Libertarian candidate snarls at opponents

The race for the U.S. Senate in South Carolina has gone to the dogs.

Libertarian candidate Reb Sutherland used the word for a female dog to refer to Democratic candidate Inez Tenenbaum in a news release last week.

In fact, Sutherland said Tenenbaum was a “north-leaning” you-know-what.

Sutherland’s release blasted Tenenbaum, the state superintendent of education, for her handling of the Allendale County public school system. Sutherland also called Tenenbaum “Hell’s Belle.”

The following day, another Sutherland release referred to Republican candidate Jim DeMint as Jim “Duh-mint” while ridiculing the Upstate congressman’s tax plan.

When reached for comment about her Tenenbaum outburst, Sutherland said that she is a biologist by training. And the word she used is a scientific term for a female dog with pups. Because Tenenbaum is the education superintendent, the schoolchildren of the state are her pups, Sutherland said.

Sutherland said she knows that the word is “an attention getter, but it was used as a reference rooted in science.”

Of course, the second definition of the word in the Merriam-Webster dictionary is a “lewd or immoral woman; a malicious, spiteful or domineering woman; sometimes used as a generalized term of abuse.”

Tenenbaum’s campaign spokeswoman Kay Packett was nonplused.

“Mercy,” Packett said, “how intemperate.”

DeMint spokesman Geoff Embler was just happy his candidate did not get the worst of Sutherland’s wrath. “I’m just happy she spared us the obscenities.”

FAREWELL, YOUNG (ATA)TURK

The Buzz has lost one of its favorite members of Gov. Mark Sanford’s staff.

Daniel Layfield, Sanford’s research coordinator, has left for law school at his former boss’s alma mater, the University of Virginia.

The Buzz will forever owe Layfield for his decision to have Sanford laud former Turkish leader Mustafa Ataturk in the governor’s first State of the State address in 2003.

Ultimately, Sanford apologized for praising the man many Greeks, Armenians and Assyrians believe to have been a mass murderer.