For those of you who are rolling your eyes and thinking, “Oh God, another Ron Paul article?!” -- before you ready your long-winded diatribes about the Constitution and the Federal Reserve, or your well-honed Photoshop mockeries of Dr. Paul -- I have a confession to make.

Ron Paul articles are such a guilty pleasure.

Every week, I spend literally minutes a day scanning the Internet for tidbits of news that I can then semi-wittily rephrase, or at least add the word “fuck” to, thus allowing that news to break free from its cocoon of objective journalistic integrity and become a biased, marginally retarded moth of a Newswire article, flapping its oversized left wing and making a few lazy circles around the site before burning out in a small blaze of comments about how, or perhaps what, I suck.

If I burdened myself with concerns like “quality” or “accuracy”, finding these tidbits would pose a challenge, but instead I find myself challenged by my sheer sloth. My weekly deadline looms ever closer each day, like some big scary looming thing, and as it approaches a little voice in the back of my head gets louder and louder:

“C’mon, just post something snarky about Ron Paul and call it a day. I mean, you could try and write something insightful about some important issue, but who’re we kidding here? Think of your comment count!”

Why is my path of least resistance strewn with Ron Paul 2008 flyers? Like most people, I blame the internet. I could mock another of the people who are at least technically running for President, but none of them seem to have an internet Potemkin Village filled with rabid supporters willing to give a crap. Pointing out what a big bag of freak Tom Tancredo is really doesn’t have the same zing, does it?

Plus, the wild world of Ron Paul is a bumper crop of wacky shit to write about.

For example, candidates like Mike Huckabee get the endorsement of learned political pundits like Chuck Norris and Ric “Nature Boy” Flair (thus making Huckabee not so much the second coming of Ronald Reagan as the second coming of Golan & Globus).

But Ron Paul just earned the endorsement of someone from a quite different entertainment industry. Dennis Hof, the owner of an infamous legal brothel in Nevada known as the “Bunny Ranch”, announced that he was supporting Ron Paul and planned to install donation boxes for Paul’s 2008 campaign at the Bunny Ranch.

When asked to comment, a spokesperson for the Ron Paul campaign made sure to inform the media that pimping ain’t easy, or something Ron Paul endorses. Except as an example of how awesome the concept of “states' rights” is:

That’s it, I’m so voting for Ron Paul! I so want the federal government to get off the backs of state governments! Hey, federal government, stop being all mean and un-Constitutional by preventing state governments from outlawing abortion, birth control, interracial marriage and consensual sodomy!

But what if you’re not a Ron Paul supporter, but still yearn for a candidate who can combine straight talk, a dedicated group of supporters, principled and/or completely unrealistic stances on a range of issues, a next to zero percent chance of winning the nomination and the naughty yet oh-so-morally ambiguous concept of exchanging money for sex?

Well, you’re in luck. Dennis Kucinich’s peace train recently made a detour through Smut Town when Larry Flynt hosted a fundraiser for the Kucinich campaign earlier this month. While Flynt has what can only be described as a colorful history of political activism, including offering a million-dollar reward for evidence of a Republican Congressman having an extra-martial affair during the run-up to Bill Clinton’s impeachment, this is the first time he’s actively endorsed a political candidate:

Apparently both Flynt and Kucinich made speeches at the fundraiser. Since the press was not invited, I can only guess what the subject of each speech was:

Dennis Kucinich: “We need to take all of our troops out of Iraq immediately, impeach both Dick Cheney and George Bush, establish universal health care and a Department Of Peace, make foreign trade agreements dependent on workers rights, and legalize same-sex marriage.”

Larry Flynt: “Damn, how fucking hot is Elizabeth Kucinich?”

Well, I’m off to buy the new Barely Legal DVD, since it now counts as a political statement.