I knew a dude named Larry, I guess you could say he was a sex fiend...

[ebonlock]

Roy at Alicublog has a great post up on the whole Larry Craig fiasco, and this bit in particular caught my eye, apparently the wingers are now trying to re-define the word "hypocrisy":

Hypocrisy does not mean saying one thing and doing the opposite. It means saying something that one does not believe…

No, actually it means what you said first, the second is called lying. See? We have words for everything these days. Or as Roy responds:

So don’t call him a hypocrite -- he’s just someone who “weakened” under the awful strain of pretended heterosexuality.

We’re used to winger sophistries, of course. But this one’s in a special category. These guys are eager to defend Craig against charges of hypocrisy even as they accede to, and even demand, his resignation. Clearly they don’t give a damn about Craig, but they care deeply about negating the idea that their champions are hypocrites. They do it, I think, because hypocrisy inspires derision, which makes one's high horse about other people's morals less of an electoral asset, and that's an asset without which the modern American conservative movement is seriously weakened.

And I think we can all relate to MarkG who grumbles:

Wish we lived in a world where I could use a public restroom without worrying about a republican politician soliciting me for sex. Is that too much to ask?

Comments

[lisa-marli.livejournal.com]

Gee, if Craig was a democratic president he's be impeached by now. :)

[shimere277.livejournal.com]

I don't know what to feel about this. While it's fun watching the Republicans squirm, and seeing someone taken down for hypocrisy, it wouldn't even be an issue if Americans weren't outraged that it's somehow wrong to be gay. To me, the most offensive thing Craig did (in the bathroom, that is, not during his political term!) is the high-handed way he treated the cop.

[ebonlock.livejournal.com]

I really wouldn't care who he was doing where if he weren't a) a complete hypocrite and b) actively working against giving other gay men and women equal rights under the law.

[shimere277.livejournal.com]

I don't want to defend him, but I think it's obnoxious that the Republicans are calling for his resignation when they basically ignored another Republican congressman who was involved in a heterosexual prostitution scandal.

[ebonlock.livejournal.com]

Are you kidding? Vitter's gotta' be doing victory laps right now. Although according to Olbermann last night one of the big reasons the GOP is supposedly bailing on Craig is that he didn't warn them this was coming, whereas Vitter did.