Friday, October 20, 2006

Shocked, but not too shocked

Regarding Kinsley's latest about how everyone's competing to appear the most appalled by the Foley scandal.

At least for the Democrats, it's a more complicated dance than that, because they have to be appalled, but no more appalled than if the targets were young women, lest their shock be traced to homophobia.

3 comments:

JohnMcG said...

My point wasn't my personal apallment -- I'm probably like Kinsley in not being terribly apalled, and would be equally apalled if the targets were female (or if it were a female rep targetting young male of female pages).

My point, which I apparently made poorly, is that Democrats are constrained in how much shock they can express, whereas Republicans who already carry the reputation of being homophobic, apparently are not.

Interesting how people keep introducing my faith into discussions where I haven't mentioned it or vaguely referred to it. I thought it was us mean theocons who were trying to make everything about religion.

Kinsley's column also made me wonder what Cheney or Rumsfeld's answer would be to a similar deal -- take away the suffering and pain of 9/11, but lose the rhetorical trump card that came with it. I sometimes think that if they were honest, and nobody else would ever know, they wouldn't take that deal.

JohnMcG said...

Sorry -- I temporarily hired Slate's headline writer. It wasn't meant as a criticism of the Dems, just an observation that they'll have a tougher time acting outraged.

Upon reflection, it wasn't much of a point, but it's a slow day here at WTS...

LongHairedWeirdo said...

That's ridiculous. The problem with Foley is that his actions were directed at people who did not consent to them.

The only source of outrage is that lack of consent; why would the sex of the participants enter into it at all?