Borowitz Report: “U.S. to Respond to North Korea with ‘Strongest Possible Adjectives’ Obama: We are Prepared to Consult Thesaurus.”
Via TPM and alert BMGer Petr (thanks, Petr!):
From Daniel Kurtzman:
“Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is claiming victory in Iran. It’s controversial and he is very unpopular. And the danger is this – he could ruin the political career of his brother, Jeb.” –David Letterman
“Oh. Marital infidelity. You are just another run-of-the-mill human being whose simple moralizing about the sanctity of marriage is only marred by the complexities of their own life. Well, just another politician with a conservative mind and a liberal penis.” –Jon Stewart
“Needless to say, this not great news for the Republican party. So many prominent Republicans have been caught in these situations lately: Mark Sanford, Larry Craig, David Vitter, John Ensign from Nevada. And do you want to know why this is happening? The gays. They’ve destroyed the institution of marriage and now this is what we get.” –Jimmy Kimmel
kirth says
I was having trouble remembering which champion of family values was walking which other walk. Why does “Really > No” go to Larry Craig, though? Because he denied it, or because the cop was a grownup?
billxi says
Clinton, Spitzer, Morris (when he was a dem), now he’s a good guy. Marzilli… I laughed anyway. Good job.
edgarthearmenian says
stomv says
Spitzer wagged a legal finger to be sure, but none of them ever ran on Christian moralism. That’s a really important distinction.
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p>Note: I doubt Vito Fossella did either… but the others did, and they all belong to to “because the Bible says so (to me), that’s why” party.
edgarthearmenian says
Wasn’t that supposed to represent the highest of Christian ethics and morality? (all the while he is constructing an obsenely humongous mansion for himself and family, too)
stomv says
and he certainly didn’t preach so-called “family values”.
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p>Edwards is a philanderer, but not a hypocritical philanderer.
justice4all says
on one issue or another. Just because the Dems don’t run on “family values” doesn’t mean they’re not hypocrites in other areas. Gay marriage?
huh says
And, like Newt, railed on about morality. It may just be a different form of hypocrisy, but this is the guy who said what Clinton did was so reprehensible he should resign the Presidency.
justice4all says
it’s 6 of 1, half-dozen of the other. Do you really want to argue that Republican hypocrites are somehow worse than Democrat hypocrites? Pick an issue…I will show you a hypocrite. Kind of like a self-styled change agent engaging in the “same old, same old.”
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p>
huh says
But Sanford argued that adulterers should be humiliated and his career destroyed for a crime Sanford himself later committed. Call it Karma.
justice4all says
thanks. I haven’t seen that quote, so it would be very helpful if you could link it.
huh says
Here’s theHuffPost roundup:
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p>
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p>And here’s the full transcript from an interview he gave in June:
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p>
justice4all says
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p>I don’t get how you got “Sanford argued that adulterers should be humiliated and his career destroyed” out of this? Where exactly does he argue that “adulterers should be humiliated?
huh says
Not a stretch at all.
justice4all says
The two articles of impeachment that passed the House were:
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p>Article 1 – Perjury before the Grand Jury
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p>Article 2 – Obstruction of Justice
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p>Not a word about adultery. Or humiliating adulterers. One might argue that had President Clinton ‘fessed up early in the game, he would have avoided the humiliation of an impeachment trial.
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p>hence – it’s still a stretch. I don’t see a factual connection with your claim that “Sanford argued that adulterers should be humiliated and his career destroyed.”
huh says
Please re-read his reasons for spearheading the impeachment drive with Newt. What they finally got him on has little to do with the motivations.
justice4all says
if one doesn’t want to be humiliated and or impeached, one shouldn’t lie to the grand jury about anything.
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p>I recognize that the Republicans went “Bubba-hunting” early and often – but more fool he – to lie to the grand jury. Whatever the motivations of the Republicans were…Bill Clinton was an adult and he knew the game. He didn’t get to be President by being a chump. It’s too bad he played right into their hands.
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p>But – this is still a stretch. Stanford didn’t actually say that adulterers should be humiliated and his career destroyed. He said Bill’s conduct was reprehensible. It was. And is his.
somervilletom says
You cited the charges in the impeachment. Mr. Clinton was tried and found innocent of those charges. You are treading very close to lying yourself when you say “one shouldn’t lie to the grand jury about anything” — that matter was decided, and Mr. Clinton prevailed. Such statements create the appearance that you are more concerned about his violation of your moral standards (Mrs. Clinton has made her own decision) than the charges he was found innocent of.
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p>Mr. Sanford should resign, or be impeached, because:
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p>a) He went AWOL for an extended period, and it now seems that this was not the first such episode, and
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p>b) He used taxpayer funds for at least one of these “flings”, and,
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p>c) His current too-public “confessing”, combined with his bizarre behavior, casts serious doubts on his current mental and emotional capacity.
justice4all says
to an certain extent. He was found “not guilty” of perjury, and the Senate was tied over the obstruction of justice charge. And he did not have sexual relations with that woman. Except…he did get on national television and “explained” all that.
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p>And so for the sake of clarity – one shouldn’t ever lie to the grand jury. It’s a statement of fact. And I should have stated that the President should have been less evasive and more forthcoming in his testimony.
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p>Of course there are some that would suggest that he was lucky enough to dodge a bullet, because less than a month later:
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p>
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p>http://academic.brooklyn.cuny….
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p>Oh – and then the President admitted that he gave “misleading” testimony in the Paula Jones lawsuit, had his law license suspended and paid a $25K fine. This did not extend to the grand jury testimony, however.
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p>http://archives.cnn.com/2001/A…
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p>As an aside, Susan McDougal went to jail for a month to avoid questions about whether President Clinton lied in his testimony about Whitewater.
petr says
… That when Democrats end up doing what is, in the view of the morality police, the right thing and resigning, like Spitzer in NY and McGreevey (sp?) in NJ, (Both Dems…) they still get lumped in with everybody else. As in, ‘yeah, well, you Dems have your bad boys too…’. Yes, we do. And they often slink off into the shadows in exactly the kind of shamed penitence the pious moralizers say they ought to… Edwards sins didn’t occur while holding office, so I haven’t ever really cared since he’s not running again, but he’s pretty much slunk of into the shadows as well.
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p>I’ll note that, of the above listed Republicans, only Mark Foley voluntarily resigned. Vito Fossella and Larry Craig ‘decided’ not to run for re-election. and Vitter, Ensign and Sanford are still there. Two Senators and a Governor.
Gingrich himself didn’t resign because of his marital infidelities… though by his own words he ought to have done so.. and ought, if he be honest with himself and others, be calling for the resignations of Ensign, Vitter and Sanford. The only Republican I can think of who resigned out of something like shame, resulting from a sex scandal, was Bob Livingston back in the ’90s.
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p>Of course, the other aspect of this, more damning (methinks) to the Republicans, is that they are not hypocrites: That is to say, they didn’t betray their core values, but that they really don’t care about morals so much at all. Of course they are are hypocrites in the strictest sense of the word: what they say and what they do are at odds. But what they say might itself be at odds with what they, deep down, really believe…. So it may not be so much an act of hypocrisy as one of revelation. It might just be that it really is just a game to them.
huh says
The new Party Line:
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p>How convenient…
sabutai says
So conservatives don’t care about this stuff anymore? Or is it like criminal corruption — they care until they get caught?
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p>Conservative values change so quickly it’s tough to keep up.
kbusch says
Krugman has a funny and perceptive explanation. First, liberals and conservatives are concerned about different things in such scandals:
That’s why conservatives appear to have such a tolerant response:
Consequently, conservatives have different responses to hypocrisy than we do:
justice4all says
Those who fail to learn from history are doomed to repeat it. Wiki even has a page on sex scandals…and they’re not just Republican. Just because we’re not in the news at this very moment doesn’t mean we’re so squeaky clean that we can get all self-righteous.
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p>http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/P…
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p>Edwards
Spitzer
McGreevy
Patterson
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p>There’s mayors, congressmen, governors, state officials….
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p>Yeah. We have no business throwing rocks at anyone.
daves says
Good point. All of these people, Republicans and Democrats alike, enjoy having sex. When will this madness stop?
justice4all says
The lesson is that sex scandals – hell, any political scandal is like the weather in New England. If you don’t like the party of the person being pilloried in the press for his/her indiscretion, behavior or crime – then wait five minutes, ’cause it’s going to change.
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p>And superficially, it might be about sex and their enjoyment of it, but mostly, it’s about power and arrogance more than anything else. And stupidity.
billxi says
gary says
Guide to Democratic Sex Scandals
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p>1: Start here. Boys or Girls.
-It doesn’t matter. We’re all equal, except it’s so horribly sexist to refer to women as girls, you pig.
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p>2: Really?
-Yes really. Elliot Spitzer at least had the decency to refer to her as a woman, not a girl. Have I called you pig yet?
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p>3: Was it with postitutes? Does that really matter?! Prostitution should be controlled and legalized by the State so the act of prostitution isn’t accompanied by drugs and violence. Pig. Tom Malin, a Dallas Democrat, MAN who was seeking election to the Texas House actually was a prostitude and we’re proud of him.
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p>4: Bailed out of jail by Mistress. How petty! Arrested for a victimless crime. You know, when Joe Waggonner, a Louisanna democrat was arrested we held candlelight vigils and didn’t gossip about such trivia. Did you know 47 million people are without health insurance? Isn’t that more important here?
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p>5: Long distance relationship. Mark Sanford had a lot of nerve, wasting gas and not buying American. Why, when John Edwards boinked his staffer at least he was buying local, visiting her in high mileage cars and cheap hotels, and actually helping that poor girl out financially instead of just talking the talk.
justice4all says
just for cracking me up and rocking the irony. đŸ™‚