Campaign 2008: Adultery Becomes Ho-Hum

[babylonsister]

http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/20070313_campaign_2008_adultery_becomes_ho_hum/

Campaign 2008: Adultery Becomes Ho-Hum

Bill Boyarsky

Remember how the country held its breath while the Senate voted on Bill Clinton’s impeachment and he survived by just a few votes? He paid a high political price for violating the no-nonsense commandment “Thou Shalt Not Commit Adultery” and lying about it.

The era of the Scarlet A in politics seems so long ago, especially today, as the three top candidates for the Republican presidential nomination are confessed violators of the commandment, yet their sins are relegated to surprisingly low positions in news stories about their prospects.

Not until the 11th paragraph of the Wall Street Journal’s rave story on Newt Gingrich (“He’s Back”) was there a mention of “two messy divorces,” and not until the 17th paragraph were there more details, tactfully presented. The admitted violations by John McCain and Rudy Giuliani are dealt with in similarly restrained fashion. In each case, they are treated analytically, as political problems to be overcome. There is hardly any condemnation from the Republican religious right.

It’s easy to say this is hypocrisy. There is a good amount of hypocrisy on the part of the media and the religious right. But I think there is something else at work.

First, let’s talk about the media. Seldom have so many reporters been roused to such investigative intensity as those on the Clinton adultery trail, first in Little Rock and then the White House. Pursuing tips from various anti-Clinton Arkansans and right-wingers, reporters eventually nailed him.

That was OK. But the journalism establishment was incredibly sanctimonious about its scandal-chasing, just as it had been several years before in pursuit of Sen. Gary Hart. In both cases, the pursuit was justified by invoking that often self-serving press motto about “the public’s right to know.”

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[Monkeyman]

1. Religious Right are being caught to often

[Virginia Dare]

2. It's none of our business...

a candidate's private life shouldn't be a factor..:sarcasm:

[BlueManDude]

3. This is why I've been saying for 2 years that Gingrich has a shot to be Prez

People say, "but he's a slimy thrice married adulterer - he could never win". I say, "but he's a Republican so it doesn't matter."

[catmandu57]

4. I had an affair

Me too. So did I. Well, my affair was worse than your affair. well I had an affair with my dying wife's third cousin four times removed. Oh yeah, well I diddled my dying wife's sister. Well, your all phucked because i had an affair with my dying wife's dog.
This years big thing.

[bigtree]

5. I know

now that it's become exposed that it's part and parcel of the republican culture they will probably start selling it as a virtue.

[tanyev]

6. Would the media have gone after Clinton and Hart so aggressively

if there hadn't been a rabid right wing cabal relentlessly pushing them? I don't think so. And the current crop of Republican hypocrites knows there will be nothing comparable coming from the left. So they can rest fairly secure in the knowlege that most Americans won't react very strongly to their personal histories.