We're on a lot of conservative mailing lists here at The Stranger. A lot of the time, these e-mails just get deleted after a cursory glance. But yesterday, we got a very interesting fundraising e-mail for an Illinois Republican Congresssional candidate named Lenny McAllister. Here's the top of the e-mail:

I was a little bit surprised to see "BS" plastered all over this e-mail. The subject line was, "Conservatives, Unite: End the BS in Washington," and the initials are all over McAllister's e-mail. Are conservatives suddenly okay with the phrase "bullshit" entering the common parlance? That doesn't seem very conservative to me. I thought Republicans were concerned about the children! What happens when little Elijah looks over Daddy's shoulder and he sees on the laptop screen the big letters "BS?" When Elijah—who just learned how to read, bless his heart, the li'l angel—says to his dad, "Daddy, what's a 'biss'?" Elijah's dad will then have to do the thing that every conservative dreads: He'll have to put away his laptop, look his son straight in the eyes and—choke!—talk to his child. This cannot be! When we live in a world where the One Million Moms protest the title of the television show Don't Trust the B—in Apartment 23, surely a conservative candidate can't be plastering an abbreviation for the word "bullshit" all over his fundraising materials?

So I sent an e-mail to the McAllister campaign that read:

Hello there Mr. McAllister,
What does the "BS" in this e-mail stand for? I'm curious.
Thanks,
Paul Constant

About an hour later, I got a response from McAllister's communication director:

Hi Paul,
Thanks for reaching out to us.
Lenny would likely say it's for "Big Spending" or "Bureaucratic Spending". Lenny is a smart, efficient government Republican.
Thanks again for reaching out. Have a great day!
Ameerah Palacios, MBA

Now, come on. That has to be disingenuous, doesn't it? I wrote back:

Thank you for responding!
I have a couple other questions. Is Mr. McAllister aware that there is another, more vulgar definition of "BS" that is more commonly known? Where does Mr. McAllister stand on family values? Or is he socially liberal and fiscally conservative?
Thanks again,
Paul

Palacios responded:

Lenny is attuned to the 21st Century realities in America as far as the changing face of the American family, the challenges those families face and the fresh, bi-partistan solutions that will serve them well in the 2nd Congressional District when Lenny is elected.
To learn more about Lenny's views and where he stands on the issues, please view last night's Chicago Republican Party 2nd Congressional District GOP Candidate Debate at http://youtu.be/sSfcoHfYBno .
Have a good night!
Ameerah

That's some golden-shovel-worthy bullshit, right there. And frankly, I'm alarmed to hear that McAllister is from some nation known as "Bi-partistan." Do they just toss around curse words willy-nilly in Bi-partistan? Whatever happened to traditional American values? Is Lenny McAllister a real conservative, or a foreign mole devoted to tearing the American family apart? I don't know the answers to these questions. I just hope Chicago votes wisely on this very important matter.