An Internet hub with domestic and international news, analysis, original reporting, and popular features from the left, center, indies, centrists, moderates, and right

Straight out of the Closet

It should bring me pleasure to watch the GOP convulse over this Larry Craig thing, but it doesn’t. It doesn’t because the behavioral patterns of all the actors in the sorry tale are symbolic or contributory of a larger pattern of destructiveness that ruins countless lives. Craig’s may or may not be one of them. But even one is too many.



9 Responses to “Straight out of the Closet”

  1. hanginjohnny says:

    The signs were there…anybody from the Village in NYC could have told you ….

    Watching archives of Meet the Press from 1999, he continually refers to Clinton as “a naughty boy, a bad boy…a nasty, naughty boy” And it’s not the verbiage, it’s the tone he uses. If that’s not someone cruising for young man flesh I don’t know what is.

  2. Tom says:

    I was tempted to giggle about the whole situation, but after reading your excerpts of Volokh’s article the whole situation just seems sad.

  3. Sam says:

    I take great pleasure in the situation. The whole ultra conservative system of looking at the world as they would like it to be instead of how it really is needs to be shown for the foolishness it is. This pain and anguish is a natural result of that philosophy, and Craig had his part to play in it all. Its the same type of thinking that brought us the Creation Museum and abstinence only school districts that have a 19% pregnancy rate.

    On a larger and more serious scale, its the type of thinking that starts wars based on non-information and wishful thinking. Its all part of the same thought process.

  4. casualobserver says:

    Sam, I understand your pleasure upon receiving another pound of conservative flesh and I am in total agreement that we shouldn’t elect hypocrites into office.

    However, I disagree that when non-hypocritical people advance social and moral platforms that are disparate from yours…that that is “foolishness”.

    There were about 60M votes cast for the more conservative candidate……..and let’s conclude it was largely on political philososphy as the candidate was no shining star.

    Conservatism is suffering because those elected to carry it out have in part been hypocritical, arrogant and yes, suprisingly unclever. Pisshaw the strength of the underlying fabric at your peril down the road awhile.

  5. Somebody says:

    It is BS to attribute to the entire party or political philosophy a downfall that afflicts one man.

    If this were true then for every one or a dozen men who preache communism makes the entire left wing Communists. Or preaches socialized medicine makes the entire left socialists.

    To paint a picture of Christians or Conservatives as sex crazed perverts because one or two or a dozen fall from grace is fun for those anti right hate mongering liberal Communists.

    Oh wait. Just because SOME of your left friends preach communism does not make ALL of you communists.

    Sorry I got carried away in painting you ALL with the same paint brush.

  6. kimrit says:

    Well, I do condemn the GOP’s nonacceptance of gays in the party (with the exception of course of the Log Cabin Republicans). It irks me that social conservatives see themselves as morally superior to the rest of us mere mortals. In a sense its the nanny state promoting a narrow stance on values issues, one that cannot tolerate the natural variants in human behavior. It is sad that individuals like Craig are forced into schizophrenic existances, that are always subject to humiliating exposure in public.

    But, I agree with Somebody, that not all social conservatives are repressed hypocrites who lead double lives.

  7. Somebody says:

    Kimrit I sorta understand and accept what you are saying. Sorta.

    It seems that it is acceptable to have a moral “Animal House” social agenda but it is not acceptable to have a conservative, strict and much more narrowly defined social agenda.

    That those who advocate “Party on Dudes!” are acceptable and right, but that those who advocate “Your Grounded!” are wrong.

    That when all my friends head over to the drug crazed, sex oozing, booze chasing party talking about who they are going to “bang” it is acceptable. Yet when they invite me and I say “sorry Im grounded” That makes my parents Stupid, ill informed morons who should “get a life” and realize everyones doing it so “why not join the crowd?”

    Many in our own party are sick and tired of being “GROUNDED” while everyone around them are hanging out at the “Animal House”. Many have decided that it is time to throw off the shackles of “CERTAIN” personal responsibility while keeping the shackles of “CERTAIN OTHER” responsibility and then calling themselves enlightened patrons of the party.

    Thus it is with great glee that they throw off certain restrictions while keeping other restrictions and redefining those restrictions as the new “Personal Responsibility.”

    Their view is to allow the party to take place at my house. Then we can keep an eye on our own, instead of them sneaking out the window like Craig did or like certain other people have done.

    Yet under the lefts continual assault on the rights moral stance this very condemnation of the rights moral stance is against what the left should believe and hold dear. Because they DO believe that one should be free to choose and yet when the choice is made……..they scream in anger and dismay that you did not “choose” the way they feel you should choose.

    The right on the other hand simply says…..this is what we believe….this is what we expect…..like it or not this is what we preach. You are free to choose, but we disagree with your choice.

    The difference? The right allows for the ability to make moral choices while condemning the choices they do not agree with openly and honestly. The left makes those choices freely and with the caveat that everyone is entitled to freely choose and then being angry when they do not make the “Right” choice.

    Who is more of a hypocrite?

    In my book it is the left…..not the right.

  8. kritter says:

    I look at it this way. While I’m not going to agree with the way people express their first amendment rights, I don’t have the right to tell others how they should express themselves. Moral values are a personal choice, and free-thinkers will skewer folks like Craig and many others in the Republican party for desiring to force a strict moral code on the rest of us, but sneaking out in the alley to engage in the very behavior they claim to find aberrant.

    Democrats don’t expect to elect all Christian white heterosexuals-they accept gays as a variant of human behavior. It is the nonacceptance of that variant that creates perverse behavior, by forcing it into the mens rooms.

  9. Somebody says:

    Democrats don’t expect to elect all Christian white heterosexuals-they accept gays as a variant of human behavior. It is the nonacceptance of that variant that creates perverse behavior, by forcing it into the mens rooms.

    Kritter It is a good thing you are not a politician. This paragraph would have just ended your career.

    You are equating deviant behavior to not being allowed to be openly gay. Straight or Gay. Jacking off in the mens room is deviant and I suspect not associated with either gay or straight, Conservative or Liberal.

    Its just plain Sick.

© 2003-2011 The Moderate Voice | Site design by Elegant Themes | Site customization, hosting, and security by Mode Equity