{"id":10296,"date":"2006-10-03T13:17:14","date_gmt":"2006-10-03T17:17:14","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.kith.org\/journals\/vardibidian\/2006\/10\/03\/10296.html"},"modified":"2018-03-12T16:55:18","modified_gmt":"2018-03-12T21:55:18","slug":"big-deal","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.kith.org\/vardibidian\/2006\/10\/03\/big-deal\/","title":{"rendered":"Big Deal"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Well, and the scandal de jour<\/I> is about a nasty, stinking Republican Congressman diddling little boys<\/a>. Ah, scandal. It smells like victory. And comes with a slice of schadenfreude pie<\/a>! Mmm, pie.\n

Republicans, unsurprisingly, are shocked—shocked!—that the Democrats are using this unavoidable tragedy for political purposes. Democrats (and anti-Republicans, a much larger sect of Left Blogovia) are gleefully attacking Republican hypocrisy, as they are the ones who make such a big deal about The Children and Teh Sex. Republicans (and anti-Democrats, a somewhat larger sect of Right Blogovia) are sullenly attacking Democrat hypocrisy (note, by the way, that they are not on the whole attacking Democratic hypocrisy), as they are the ones who say we shouldn’t jump to conclusions, shouldn’t read other people’s email, shouldn’t condemn people just because they like to have sex with little boys, and want to open the door to all sorts of disgusting immorality, like that they pretend to believe Rep. Foley engaged in.\n

Digression<\/I>: There was a moment a couple of weeks ago where Matt Yglesias posted that, say what you will about the Iran’s madman, he dresses well and seems pretty confident, looked nice, and generally seemed to be making a good impression at the UN. Somebody then pointed out that you could tell that Matt Yglesias was an independent blogger, writing about what interested him, because anybody whose primary goal was to Win for the Party would not write something like that, as people would immediately start saying “You see! Democrats love Iran! Democrats want to suck snazzy terrorist dick!” And, as Mr. Yglesias is a quite prominent member of Left Blogovia, I think it’s worth noting that I think he probably ought to think twice before posting things, with an eye towards avoiding becoming a shanda fur de goyim<\/I>. Your Humble Blogger, on the other hand, can say whatever he damn pleases without worry about how it will make other people look. Sometimes it’s nice having low Page Rank. End digression<\/I>.\n

You see, much as I like the idea of Republican come-uppance, and much as I think that the goal (ending Republican dominance of the government by winning enough seats to wrest control of the House or Senate or both) may well be worth the means, I am deeply uncomfortable about the Democrats making use of this.\n

Yes, I think it was wrong for Rep. Foley to flirt so outrageously with teenagers who were in the lower end of the power dynamic. I think the situation (Congressman\/page) makes consent very tricky indeed, and even if it turns out Rep. Foley did not, for instance, write nice college recommendations only for those pages who played nice with the old man, I think it was immoral, and he would have been well (ethically) advised to Cut It Out.\n

On the other hand, the teenagers were all of age to consent, legally, and there’s every reason to believe that sixteen-year-olds are, on the whole, sexually aware and if not actually ready for a healthy sexual relationship (in many cases), capable of being something other than victims in a flirtation. Capable, I’m saying, of enjoying a flirtation, and possibly even something more than that. Capable, legally and morally, of consent. Some of them. Without knowing the people involved, I am certainly not willing to say the individuals involved were, but again without knowing them, I am not willing to say they were not.\n

Again, I think the situation was icky. Even amongst adults, when the power differential is that extreme, I think the powerful one has a responsibility not to be icky. And this seems to be icky. Furthermore, I think that the Republican leadership almost certainly shut their eyes, preferring Not To Know what they could have known, and what, if they had known, they would have had to do something about. For that reason—for the self-deception, the dishonesty, the cheapness—the Republican leadership probably deserves to catch whatever shit is flung at them. On the other hand, in the flinging, the message the Democrats and their allies are giving is that yes, this is a Big Deal, and won’t somebody think of the Children.\n

And me, I don’t think this is a Big Deal. I mean, even if Rep. Foley laid all the House Pages end to end, I don’t think this is a Big Deal. Sorry about that, everybody.\n

chazak, chazak, v’nitchazek<\/I>,
-Vardibidian.\n<\/p>\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Well, and the scandal de jour is about a nasty, stinking Republican Congressman diddling little boys. Ah, scandal. It smells like victory. And comes with a slice of schadenfreude pie! Mmm, pie. Republicans, unsurprisingly, are shocked\u2014shocked!\u2014that the Democrats are using…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[203],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-10296","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-nytimes"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kith.org\/vardibidian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10296","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kith.org\/vardibidian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kith.org\/vardibidian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kith.org\/vardibidian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/7"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kith.org\/vardibidian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10296"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.kith.org\/vardibidian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10296\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":17827,"href":"https:\/\/www.kith.org\/vardibidian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10296\/revisions\/17827"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kith.org\/vardibidian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10296"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kith.org\/vardibidian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10296"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kith.org\/vardibidian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10296"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}