‘It’s the hypocrisy that people can’t stand’
When it comes to sex scandals, the past year has been less than kind to conservatives. There’s no reason to go into too many prurient details, but the list isn’t getting any smaller: former Rep. Mark Foley (engaged in explicit IM chats with congressional pages), megachurch evangelist Ted Haggard (lied about being gay), Republican Sen. David Vitter (hired prostitutes), McCain’s Florida co-chair Bob Allen (offered oral sex to an undercover cop), and now, of course, Republican Sen. Larry Craig. These are just the recent ones.
I saw some far-right blog yesterday complain, pre-emptively, that Dems are going to raise a fuss about all of this, and try to argue that a few isolated examples amount to a rampant sex problem among conservatives. The same blogger argued that Dems will conveniently overlook sex scandals involving Bill Clinton, Gary Hart, Jesse Jackson, Henry Cisneros, and Barney Frank.
It’s not an entirely unreasonable argument. Neither party has a monopoly on virtue or vice, and while it seems that the right is having an unlucky streak when it comes to sex scandals, I think it’s probably unfair to argue that conservatives’ problems are unique.
But, and you had to know a “but” was coming, the right shouldn’t get let off the hook too easy, either.
If we were to go back over the last few decades and do a tally on which side — left or right — had more high-profile sex scandals, I have a hunch it’d be about even. The difference, however, is that only one side claims the moral high-ground, holds itself out as the arbiter of virtue, is quick to judge moral/sexual failings in others, and wants desperately to use the power of the state to regulate (and ban) some of the behavior they personally engage in.
In all sincerity, I couldn’t care less whether Republican senators pay prostitutes or solicit sex in bathrooms. The problem here is broader than that.
The Politico ran this piece last month, after the Vitter story broke, but long before the Craig revelations became public.
Beyond the chortling, however, the Vitter scandal is a small piece of a much more significant development: The demoralized state of the social conservative movement on the brink of the 2008 election.
“It’s the hypocrisy that people can’t stand,” said Michael Cromartie, a social conservative himself who chaired the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom under President Bush. “It’s not the fact that people are frail and given to sinful behavior. It’s when they try to pretend to be morally upright and end up being self-righteous because they preach one thing and live another.”
The gulf between the professed values of conservative political leaders and the way some actually conduct their lives has sapped energy from a movement that was a powerful engine for the Republican Party over the past three decades.
In some ways, this is rather sad. Conservatives are demoralized because their leaders keep getting caught in sex scandals? Perhaps, if they stopped trying to use sex as a culture-war weapon, these revelations wouldn’t be so damaging. Indeed, perhaps if the right would give up on demonizing gays, then men like Craig wouldn’t be forced to go into men’s rooms looking for sex partners in the first place.
I don’t want the right to feel dispirited because of these scandals; I want them to give up. Give up on using gays as a wedge issue. Give up on abstinence-only policies that don’t work. Give up on constitutional amendments regarding personal behavior. Give up on holding up the GOP up as the authority on what should and shouldn’t be allowed in bedrooms.
Or don’t. Go ahead and continue to embrace hypocrisy. Keep hiding your head in your hands every time a Larry Craig gets caught. Continue to argue that it’s not at all odd that your presidential front-runner is a thrice-married adulterer.
It’s up to you, my conservative friends.
In the list of scandals, I don’t think Glenn Murphy, Chairman of the YR, is at the bottom of the list, for allegedly engaging his sleeping buddy in an unwelcome liplock. What I want to know is what were Republicans telling the kids during the Clinton scandals.
But this is how it always has been – the Right gets caught with sex scandals, the Left gets caught in financial peccadillos – neither can handle what they’re not used to.
In terms of a scandal count: I wonder if it would come out even. You didn’t include a lot of scandals (Murphy, woke a guy up with a BJ, the guy who beat his mistress, Ryan who allegedly wanted his wife to perform at sex parties he took her to) but it would be hard to list them all because there are so many.
But look at the frequency and the er, quality of the behaviour. You had to go back to the 70’s to come up with five Democrats and I wouldn’t compare chasing after kids or assaulting a man while he sleeps to Clinton or Hart.
So on the one hand you have consensual relationships where there is at least some appearance of affection between the people involved. On the other you have quickies in the toilet, sex for cash, outright violence.
Yes it’s hypocrisy but there’s also a whiff or pathology here. I think the con’s have trouble getting it up for anyone they might regard as an equal, therefore they take steps to make sure there’s always a group of second class of citizens around for them to use. I’d be willing to bet that the most vocal anti-immigrant legislators frequent prostitutes who are or appear to be illegal immigrants.
It would be hypocritical to deny schadenfreude at every instance of Conservatives hoisting themselves on their own petards, so let’s set a good example. : Ah ha Hah Hah Haaa haaaa …
In the immortal words of Nelson Muntz:
Ha ha!
If the Republican base gave a damn about hypocrisy they wouldn’t worship a “loving God” who threatens to torture most of the planet’s inhabitants.
All the Republiucans care about is keeping power away from the Hated Other (that would be us).
Get them in the corner like they are now, and all of a sudden they start acting like Ted Nugent.
Not so sure I agree with this one, CB. If you have to go back to Gary Hart for Dem scandals, how come all the R ones are in the last couple of years?
Orange is not the answer — Did you read the article that appeared before this one?
The ‘largest ring of fraud and kickbacks’ in Iraq to date
It doesn’t appear the right is any better at keeping their financial house in order.
It’s not just the hypocrisy, it’s the criminality. Gary Hart wasn’t doing anything illegal on that boat. Republican sex scandals all involve broken laws: lewd conduct in public restrooms, hiring prostitutes, and harassing teenagers. Arguably the closest a Democrat got to illegal sex was Bill Clinton, with workplace fraternization and cover-ups. But for Republicans, it’s a habit.
It wouldn’t have to be a habit if they could be honest with themselves. If Larry Craig had instead announced, “I’m divorcing my wife because I’m gay,” we could knock him for his hypocritical voting record, period. Instead, the sins compound.
From the story on the CNN website:
Craig also has opposed expanding the federal hate crimes law to cover offenses motivated by anti-gay bias and, in 1996, voted against a bill that would have outlawed employment discrimination based on sexual orientation, which failed by a single vote in the Senate.
I’m sure this pathetic loser’s self-loathing must be painful to him, but let him find some other line of work that doesn’t involve screwing over other people.
. . . jim strain in san diego.
I think there is something in the authoritarian-mentality that spews out their sexuality in particulary bad ways. Since I don’t know the “code”, I would consider someone tappping my foot in the toilet as a potentially threatening move. That’s not exactly being chatted up at a cocktail party (no pun intended) Isn’t bathroom sex sort of a fetish even among some outwardly gay men? Nobody forced Craig to cruise the toilets.
A couple of you have said we have to go back to Hart for scandals, and I’d like to agree with you, but I can’t. Sadly. Remember Gary Condit and a little scandal involving Chandra Levy?
I think it’s akin to the Freudian Slip; racists who upon analysis reveal they really have issues of self-worth and hate themselves, cannot face that fact so displace it on others through racist acts; gay bashers who end up coming out of the closet as themselves gay. Some deep-seated pathology here methinks.
But the fact that they seem to have no end of support structure or shutzpa to ask for handouts is what galls me. Consider this Haggard fellow, who by all Rights (cap intentional) should crawl into a hole somewhere and never be heard from again, has somehow managed to stay out of the unemployment line long enough to send out a letter to his fans asking for money and blather about his latest con game.
There’s STILL people who turn purple with rage over Bill Clinton’s indescretions, to say nothing of their inexplicable rage over Hillary’s ability to forgive and forget. But Ted Haggard is “no longer gay”, and there’s a sucker born every minute, so the saying goes. There are people out there who have serious problems dealing with their own sexuality. I’m starting to think they are all called Republicans.
Why don’t these guys use escort services or maintain a “significant other”? They are just asking, begging, to be arrested and outed.
Also, most of the news stories about Craig mention his “three children”. They’re actually not HIS children, rather they are his step-children. Who knows if he and his lovely misses (insert Christian-type name here) actually had sex.
Part of the problem is that the right mistakenly believes that tolerance is the same as endorsement, encouragement and recruitment, because so often, these are the reasons they give for why they have to legislate sexual and reproductive behavior, and anything else that has sexual orientation as part of the equation. It’s wrong to give rights to people who are gay, because that’s the same as saying it’s okay to be gay, and once people know it’s okay, then more people will want to be gay, and it will be a selling point by those who are gay to recruit others to also be gay. Really, people actually believe that.
Just like if you educate young people about sex and make birth control available to them, that’s the same as saying it’s okay to have sex before adulthood. I heard someone on my local TV station opine that the HPV vaccine should not be mandatory for pre-teen girls because it might give them the idea that it’s okay for them to have sex. Vaccinations, this person said, should only be mandatory for communicable diseases, not those that result from behavior choices…seriously.
And then there’s the school of thought that says if you’re not against something, that means you’re for it. It’s the wonderful world of black or white, and no in-between. These people seem unacquainted with the concept of not caring one way or the other what people do in the privacy of their homes – even not caring translates as tacit approval.
I don’t know what Larry Craig’s problem is – he sounds like someone who may be gay who is trying very hard not to be, but who finds his needs overpowering his common sense.
I don’t understand how someone like Rudy Giuliani, who may have the worst family values of anyone in that group, can be so wholeheartedly embraced by the same people who would rip any Democratic equivalent to shreds, and then feast on the bones.
What I would like to hear someone say is, “What matters to us is not whom you love, but that you love and are loved. What matters to us is that your body and mind are healthy, that you have productive work, that you can provide for yourself and your family. What matters to us is that the air you breathe and the water you drink and swim in and catch fish in, is clean. What matters to us is that the food you buy will not make you sick, that the drugs you need will not cause more harm than good. What matters to us is that if you serve in the military, you can trust that we will never ask you to go into harm’s way unless there is no other choice. What matters to us is that when you serve your country, we will take care of you when you are injured. We will make sure your family can live on the salary the government pays you for your service. What matters to us is that you have access to the best education there is, that you and your children can compete with those educated in other parts of the world. What matters to us is that you believe that knowledge will never hurt, you, ignorance can kill you and keep you poor, intolerance and hatred will harden your heart and fear will get you every time.”
whatthewhatthewhat, actually, the Gary Condit scandal involved consensual sex between adults. Whether he killed her (or had her killed) is not the same thing.
What Anne (#15) said.
Remember Gary Condit and a little scandal involving Chandra Levy?
Good point. A 1% chance that Condit murdered Levy trumps a 100% certainty of a minor charge like lewd conduct. It’s simple math, really.
Or is the adulterous affair with a subordinate enough to be considered a scandal itself? If so, it proves my point above.
“In all sincerity, I couldn’t care less whether Republican senators pay prostitutes or solicit sex in bathrooms. …”
Really? I must be a prude. I hold my representatives to a higher standard. Drug addicts and sex addicts shouldn’t be imprisoned, and shouldn’t be forced to get help if they don’t want it and if they are not hurting anyone. It’s their business. But elected officials are making decisions affecting the entire nation and I expect that they not be sneaking sex in bathrooms or hiring hookers. I expect them to control themselves as long as they are in public office. Perhaps I expect too much, like staying focused on the huge issues facing the country. I don’t do those things but I don’t care if you do as long as you aren’t also making decisions affecting my life at the same time. Maybe I expect too much.
Phoebes, it’s not that easy, Condit was married at the time. That is the scandal. And no I don’t agree that it’s as bad as molesting children, I am simply pointing out that we Dems have some some scandals we are forgetting.
bjobotts,
If you are expected your elected officials to not frequesnt hookers, you definitely are expecting too much. 90% of them do.
whatthewhatthewhat: “Phoebes, it’s not that easy, Condit was married at the time. That is the scandal.”
From Wikipedia’s entry on Condit:
Condit was a Democrat, yes. But he was a ‘Blue Dog’ Democrat who engaged in the same type of Republican hypocrisy noted above. I’m not saying that absolves the Democratic party of all taint from Condit’s activities, but I am noting the oddity that, for a Democrat, Condit was very Republican in his voting record, behavior, and other affairs.
In other words, whether it’s a Dem or Pug, the type of sexual hypocrisy under discussion does tend to stem from the right.