I Don't Like You Either.

Ride the Wayback Pony: Edwards' Hypocrisy Gets A Democrat Down

by Blue Stockings | Sometimes The Huffington Post really gets on my last nerve.  I know, I know, THEY TOLD US SO and we told them to shut up till they had proof.  Still:  it's a tragedy for Dems and they shouldn't be quite so full of piss and judgment.  Read the smuggery here (Say It Ain't So, Elizabeth -- You Knew But Supported His Run For President?) and here (What is Wrong With Men?)

The first bothers me more than the second.  It's not Elizabeth's fault.  And Stranahan is as wrong as he can be when he implies that there would ever be a time when it wouldn't matter to Edwards' presidential bid.  His rebuke to Clinton would have come back to haunt him no matter what. 

As for what's wrong with men:  same old same old.  You could say it's a refreshing change from Republican-style sex scandals such as this one (involving a 14 year old girl and a Missouri state rep).

But I am not letting Edwards off the hook.  Far from it.  From The Raleigh News and Observer:

Jon Swift: Eliot Spitzer & Other Like-Minded Americans

Satirist Jon Swift thinks Eliot Spitzer should stop apologizing and say what he needs to say to save his career.  And what is that, you ask? 

[He] should become the first sitting governor in American history to say the words, "At a point in every person's life, one has to look deeply into the mirror of one's soul and decide one's unique truth in the world, not as we may want to see it or hope to see it, but as it is. And so, my truth is that I am a whoremonger-American."....

Many of our founding fathers, men like Benjamin Franklin, for example, were whoremonger-Americans. In more recent times a number of great political men have patronized prostitutes, men like Jerry Springer, Rep. Joe Waggonner, Rep. Allan Howe, Rep. Fred Richmond, Dick Morris and most recently Louisiana Senator David Vitter, and these are just the ones who got caught. Many of these men have been forced to live in shame for who they are and their political careers have been ruined. But is that fair?

Spitzer: “I have acted in a way that violates my obligation to my family and violates my or any sense of right or wrong." Another Pol Remembers His Moral Values After Being Caught on Tape

Good news for Republicans:  It's not only their guys who are hypocrites, as well as venal. 

Gov. Eliot Spitzer has been caught on a federal wiretap arranging to meet with a high-priced prostitute at a Washington hotel last month, according to a person briefed on the federal investigation.

An affidavit in the federal investigation into a prostitution ring said that a wiretap recording captured a man identified as Client 9 on a telephone call confirming plans to have a woman travel from New York to Washington, where he had reserved a hotel room. The person briefed on the case identified Mr. Spitzer as Client 9.

Mr. Spitzer today made a brief public appearance during which he apologized for his behavior, and described it as a “private matter.”  (NYT)

Yeah, he wishes.  Sadly for him, the you'd-think-by-now-obsolete Mann Act makes it a federal crime to transport a woman across state lines for the purposes of prostitution.(NYT)   I guess women still aren't seen as having any volition in the matter.   "The four defendants charged in the case unsealed last week were all charged with that crime, along with several others."(NYT) 

Like certain Republicans I could mention but won't, Mr. Spitzer can be charged with the---to my mind---far more serious moral transgression of hypocrisy.

Updates from Babel: Huckabee Extends "Olive Branch to Limbaugh"

The Carpetbagger Report notes, "Conservative opposition to Mike Huckabee’s campaign has been solidifying in recent weeks, to the point of near movement-wide panic."I dealt with the backstory here and elsewhere. (Somewhat to the bemusement) of my BN-Politics colleagues, I've given quite a bit of attention to the meteoric rise of God's Chosen Conservative.

Sadly, Huckabee hath offended God's chosen Blowhard, who then unloaded on him.  What to do?  What to do?  Huck followed Jesus's instructions and turned the other cheek.   Hurray!  Now the healing can begin.  Or can it?

I love Rush Limbaugh; I've always loved his show," Huckabee assured.  "I think he’s been great for the conservative movement."

Huckabee: Romney's Vaunted Varmint-Hunting "Major Mistake."

<<<Introduction

So anyway, Huckabee thinks Romney has made a "major mistake."  Were you hoping Huckabee was going to say, "Eeeew, shooting bunnies"?  I know I was.  Instead, Huckabee jumped in to moralize about Romney's teeny, teeny exaggeration and the implications to be drawn from it about his character. 

It's just so Republican to get worked up, or pretend to get worked up,  because a rival politician isn't---allegedly--- quite so much of a gun totin' varmint-smitin'  Nimrod as advertised.   Here's the quote: 

[quoted from The Huffington Post Wires, Huckabee Questions Romney Hunting Claim]

GOP presidential candidate Mitt Romney was wrong to suggest he was a lifelong hunter even though he never took out a license, campaign rival Mike Huckabee said Sunday.

"I think it was a major mistake," said Huckabee, a former Arkansas governor. "It would be like me saying I've been a lifelong golfer because I played putt-putt when I was 9 years old and I rode in a golf cart a couple of times."

"I think American people are looking for authenticity," Huckabee added. "Match their record with their rhetoric."

[quote]

Um, what?  Does anybody REALLY believe any man's (whether Republican or Democrat or Libertarian) golf stories, gun stories, fish stories?  They're all fish stories, just like most political rhetoric and most political "records."  Poor old Romney forgot for the moment that we live in the age of the  sound bite and that the consultants who advise Republicans believe that all Americans who vote Republican are ruled by powerful and primitive emotions.

I have news for Huckabee:  the gun-craziest Billy Joe Bob I ever knew (and I have known dozens, being from Carolina) wouldn't give a damn about this.  Even Billy Joe Bob knows it don't matter a rat's ass whether  Romney ever did a lick of hunting in his life, as long as he's on the side that says BJB can keep his stash of weapons and his right to slaughter small, furry animals.   And if the good ol' boys comprising some focus group somewhere  told  Huckabee's campaign consultants otherwise?  [wheezy good ol' boy laughter]Hee hee hee hee [/wheezy good ol' boy laughter].

And I believe Billy Joe Bob is---or would be, if he ever read the news, which he don't---as offended as I am that the Huckabee campaign thinks he cares about a stupid bit of swagger (which is the worst you could say about Romney's hunting claims, even if you don't believe the "varmint" hunting part, which I personally do).  Billy Joe Bob is all about the swagger and he might be uneducated, but he ain't stupid. 

There is this to be said for being a Democrat.  At least our politicians don't think we're stupid.

Party Games: Ashes, Ashes, All Fall Down.

BUT FIRST, A WORD FROM LAKE WOBEGON.  Garrison Keillor, who seems like a prototype of "the reasonable and prudent man" beloved of the law, has written a lovely piece at Salon.com that succinctly sums up points I've been going round and round---here and elsewhere, but mainly in my head--- for weeks.  The article, which you really ought to read, is here.

[quote begins from Salon.com, "Live and Let Live" by Garrison Keillor]

The Current Occupant has been very cordial to folks in the Democrat Party lately, which a Publican president ought to be, especially when there are mo' Crats than there are Licans. This is the beauty of democracy: You are more or less forced to sit down and break bread with people you might prefer to despise, and they with you. Some Democrats are in a mood to kick shins and they look on bipartisanship as wimping out, and that's fine for columnists and cloistered nuns, but in real life, as a rule, we coexist with the opposition....

[quote ends; links in original]

I think most Republicans are just as anxious as the Dems to get out of Iraq and just as opposed to escalation, but since some of their constituents don't know any better than to go on supporting Bush, their representatives aren't about to come right out and say what they really think.  It would be impolitic.

Well, and they don't want to do anything that the Democrats might get credit for in case it works or that they might get blamed for in case it doesn't..

I was impressed by Keillor's succinct character studies of some of the leading players in the ongoing argument between Democrats and Republicans, and particularly of the way in which he sees off John McCain:

[quote begins from Salon.com, "Live and Let Live" by Garrison Keillor]

Sen. McCain accuses opponents of the war, including Sen. Hagel, of having no plan to bring it to an end. This is brazen nonsense: You drive down the wrong road and then you yell at the people in the back seat because they can't tell you an easy way to get where you want to go. You lie to the American people and invade a small country and four years later you're bogged down and boys from Nebraska and Minnesota are trying to police a religious-ethnic war that has nothing to do with us and you accuse your critics of being unhelpful. Is this what passes for debate these days?

[quote ends]

Oh, exactly.  That's exactly the response.  Why doesn't anyone else ever say it?

I'm not saying that the Democrats are less cowardly than Republicans; they are not.  Many of them sat on their hands for years because speaking out would be impolitic and most of them voted to go into Iraq.  And now that they've got the upper hand, they're in the position the Republicans were in for so long:  able, finally, to stand up and REPRESENT, knowing that their constituents are behind them. 

Or they would be, if they could work out some of the differences they have with one another.

DEMOCRAT VS. DEMOCRAT:  HOW MUCH BIPARTISANSHIP IS TOO MUCH? 

I've said before that the war debate at present consists of mostly incomplete sentences.  At Salon, the transcript of Jim Webb's speech after the Republicans blocked the Warner-Levinson resolution is entitled "A Time for the Senate to Lead," which is just a further example.  Lead where, exactly?  Or more to the point, how?

According to the Senator, the Warner-Levin resolution was a necessary step in the direction where everyone, even---dare I say it--- perhaps the president, must know we must sooner rather than later go: