Another affair for the ever so moral Republicans!

No, I'm not. I don't generally start threads about any sex scandal involving politicians (left or right) because, I don't care about the sex lives of politicians. I'm sure I would have discussed the Clinton situation because of its political implications. But the fact of the blowjob, no surprise, no big deal. I really don't expect our politicians to be paragons of virtue. The sleazy process we call politics just doesn't attract that kind of person. I don't really know the details of any of these scandals because I don't care to learn them. My comment was on the shear Schadenfreude going on over these scandals. They're just humans being human. No great consequence. Nothing to be learned in the discussion or analysis of these stories that couldn't be learned by watching a soap opera.

That's my point, this isn't a real issue. It's a side show, a distraction. Meanwhile, real issues are ignored. Pay no attention as we spend the country into oblivion, but look! That guy cheated on his wife! And he's a conservative!!!

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Yes, I missed that one. I've discussed these kind of issues with you before and am familiar with your line of thought on the issue and just kind of skimmed. But damn, you sure got worked up about it. You sounded like I'd just insulted you mother. Settle down. As I said, this whole issue is bullshit of no consequence to anyone but the people involved.

 

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madanthonywayne, I di find it funny that all of these type threads are started by the liberal.

joe has a plethora of them, and the rest of the mud slingers on the left.

I love the way they get all full of themselves when you point out the same foibles on their own side of the isle and go on the attack and want to dismiss it out of hand.

 

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And one of the real points of the rest of us is that this issue has always been a side show, a distraction - and a major political weapon of the modern Republican Party in particular. Sanford's Party.

This deflection of debate about real issues into side shows of self-claimed virtue, family values, personal sexual morality, and the like, is a major factor in how guys like Sanford got elected and re-elected, how guys like Rove framed public debate, how guys like W obtained their political base, how creations like the modern Republican Party gained enormous political power without demonstrating the slightest capability of governing the country, without showing the slightest comprehension of the public interest or the common good.

When you live by the sword, and have helped established through your own efforts the sword as a major means of living, you can't expect a pass when it's your turn to die by it.

And getting rid of the people who have been living by that sword is a real issue in American politics right now.

 

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I think the real issue is being missed. The real issue in my mind is credibility. How can you believe Republicans when they say one thing and do the opposite? There is an old saying, "actions speak louder than words" and it has never been more true of the Republican Party than now.

 

I don't agree that this particular sword is wielded solely or even mainly by Republicans. Both sides use "the politics of personal destruction" (as Clinton described it) as a weapon against the opposition.

 

The Republican Party depends on it more, uses it more diligently and obsessively, and has anchored much more of its political power on such tactics and the threat of them.

There is no national Democratic equivalent of the loyal Republican media attack dogs, or the modern national standard Republican campaign strategy with its innuendos and falsehoods and obsessive slander.

And someone like Sanford, who has benefited from his Party's approach, is getting off very easy by simply being pilloried for what he actually did.

 

Missing the point, and other sad ironies

You're still overlooking the underlying point. The Democrats may be political cowards in refusing to stand up to certain forms of Republican tyranny, but they're not the ones openly campaigning against sex, sexuality, and civil rights.

That people are humans being humans is one thing. And if that's all there is to it, that's fine with me.

But the Republican Party has made adultery and sexual morality a very visible and impacting part of their platform. This is the issue people are pointing out, and you seem utterly blind to it.

You know, back during the election, you made the point that during the season you step up the rhetoric. And that's it's own issue, but you've also kept it up to a certain degree since.

So there is some irony in the fact that you can deal hyperbole, but not accept it of others. Unfortunately, it's a sad irony.

 

Remember The Moral Majority championed by Republicans? Remember that Sandford was scheduled to speak at the Values Summit.

http://politics.theatlantic.com/2009/06/sanford_also_vanishes_from_values_voter_summit.php

 

Show me one Democrat speaking at any of the many morals forums the Republicans regularly attend and you may have a point.

 

I'm all about larger pictures, but there comes a point when the picture is so large that the original point becomes lost in the vast size of the expanded canvas and it begins to seem, I'm only saying it seems mind you, like the point of expanding the canvas in the first place was to achieve some sort of muddying. I have no idea whether that's what you're after here and won't speculate. I will only say that you seemed to breeze through the moral failings of the Democrats quite quickly.

Of course, in the overall scheme of things, where a politician puts his penis is much less important than how he votes or who he takes money from, so perhaps this is the perspective you were trying to make us think about?

I have no doubt Frank's homosexuality played a major role in his being targeted, but I also don't buy his pleas of ignorance or excuses about the company he was keeping. That is, just as is the case with heteros, there are the sort of people you should be hanging around and the sort of people you shouldn't. It gets back to that old notion my mother drilled into me about picking my friends very carefully.

I agree, and it also set a terrible precedent.

I don't dispute any of this.

My initial post hinted at my disgust with the Republicans -- I will add the Media now -- and that disgust -- or dismay rather -- continues to this day. What they did was petty, dangerous and wrong. But that doesn't somehow let Clinton off the hook. To hell with cigars and blowjobs, I'm talking about his childish behavior and his war-room, kill or be killed mentality. The man made a mountain of lies, when, like Richard Nixon, he could have flushed the whole sordid thing down the toilet with a little honesty and some calculated mea culpa. But Clinton, of course, could not do that.

Fair enough.

The fact that Congress would essentially look after its own isn't terribly surprising to me. One of the only recent displays of bipartisanship I can remember came when Jefferson's office was raided by the FBI and the marked bills removed from his fridge. Like roaches with the lights cut on, the Congressmen from both parties denounced the entire thing and literally quaked with fear at the thought of having Feds in their offices. It was pretty amusing to watch.

To reiterate, he could have just admitted it and moved on. I mean, I guess what I am saying is that just because some very bad people come after you doesn't give you a license to just behave anyway you want and then point the finger back at them and say, 'Well, they started it.' That's childish. Clinton should have been the bigger man. He was president for Christ's sake.

They do have rights, and I never asserted they do not or should not. If Spitzer had his rights violated, then something should have happened to those who violated them. The problem is that proving political prosecution is tough, especially if lawbreaking was discovered through it. The law cannot ignore what is uncovered. And politically speaking, complaining about the merits of an investigation are tough when you've been caught red-handed. People tend to think you're obfuscating. So there wasn't much Spitzer could do but limp home.

It's an issue of taste.

I respected Edwards' wife, and I saw first hand how he used her. It was the beginning of my disgust for him. This occurred at a fundraiser. He, or his people, had set up a "Get Well" card for her that included everyone's name and email address. This was a moment when the cancer was particularly bad. I was disgusted a few weeks later when I was told, by several of the people on the actual card, that they had been sent an email soliciting for donations. The card, in other words, was nothing more than a ploy to collect email accounts for donations. I thought then that any man who would trade on his wife's mortality was pretty low on the scale of humanity.

But I never applied this moniker to her. Heck, I felt even worse for her when his affair was exposed. But how can one continue to sympathize when her response is to take the shame, embarrassment and immorality of an obviously dysfunctional marriage and convert it into dollars? I mean, did she really need to go on EVERY television channel that would have her to "share" her emotions about the entire incident with the entire nation? This sort of public blood letting for cash just sickens me. And there is something distinctly shallow and unhealthy about it.

LOL. What are they going to explain? Hormones? Ego?

And I agreed with this. Part of the reason I am not -- and never have been -- a Republican is that they are obsessed with reproduction in an almost child-like way. It boggles the mind.

The only thing I would add is that people love other people tumbling, generally speaking.

I'm not a conservative, but I cold speculate. . .

 

Ice, how much do you even know about Sanford? I doubt it's very much, because if you knew anything about the man, you would realize that he isn't very popular in the Party.

 

And we can have more faith in the Democrats? Really :roflmao:

 

Obviously the SC governor abandoned his post. I wasn't talking directly about that point, just the point in general of obsessing about where politicians stick their pokers. Who cares?

~String

 

Personally i think the fact that he flew off for 6 days should be a bigger story but this is what happens in a sexually repressed country.

 

Now Sanford admits he "crossed the line" with other women as well.

http://corner.nationalreview.com/post/?q=ZWExYzRiZGQyMjA5NDNlNThjNTQzMzMzMTc4ODJkZjk=

Far from wanting Sanford out as Buffalo Roam states, Republicans want him to stay inspite of his moral transgressions.

http://timesnews.net/article.php?id=9014814