One should generally try to avoid ad hominem attacks when attempting to engage one’s political opponents but, occasionally, it is hard to avoid them. There is so much stupid happening over at MSNBC. It is a real bone deep stupid, the kind that one can’t make up; the kind that only appears naturally in certain circles.
While there has been a tremendous amount of inanity over there, lo these past few weeks of Weiner-fueled antics, one of today’s commentators jumped out as exceptionally egregious in her absolute idiocy. MSNBC’s “The ED Show” has been all over the place. He has gotten it right, as a whole though, has Mr. Schultz. He took Joan Walsh to task for being a shameless shill but still brings on the most rabidly liberal folks on to discuss this stuff. One of his regulars is Tulane (yes, Andrew Breitbart’s alma matter) professor Melissa Harris-Perry, who was on the show to discuss the double standard in sex scandals.
Yes, the first thing that comes to mind is how Foley, Craig, Ensign and Sanford were out of office within a few days of their respective indiscretions coming to light. If you thought such, well, you’d be wrong. Harris-Perry has to go first to the current Democrat talking points. If Vitter didn’t resign then Weiner shouldn’t resign. Obviously there is no comparing Vitter to Weiner. Vitter had allegedly visited a prostitute eight years prior, had already worked it out with his wife, never lied to anyone, never told other involved people to lie to the press to save his own skin, never accused anyone else of wrongdoing, etc. etc., and never had the mainstream media apologizing for him or carrying his water. Of course there were the other four Republicans mentioned that were hounded out of office, mostly by their own party and a rabid attack press. That was all pretty much par for the course, but then Harris-Perry hopped the bullet train to Crazy Land.
“And so just like in the 2008 election cycle, you know, Sarah Palin and her family were able to survive the fact that she had a pregnant out-of-wedlock daughter when we know the Obamas would never have been able to survive that fact,” Harris-Perry said. “This is the reality. [Andrew] Breitbart knows it. And the thing is Weiner knew it when he did it. And he should have known better.” [my emphasis]
Yes, you did read that correctly. Professor Harris-Perry has just compared Anthony Weiner sending explicit pictures to women less than half his age, lying about it to the press, etc. etc. to a Vice Presidential candidate’s teenage daughter becoming pregnant. Stop a minute and savor the stupid.
She did say one thing right though, we do know that the Obamas would never have been able to survive that sort of scandal. That has more to do with the fact that his daughters were 10 and seven at the time of his election. If they had gotten pregnant it would have been criminal neglect and not a scandal. That said, if they had been 17 at the time of said hypothetical pregnancy, nobody would have cared. There would have been no incessant cries of hypocrisy that unfairly plagued Governor Palin, since to be a hypocrite one has to actually have a moral compass. As Tony Katz is wont to say, “If it weren’t for double standards, liberals wouldn’t have any standards at all.”
It has been made abundantly clear by this whole scandal that only the indiscretions of Republicans are worthy of note and, when it comes to the peccadilloes of the liberal elite, it is the job of the media to circle the wagons and ignore the story until such a time as that it gets too much traction. Then it is their job to attack the messenger, change the subject, play down the charges and when all of that doesn’t work attempt to use the scandal to smear its ideological opponents.
Well, stupid doesn’t work anymore.
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