Thursday, June 25

Sacrificing my bad boys? Really.

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This post started out as a comment in response to this at the previous post below. It got long and full of links very quickly, so here it is instead. Anonymous said:
Let's end this business of Double, and even Triple Standards for republicans [sic] and Democrats. ...Have the decency to sacrifice your bad boys, as the Republicans have done. There will be a lot more civility if you do.

UM. OKAY. Each of these cases have their unique details, but to summarize:

Clinton - impeached. That is glossed over because he did not leave office and was acquitted by the Senate. But the impeachment of Bill Clinton paralyzed his administration for months on end, which was certainly in part the motivation of those pursuing it. And both Ensign and Sanford were self-righteous components in that effort. I wonder why the Right didn't do more to thank Paula Jones, the original accuser, who ultimately felt she had to pose nude for Penthouse magazine in 2000 to "secure" a future for her children.

Edwards - A total disgrace. I expect he will never run for anything again.

Spitzer - resigned on the spot.

Then...

David Vitter - Did not resign and is running for reelection to the Senate. His campaign website posts a Politico article which states, "The Republican establishment is all behind him." He appears to have saved his ass by becoming a 'leader' in anti-Obama circles, particularly in regard to Tea Party National Holiday referendums. See, and I am not making this up, teaparty.davidvitter.com. Also, he loves that number one old time GOP distract-o-matic, the muddafukkin Flag Amendment.

I hope the porn star beats him. I mean that figuratively, Senator.

Ensign - not resigned, applauded by GOP Senators after he showed 'candor.'

Larry Craig - did not resign, even though he initially promised to. Served out his term as Senator. Was "admonished" by Senate Ethics Committee, which also said they didn't like him spending $200,000 dollars of campaign money on his legal defense but did NOTHING about it.

Sanford - not resigning as yet. Several GOPers in SC said yesterday they would "stand by him and help him" with his "repentance". Yeah.

I HEREBY SACRIFICE "MY" BAD BOYS.

Clinton, Edwards, and Spitzer should have resigned/withdrawn/been removed from positions of elected office not due to their cheating ways, but for lying about it. In the case of Vitter, oh sorry, I mean Spitzer, prostitution is illegal and using the services of one should have just as many consequences for the John as for the prostitute.

Is that good enough for you, Anonymous? Because it isn't nearly good enough for me. In the cases above, I don't see where Republicans have sacrificed a single sweat bead. The jury is still out on Sanford? If we correctly remove his marriage/affair from the debate, HIS "crime" was abandoning his post and leaving the state in Constitutional crisis. The Republican State Legislature of South Carolina seems far too busy tripping over themselves to pray for their Governor to impeach him even for that.

Perhaps that is commendable. It certainly works politically.

There is a religious element to this of sin/perfectibility among fundamentalist Republicans that we're all sinners and the right amount of God talk bandages all sins. Notice that link is to a Bible-quoting guest editorial in the same exact paper that broke the stories of Sanford's actual whereabouts (and the love-your-tan-line hold-your-two-body-parts emails) that apparently led to his confession.

We're all sinners, we're all forgiven if we repent. But of course, this is notably only true for Republicans.

Of course, heavy-handed God talk is less present in the more secular Democratic politics. And maybe that's our fault. If we rose to the rhetoric of Republicans and...

...applauded everytime one of our Senators fucked a staffer and gave her and her family jobs and pay raises... 

 ...knelt down in prayer every time one of our Governors disappeared overseas to fuck a married woman he pursued on the internet.... 

 ...support an entire news network specifically so disgraced criminals like Ralph Reed, Tom Delay, and not to mention, Dick Cheney can resurrect their reputations... 

But that would be a monumental FAIL, because while the Christianist GOP wing has all this forgiveness in their hearts for their own, there is also in right-wing GOP/FOX discourse, a demonizing of Democrats as defenders of infanticide and as helping terrorists, and a blatant use of anti-sex moralizing to appear better than one's opponents. As much as I often chide Chris Matthews, he was absolutely right yesterday when he pushed hard on his question to Ken Blackwell**:

 


Blackwell will never say it, but Matthews knows full well that the GOP's core constituency has a very inconsistent, non-forgiving, "good and evil" view of the world when it comes to the other side of the aisle. This allows the right-wing of the GOP to run against any Democrat who strays from their marital vows, or promotes choice, or endorses gay marriage or um, goes on record as favoring spending on healthcare

The GOP will throw up against such a Democrat yet another "family values" candidate who has yet to let his sin out of his pants, and particularly in the deeply "religious" deep South, they will win. There seems to be a bottomless trough of ambitious Republican politicians willing to run as holier than thou, knowing that if and likely when the subsequent gained political power becomes too much of an aphrodisiac, they will be forgiven by their political flock. 

Notice how the GOP forgiveness model is completely acknowledged and bowed to by the most notorious motherfucking hypocrite of them all, Newt Gingrich. It's a no-win situation for Democrats, even without people like Anonymous who are blind to the history that's being made before their very eyes. 

  **RE the Matthews/Blackwell clip: notice I'm using Crooks and Liars new swanky, free and way-easy-to-use embed code for the video above. Click on the title of ANY post there and a customizable embed code for the video in the post is on the right hand side. You can set the width (mine is 400) and the color of the frame. Shameless plug and gift from the gods. Thanks John Amato and team (especially Heather for videos and Jamie for webmastering) for your everlivin' kindness of always thinking of the small blogs and sharing the love (and bandwidth).

14 comments:

  1. Blue Gal, You are right on!! I'm printing this post to use as ammuntion with all the friends and family who are rethugs!

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  2. IMHO, Clinton stands apart from the rest of the crowd. Unlike any of the others mentioned, Clinton did not overtly base his political existence on the prostheltizing of so-called "family values." Edwards (who would have known that he would have been the downright sleaziest of the whole lot?) did by placing his wife and her illness at center stage of his campaign, and Spitzer did by vigorously prosecuting prostitution cases. And of course, those other guys bear no explanation. It's not the sex; it's not even so much the lying about the sex. It's the precarious setting up of himself each of these men short of Clinton did before the fall. Bill Clinton is a lot of things, but there isn't a sanctimonious bone in his body. I for one give Clinton a great deal more leeway than I do any of these other assclowns.

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  3. Jerry Falwell called Mark Foley's page stalking "miniscule" to Bill Clinton's blowjob. The Youtube video kills me.

    Side note: Falwell spent the sixties campaigning against MLK and civil rights.

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  4. Anonymous7:14 PM

    So far, soo good!

    OK, Al Gore does not fit into the "Bad Boy" category. You have put Newt into the Bufoon category and want to sac him. Al Gore also belongd in the Bufoon Category for reason stated before, and it's time to sac him.

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  5. That's so funny you should say that. Al Gore called, he said he's too busy polishing his Nobel Peace Prize to read my post.

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  6. Sanford's press conference yesterday wasn't over 30 seconds before people (well, men) were all over TV talking about his wonderful honesty and how brave he was to come forward with his painful truth.

    For research on this topic, I have to recommend The Brotherhood of the Disappearing Pants: A Field Guide to Conservative Sex Scandals by the authors of Sweet Jesus, I Hate Bill O'Reilly. It's hilarious.

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  7. The selective memory required to think that Democrats are getting a pass on sex scandals borders on insanity.

    It sounds like you have a reader who desperately needs his meds adjusted, Blue Gal.

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  8. The problem is not Sex, even the prostitution imo, the problem is Republicans hate people and demonize human nature.

    They have an irrational hatred of activities that are none of the fucking business. The entire party is flowing down into the toilet bowl of the moral morons who think they are the arbiters of what people can do with their genitals.

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  9. great post and i am also VERY grateful for the easy way i can link c&l posts.


    to paraphrase- so easy even a old gramma can do it! ha! ; )

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  10. Sanford = King David

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  11. Anonymous6:08 PM

    Politicians usually have to lie cheat and steal to get anywhere. I always think it's funny that they call themselves "public servants" when it is really all about them. I really don't give a rat's ass if they all hire prostitutes and have affairs.

    My uncle was voting for the local sheriff and said he'd vote for Happy (the existing sheriff).
    His son said "Pop, you said Happy was a liar, cheat and generally an a-hole"
    My uncle stated that "I don't see any reason to teach another person how to steal our money, Happy already knows how and I know what to expect from him, so I'm voting for Happy"

    If anyone believes that Billy C and Eddie K at Obar is not the norm....you are fooling yourselves.

    Politicians say what you want to hear and do what they want. The bad politicians are just the ones that get caught.

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  12. Anonymous6:13 PM

    sorry...Teddy K....I always get those sons of bootleggers mixed up.

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  13. I'm wondering, has your anonymous commenter criticized the Bush administration for its many, many abuses of power? Because that's where the partisanship really shows, and the lack of principles is really glaring. Any criticism of torturing people to justify an unnecessary and disastrous war, for example? That's just for starters. Sure, we can talk about infidelity, but what about the serious stuff? What about criticism from those within the reality-based community? Rule-of-law conservatives such as Alberto Mora and Andrew Bacevich broke ranks long ago, and some have even left the party, but very few if any of them would still be blaming everything (let alone 9/11 - yeah, nice try on that one) on the Clenis. In the immortal words of that paragon of movement conservatism, George W. Bush, "All right, you've covered your ass, now."

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  14. The problem is not so much the difference between the ways Republicans and Democrats respond to scandals, from sex to torture, but that we put people into positions of power who have proclivities that need to be covered up. This kind of behavior is rife with potential for blackmail. Where are the good people whom we really need to represent us? None of these folks are a bit like me.

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