sterno, pour out a 40 for our dead brothers, and remember how we survived the nightmare that was the 2010 midterm election. (For the umpteenth time, people: removing the head or destroying the brain is the only way to put them down permanently.)

Until then, enjoy the comic relief provided by Krystal Ball and ex-husband Douche Bag.

Ball, the Democratic candidate for U.S. Congress in Virginia's First Congressional District, vamped with her then-spouse for a series of photos at a costume party of yore. Though the pics (view them all!) reveal nothing more scandalous than a tolerance for feeble, British-type kink and the hard reality that women's Halloween costumes range from "sexy" to "sexier," the usual gang of yuksters have had their fun, and with the wisdom of half a decade, Ball claims to have been victimized.

Specifically, Ball makes an argument from sisterhood. In this clip, she labels public interest in the pictures "incredibly sexist" and "outrageous" -- apparently unaware of previous general-lasciviousness scandals involving such less-than-hot males as John Tower, Gary Hart and John Jenrette (the last of whom was pilloried for having sex with his own wife in the days before Ball's parents conceived her).

The brilliance of Ball's outrage is that she's gotten a few of the rubes to believe it.

But it turns out even square Chesapeake Basin society has progressed to the point of taking clothed indiscretions lightly. The reindeer affair has run its course, which Ball acknowledges in a followup statement that confuses plural and possessive:

I believe that I was treated fairly by the media and able to answer to the voters of Virginia. Now they deserve a discussion regarding issues such as reforming government, getting people back to work and improving our education system. I feel deeply blessed to be interviewing for the job of Congresswoman in front of the citizen's of the first district of Virginia.

The rapid social liberalization most of us grew up with produces anomalies like this one, where Ball gets to claim feminist solidarity while also getting the benefit of hotness. The Fox of Fredericksburg (whose grammar is less alarming than her econ degree from the University of Virginia) is not expected to win her race against Rep. Rob "supporting homeowners affected by Chinese drywall" Wittman. The First District has been whittled into a Republican stronghold. That's why Wittman's predecessor Jo Ann Davis was able to brave the patriarchy and win four elections, with massive majorities, in this century.