Why, the Raw Story’s swinger party smear is so hot and heavy it has just gone and given poor Kevin Drum the vapors.
Too bad it didn’t involve an intern, then Bolton would have been off scot free.
In case you are keeping count:
Getting your knob polished by an intern in the Oval office- private matter.
Trumped up and umproven allegations from divorce court about swinging in the 70’s and group sex- public matter.
And let’s not forget Jack Ryan.
Vaginal insertion of cigars in an intern- private matter.
Taking your wife to a sex club- public matter.
I can barely keep up with the ‘evolving’ standards set by the scolds at the Washington Monthly.
Nikki
Uh…how do you know he wasn’t disgusted that the stories had been published?
BumperStickerist
in point of fact, Clinton had the expectation of privacy … since the knob polishing by and vaginal cigar insertion of the intern was behind closed doors which were protected by Secret Service members.
Had the knob/cigar stuff taken place at, say, Club Entre Nous
http://www.nasca.com/states/dc.html
Then it would be a public matter. But, you see, it’s Clinton’s expectation that’s the determining factor … much as his belief that he’s the first Black president centers around his perception, not his actual, you know, ethnicity.
Personally, I’m okay with Bolton getting his freak on with a consenting spouse during the 70s … it was the 70s.
so long as Bolton didn’t pick up a dose of syphillis back then which has gone untreated all these years … which, come to think of it, would explain much …
and, in fact, might be the next BIG STORY on RAW STORY!
As for the Jack/Jeri Ryan … sorry, but if I were married to Jeri Ryan we’d be having sex in front of as many people as possible (provided she were okay with that)
… I would try and get her to go for “Pay Per View”
ppgaz
Live by the scold, by the sex police, by the toungue-cluckers …. die by them.
Why did the right think that after they overplayed their “values” hand for so long, that the sword wouldn’t be used against them?
Inside Washington is all about power and screwing people over.
When did the right decide that this was a bad thing?
My heart does not bleed for them.
Gatchaman
Ah, morality in America — its only wrong if the other side does it. Sweet. Im glad I’m an independant — anything I do is OK… or everything I do is wrong. D’oh!
Jeff
I knew we’d get a “it’s not the sex, it’s the hypocrisy” defense sooner or later. I’m surprised it took until the third comment.
I guess if i ever wanna run for anything, I’d better switch to Democrat, or those drunken trips to Chinese “massage” parlors back in college are really gonna bite me.
At least if i’m a Democrat, I’ll be able to say it’s a private matter between me and Suzy Wong.
Bob
Let me see. If Bolton performed at Plato’s Retreat like he did with his nuclear proliferation duties in North Korea and Iran, and with the on-sale nukes in the former USSR, he probably couldn’t get any cooperation from anyone else in the establishment, couldn’t get his project going or reach his goals and so tried to prevent others from getting theirs, then he yelled at everyone else. Being that he appears to be such an insufferable jerkoff, we know how Bolton finally got his mojo working.
By the way, anyone notice how badly the war is going?
Jeff
Hey, Bob’s back. When did you get out?
mike
The right wing opened this can of worms all by themselves back when they had Henry (screwed around on my wife for 30 years) Hyde lead the charge. How typical that now they now get defensive when their own strategy is used against them. Apparently IOKIYAY gets more true by the day.
Rick
More to the point, is there any indication Bolton obstructed justice and committed perjury? You know, “die by the sword” stuff as one correspondent above suggests.
Cordially…
Compuglobalhypermeganet
Ah, the intricacies of Larry Flynt’s genius liberal mind.
DecidedFenceSitter
*Shrug* I would prefer it to not be the case, I don’t really care if Clinton got sex in the oval office, if Bolton had fun in the 70’s, and so on. I have some issue with the forced sex allegations, but unless the ex is willing to press charges, it’s not going anywhere.
However, that ISN’T how it is. And those who unilaterally disarm get run over by those who don’t. It may win you a moral victory, but that and 5 bucks gets you a coffee from starbucks.
So if the Republicans want to call open season on sex lives, then let’s call open season on sex lives. It disgusts me, but I refuse to be the moral victory, and the actual loser.
Not that I think this is actually a change, sex and violence has always grabbed the publics attention, I just think media’s changed enough that it’s everpresent now.
If someone’s going to fight dirty and fight to win, then I’m going to return the favor, I’m not going to be, “Tut, tut, my good man, now that’s not proper sporting form”
But then again I’ve never claimed to be a good man.
Brad R.
OK, I agree with you about the divorce records- it’s ridiculous. I’m not even gonna mention it at Sadly, No!, and we have zero standards over there ;-)
But if you’re thinking about running for public office, taking your wife to a sex club (which is, technically, public) is a really stupid thing to do (and yeah, I know we only learned about it from divorce records, but it was still totally stupid).
neil
Sex in private — public matter.
Sex in public — private matter.
Yeah, my head hurts.
Brad R.
An incidentally, I think Kevin Drum has enough class not to put too much creedence into what Larry Flynt says…
John Cole
Yeah- he just spreads it.
Classy!
Rick
And gosh, why aren’t the theocrats running the Republicans putting the kibosh on this nomination, this fornicator?
Who’s running the party, anyway?
Cordially….
Compuglobalhypermeganet
My award for Stupidest Argument goes to the “Sex in private is private” people. I’m sure some Catholic priests would agree that venue is the only factor that determines propriety (after all, what could be more holy than sex in an empty church, albeit with an alterboy), but I think they might be the only ones.
Nikki
Yeah- he just spreads it
But John, you linked to that Raw Story article, too. Remember “Cognitive Dissonance and the Raw Story”? Wouldn’t you agree you sent some traffic there as well? Isn’t this a bit of the pot calling the kettle black?
John Cole
Nikki-
I guess we should all shun people who denounce the behavior of racists, too. And the media for reporting the behavior of criminals.
Nikki
John,
I think you could find plenty of liberal bloggers who are trumpeting the Raw Story article in the manner you described. I just don’t think Kevin is one of them and I’m curious as to why you have chosen to interpret his post as such.
John Cole
Nikki- He put a false story in with a true story, thus making them both appear as if they were true.
There is NO other way to reasonably interpret the post. I have been reading him for 4 years now- I know what he is doing, and I know how he sometimes passes off innuendo as fact. And, if you check this site, I frequently link to him when I think he is right. On this one, he deserves to be ridiculed.
Nikki
Nikki- He put a false story in with a true story, thus making them both appear as if they were true.
John,
The story in the Nation (which I read) involves an ex-wife coming forward after many years to make allegations about non-consenual sodomy against her former husband (basically a “he said, she said” as she never pressed charges). By your own statement, the Raw Story article is based on “[t]rumped up and umproven [sic] allegations from divorce court about swinging in the 70’s and group sex…”, so I’m assuming there are court documents involved (I didn’t read it).
I know I’m beginning to beat a dead horse, but which article are you saying is false and which is true?
ppgaz
What goes around, comes around.
And only in rightwing politics would lying about a blow job be held to be equivalent to lying about war, lying about foreign policy, lying about every issue that affects the lives of ordinary Americans every day.
Only in rightwing politics could an alcoholic kid get My Daddy is a Rich Government Official cards to play his way through ClubFed military service during Vietnam, and then hire thugs to lie about his opponent’s actual service in that war during a political campaign … and get away with it.
Let me be blunt: No rightwing hack has the moral standing to lecture me about anything, ever, under any circumstances.
I’m calling nobody here a rightwing hack. But Internet life is a shoe store. If the footwear fits, wear it, if you get my drift.
Jeff
Oh get a life, ppqaz. It’s easy to be a tough guy sitting behind a keyboard.
And only in left-wing politics could an alcoholic senator leave a woman to drown and die to save his own fat liver-spotted ass, and then ask his cousins to take the blame for it so it doesn’t hurt his career.
And only in left-wing politics could that same senator come within a whisker of knocking off his party’s incumbent president and almost get the nomination.
bago
Meh. I can’t wait for the days when someone accuses a politician of snorting coke off of strippers breasts while engaging in group sex, and the politician is able to responds “Yeah, so what. What does that have to do with the issues at hand?”
Rick
Perhaps a Nexus search would show that that has already occurred with Chris Dodd.
Cordially…
Kimmitt
Getting your knob polished by an intern in the Oval office- private matter.
I’d think you’d be thrilled that the left has conceded such a vital point of government to the Right. Nothing is a private matter any more. We impeached a President over marital infidelity; the rules of the game are now known. Let’s play.
Rick
Kimmitt,
Really? Perjury & obstruction of justice were nowhere in the articles of impeachment? Instead, they specified fellatio in the Big Chair.
Gosh, the stuff I thought I knew…
Cordially…
ppgaz
Jeff,
A person is not a “tough guy” for refusing the be lectured by blogposters, butthead. He’s just being sensible.
Of course you don’t get that point, because you are too busy being a hack.
Moralistic chest-thumping is a manipulative tool used by all bottom-feeding politicians. It isn’t a left or right thing, past, present or future.
If you had any idea what the real issue was here, you’d know that.
Did you want to wear those new shoes, or shall I wrap them up for you?
Compuglobalhypermeganet
And only in rightwing politics would lying about a blow job be held to be equivalent to lying about war, lying about foreign policy, lying about every issue that affects the lives of ordinary Americans every day.
That might be a valid point, had the President to whom you refer not lied about all those other things, too. And from someone who refuses to be “lectured to,” that post sounded a bit preachy.
JPS
So if I understand the more bellicose lefties in this thread, you’re saying, roughly:
We’re not hypocritical, damn it, we’ve been consistent all along. Sexual misconduct is a public matter when, and only when, done by moralists, because it’s the hypocritical moralizing, not the sex, that’s dangerous.
Unlike the lying vicious scumbags who make up most of the Right (never said “all,” but hey, why would you get defensive unless the shoe fits!) we don’t go around passing moral judgment on others, so we’re OK.
Sorry to put words in your mouths, but I can’t make sense of you any other way.
John Cole
Sexual misconduct is a public matter when, and only when, done by moralists, because it’s the hypocritical moralizing, not the sex, that’s dangerous.
Point me to Bolton’s moralizing, please…
And since you are moralizing, I guess that leaves me free to investiugate your private life and start talking trash shit about you. Which would then leaves me oipen for the next Democrat to come arond and moralize about me. And so on we go.
I do my best to control the moralizing wingnuts in my party. All you guys do when you ‘fight back’ is legitmize the practice. Thanks for all the frigging help.
simon
Rick, the perjury charge was and is BS. If the rules had actually been followed, he never would have been asked that question in the first place. Would it be OK with you if we stuck Junior in a hearing in front of the world and asked him under oath if he had done coke? When and where? If he actually served his time in the TANG? Nope, and there wouldn’t be a legit reason to ask him those things, but you can bet your ass he’d lie under oath to the right questions.
Kimmitt
JPS: Nope. What I’m saying is, I live in a world where the President of the United States got impeached for having an extramarital affair, in a world where prosecutorial discretion apparently extends to asking you any embarrassing question you care to ask, then slapping politically convenient targets with perjury charges. These are the rules of the game. They are rules that you wrote. We are going to play the game by the rules. If you want to change the rules of the game, you have to stop pretending that Clinton’s impeachment was anything other than pure politics, and you have to apologize for the shit you put America through in the name of false moralizing. Until that happens, spare us the sanctimony.
JPS
Uh, John,
I was attempting to satirize what seemed to me the defense, within this thread, of the double standard you criticize.
‘Course, we all know what to conclude about a joke that needs explaining later. Guess it was lamer than I realized. (I’ll wait now for the YEAH from ppgaz and perhaps others.)
I meant it good-naturedly; not trying to be an asshole, though it’s been known to happen by accident.
“Thanks for all the frigging help.”
Any frigging time.
JPS
Kimmitt:
“These are the rules of the game. They are rules that you wrote.”
I’m an assistant professor, Kimmitt. Who knew I had such power?
“[Y]ou have to apologize for the shit you put America through in the name of false moralizing.”
OK. In fact, in the spirit of Bill Clinton apologizing for historical wrongs as long as he couldn’t himself be blamed for them:
I’m sorry.
In the clear now. Cool!
ppgaz
Dear Mr. C–can’t_read_it:
In Usenet, they call that a “whoosh”.
Right over your head.
My point was, is, and will be, that lying politicians come in all flavors. Therefore, rightwing “moralizing” over the Clinton blowjob are tedious and boring. Clinton is hardly the first, nor will he be the last, man to lie about a blow job. Nor the first, or last politician to do so. Nor the first or last politician to prevaricate in the interest of a political agenda.
The idiotic idea that it’s okay for one politician to lie because another one did, or for an official to lie for a “good cause” is repugnant to me. I don’t care whether the bastards are donkeys or elephants. And I won’t be preached at by any self-righteous elephants these days just because they have a majority in congress and a trained monkey in the White House.
If we can be in basic agreement on those points, then I have no beef with you or anyone else here.
Bob
Have we already forgotten Gannongate?
I suggest that anyone with an interest in where the real big boys in the White House are getting sexed might want to read THE HIDDEN HITLER, a study about homosexuality in the Nazi regime.
Compare Rudolf Hess’ devotion to Hitler with the relationship between Karl Rove and George W. Bush. And compare the stories about Hitler’s life as an artist, living in men’s hotels noted as gathering places for young homosexual men with stories about cheerleader “Lips Bush” in his Yale Skull And Bones fraternity. And compare the hatred and fear of gays coming out of this Administration with what the Nazis eventually did to the gays in Germany.
Why does it matter if Bush is gay? Well, if he is then he is living in a closet, a very deep closet. People who are so dishonest about themselves tend to be dishonest about other things.
Hate is an amazing tool. When you hate who you are you can hate the whole world. The war inside your head takes no prisoners in the real world.
Rick
Rick, the perjury charge was and is BS. If the rules had actually been followed, he never would have been asked that question in the first place.
So Simon Says, and I acknowledge you effort to tap-dance away from the facts. Clinton himself advocated and signed anti-sexual harrassment legislation that permitted this type of discovery.
His obstruction of justice indeed got him impeached, and properly so.
Cordially…
Kimmitt
In the clear now. Cool!
Seriously, as long as you post a little disclaimer: “The Clinton impeachment was an exclusively political attempt to take down a successful politician by selectively criminalizing adultery,” feel free to bloviate about how terrible intrusions into Mr. Bolton’s sex life are.
JPS
Wasn’t aware I was bloviating, Kimmitt. But allow me to start now:
I do not support nasty mudslinging by politicians as long as it benefits my guy or hurts the guy I don’t like. (It’s one of the reasons I read Cole.) And, by the way, I was one hell of a lot more willing to say Clinton was doing the right thing, on the rare occasion when I thought he was, than just about any liberal I know is willing to give Bush credit for anything, ever.
So don’t tell me I need to file this crap away under “Payback’s a bitch” unless I completely endorse your view on the impeachment.
I don’t support smearing when “my team” does it, and I have no obligation to support it when yours does. It seems to me John’s already made this point, but it bears repeating.
Oh, and, Bob: You are an amazing tool. I’d tell you you ought to be ashamed, if I thought you were capable of shame.
Kimmitt
JPS — Great. I even agree with you. But I don’t see any alternative. I cannot justify to myself losing political fight after political fight — and watching my side’s politicans be continuously smeared — without response.