Wednesday, May 08, 2013

THANK YOU, MARK SANFORD.

I already knew Mark Sanford's reelection was hilarious, but though I'm sure Elizabeth Colbert Busch is a nice person and would have represented South Carolina... well, would have been a better Congressional rep than Sanford, I warmed a little to the victor after reading this outburst at National Review by one Hilary Towers, "a psychologist and mother of five":
It is time for conservatives to publicly recognize the widespread phenomenon of spousal abandonment, and the system of “family law” that supports it, for what they both are — a national scandal. 
Among other things, this election result is a searing reminder that we have, as a nation, lost touch with what “redemption” really means — with the true power of God’s grace, which is the power to transform behavior. And behavior, after all, is a reflection of the heart. How much longer can conservative stewards of family values turn a blind eye to the very narcissistic lifestyle choices of our leaders that we are fighting so hard to weaken (and ultimately transform) in society at large?
To put it in some context, those sections of National Review's The Corner not currently given over to Benghazi broodings are mostly devoted to Kathryn J. Lopez's wailings over abortion, and those of affiliated God-botherers like Wesley J. Smith, the title of whose offering "Hollywood Biggies Love Late Term Abortionists" tells you pretty much what you need to know about the tone of the place these days.

In other words, conservatives are still stuck in their post-electoral tantrum, and in this chaos the moral scolds of the movement, who were remarkably easy to silence and shunt to the side when any prospect of victory was visible, have been left free to seize the mic and ululate. Their connection with the world the rest of us inhabit has always been tenuous, but now that they have no reason to compromise with reality they have gone practically Dominionist. So if for nothing else, I owe Sanford some thanks for inspiring the anguish I expect Towers' ravings represents among the fundies. This will make it that much harder for them to pretend to be sane whenever they appear before normal Americans.

Sanford's victory also hasn't done any favors to the logical processes of Jonah Goldberg, who spent the writing period between his third and fourth breakfasts trying to split the difference:
Let me say upfront: I would rather we lived in a society where adultery had a higher social cost. That’s not to say people shouldn’t be forgiving or that there should be no such thing as second chances. But ideally, I’d like it if things were less loosey-goosey. Cheat on your wife, and maybe you don’t get to run for public office anymore.
This prose version of flop sweat goes on for quite some time before Goldberg gets to the nub:
What was on the ballot [in South Carolina] was a choice between a woman who tried to dodge the fact she was a liberal running to advance the liberal agenda of the Democratic party and a conservative whose marriage fell apart because he fell in love with somebody else. I’m not condoning Sanford’s behavior — at all — but...
But there can be no crime bigger than liberalism, and if you people who think "values" is more than a slogan we use to con suckers would just get with the program, Goldberg could stop trying to reach you and devote his pie-hole to greater helpings of pie, as God and Lucianne intended.
[Sanford's] formidable wife didn’t run to the stage to gaze admiringly and forgivingly at her disgraced husband to lessen the political damage. She kicked him to the curb and moved on with her life. Every marriage is different and we can’t peer inside any but our own, but I admired Jenny Sanford’s response.
Of course, one could argue that Huma, Hillary, and Silda were more “pro-marriage” in that they stayed by their husbands. And that just gets us back to how the culture has changed. It’s a fascinating thing.
"Fascinating thing" is Goldberg code for "holy shit, I just obliterated my own point fart, fart..."
Speaking very broadly as there are exceptions all over the place, it seems like liberal political couples work harder to save their marriage after a sex scandal. Again, that’s just an impression. I haven’t tabulated all the cases.
"FaaarrrrRRRRRRrrrrrrRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRrrrrrrt..."
Or do they place less stock in the value of fidelity (it’s just sex, who cares?). It seems to me there are a lot of ways to dissect that. For now, suffice it to say the times have changed.
"...[spectacular, 4th-of-July cannonade of farts and sharts] Not to worry, I'm a legacy pledge nobody expects this to make sense fart, farrrrRRRRRRtt AND IN CONCLUSION JFK was disgusting and Colbert Busch loved JFK, I bet, please don't nobody check fart fart fart, AND IN DOUBLE SECRET fart CONCLUSION..."
It’s absolutely true that conservatives need to wrestle with the question of what we should expect from our politicians. But I’m not sure liberals have anything worth listening to on the subject.
Let's put it this way: That's not an egg he just laid. I hate to replay my greatest hits, but this is the stupidest thing ever written, and will remain so until Goldberg writes something else.

86 comments:

  1. DocAmazing11:27 PM

    So liberals are a bunch of amoral libertines, so we must overlook the amoral libertinism of conservative candidates to oppose them?

    ReplyDelete
  2. erlking11:28 PM

    Thank you, Roy Edroso.



    That was beautiful, man

    ReplyDelete
  3. erlking11:31 PM

    Conservatism can only be failed. Liberals are always worse. We have always been at war with East Asia.



    Repeat as necessary.

    ReplyDelete
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    ReplyDelete
  5. Megalon11:58 PM

    You can't tell me that guy isn't paid by the word. His style, such as it is, seems to be using the most words with the least thought possible. That's why I'd usually think fart jokes were crass and unfair, but with Goldberg I
    don't mind because it seems to be such an accurate depiction of the
    intellectual content of his writing.

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  6. Spaghetti Lee12:03 AM

    Well, God has forgiven me for my sins, too. I didn't get a seat in congress out of it, though. It couldn't be that big piles of money and media appearances are more helpful than 'God's grace' when you're looking to pull off a quick, publicized transformation, could it? Because, dang, that might lead people to think it takes more than high moral standards to get ahead in life.

    ReplyDelete
  7. montag212:09 AM

    I'm beginning to think that Jonah's advisor at Goucher was Prof. Irwin Corey.

    ReplyDelete
  8. Spaghetti Lee12:10 AM

    I can see why Roy keeps coming back to the Goldberg well: hypocrites and liars are a dime a dozen, but add Jonah's inimitable style to the mix, and well, it's like what Mencken said about Warren Harding: a certain grandeur creeps into it. If you had to construct a sentence that said absolutely nothing, and even helped destroy written language in a small way, could you do better than "For now, suffice it to say the times have changed"? It's like the prose equivalent of a bunch of chewed-up, spit-soaked paper towels.

    ReplyDelete
  9. montag212:20 AM

    That is, indeed, Mencken's "That is, he writes the worst English that I have ever encountered. It
    reminds me of a string of wet sponges; it reminds me of tattered washing
    on the line...," updated for the age of paper and plastic.

    ReplyDelete
  10. Eh...Jesus could have been the opposing candidate and conservatives would still have voted for Sanford - because conservatives vote Republican no matter how disgusting their candidate is.

    ReplyDelete
  11. It reminds of tattered plastic grocery sacks caught in a chain-link fence; it reminds me of the ruined apartment complex in West, Texas; it reminds of Darrell Issa's Oversight and Government Reform Committee in session.

    ReplyDelete
  12. Big_Bad_Bald_Bastard2:10 AM

    well, would have been a better Congressional rep than Sanford


    Who could possibly represent a bunch of neo-Confederate dumbfucks better than Sanford?

    ReplyDelete
  13. Big_Bad_Bald_Bastard2:17 AM

    That's not spit soaking those paper towels!

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  14. So liberals behave, in their private lives, more like conservatives are always ranting that people ought to behave than the conservatives themselves do, but, uhm... that's probably caused by liberals being less moral in some way... or something... HEY, LOOK OVER THERE, A ZEBRA!

    ReplyDelete
  15. smut clyde5:13 AM

    I would rather we lived in a society where adultery had a higher social cost.


    So exactly what is stopping him from moving to Saudi Arabia?

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  16. AngryWarthogBreath5:14 AM

    Well, I'd vote for a philanderer who I thought could do political good over a strait-laced high-moral-standards type who'd make things (in my opinion) worse, but that's one of the reasons I don't scream about marriage being under attack and undermining the world's moral standards.

    I liked Sanford, briefly, when he was supposedly leaving politics. "Aww," I thought, "he's dedicated to his new relationship - which seems to be love, rather than a quick bit on the side - and he seems genuinely humble about his failings. Good for him." Then he started being Generic Republican, Smarmy Hateful Model again. WE HAD A DEAL, SANFORD. I FELT WARMLY ABOUT YOU ONCE AND IN DCHANGE I GET TO NEVER HAVE TO THINK ABOUT YOU AGAIN. IT WAS A BEAUTIFUL DEAL AND YOU HAVE RUINED IT.

    ...and since the analogy makes itself, I won't make it.

    ReplyDelete
  17. AngryWarthogBreath5:15 AM

    Brown people?

    ReplyDelete
  18. smut clyde5:19 AM

    They are not so much columns as verbal hairballs.


    Earlier today I was thinking of "Locus Solis" for some reason. Towards the end of the book, in the whole cavalcade of wonders, Roussel describes a rooster which has been taught to write... in a way... it can form words on a page by coughing up little sprays of blood that form the letters.
    Jonah came to mind, though he's not using blood.

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  19. smut clyde5:23 AM

    I dare you all to comment on his column, "You and the Taliban both".
    Double-dare you.

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  20. smut clyde5:27 AM

    "For now, suffice it to say the times have changed"


    Goldberg's revenge on the English language. I dunno what it did to offend him so much.

    ReplyDelete
  21. smut clyde5:28 AM

    "Reject entirely" seems to translate as "put into practice instead of talk about".

    ReplyDelete
  22. Big_Bad_Bald_Bastard5:42 AM

    It's funny, the commenters are fighting:

    Libertarians are by choice morally weak. Their mantra being "you can't legislate morality." Liberals are indistinguishable on social issues from liberaltarians. Conservatives, being human are also sometimes weak in their personal lives, but they do not see that as a virtue.

    And who says Newt Gingrich is a conservative? After he became speaker, that elitist windbag oversaw the leftward lurch of the congressional GOP that led directly to Obama.




    As much as I hate to say it , I don't seem to be minding this Sanford win at this time.

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  23. AngryWarthogBreath5:46 AM

    NEWT GINGRICH a secret moderate? Man, their firebaggers make ours look reasoned.

    "We're proud to support the only TRUE conservative: the ichneumon wasp! It's uncompromisingly tough on tarantulas and VERY family focused."

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  24. mortimer6:39 AM

    FaaarrrrRRRRRRrrrrrrRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRrrrrrrt...

    This argument has never been made in such detail or with such care.

    By my lights, for an asshole he certainly does have a way with methane.

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  25. reallyaimai7:00 AM

    And this is the guy who wrote tyranny of cliches? I guess he really suffers under the iron boot.

    ReplyDelete
  26. smut clyde7:03 AM

    It is like someone interviewed Bishop Thurlow's bottled anus.

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  27. Derelict7:12 AM

    As Jonah the Fail points out, it's the conservative leaders who have marriages that fall apart like cardboard in a heavy rain, but those liberals who want a world without rules manage to stick together.
    This is, actually, a fine window into conservative thought. They only behave in ways that are both proscribed by law and censured by society. Allow divorce and hordes of conservatives suddenly discover they want out of their marital bonds. Allow gay marriage and suddenly hordes of conservative men, no longer held in thrall to their straight marriage by the force of law, get divorced and run off with the pool boy.
    In sum, these are people who are utterly incapable of governing their own impulses. Yet, they seek to govern all of us.

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  28. Provider_UNE7:17 AM

    It's like the prose equivalent of a bunch of chewed-up, spit-soaked paper towels.


    This reminds me of one of the puerile rebellious entertainments enjoyed as a freshman in a high school German class. stuffing a whole sheet of 8x11 inch paper into ones mouth for five to ten minutes, then making ones way to the pencil sharpener that was conveniently located next to the open door (while the teacher was writing a sentence on the blackboard) and winging the glob at the wall across the hallway where it would make a sound, something between a splat and a shart. you could always tell via the sound the difference between success and failure. It was always good for a giggle to see the three to seven giant spitballs cemented to the wall across the way upon leaving the class.


    Anyhoo, the substance of anything Jonah writes is about equal to the substance of the spitball in question upon launch, and the sound accompanying their impact is probably the analog the ones that emit from either end of Jonah's alimentary canal when he feels it safe to end a line of excrement with a period.
    ...

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  29. Provider_UNE7:35 AM

    Are you sure you didn't mean hors d'oeuvres, I mean we are talking Goldberg here, whose contributions to the literary canon are like Cheeto-dusted Pigs in a blanket to haute cuisine.


    ...

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  30. Provider_UNE7:40 AM

    I do so love the warm Victorian glow of gaslights. Does one think that we could put Jonah up on blocks paint him white and tell the neighbors that we got a new, if oddly shaped, propane tank?
    ...

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  31. Provider_UNE7:46 AM

    This argument has never been made in such detail or with such care...


    I can never seem to remember this construction when I want to pull it out, but it seems valid if one might be talking about a 500 page tome arguing that the earth is flat and the legitimacy of a geo-centric universal model in the 21st century and that close only matters in horse shoes, with hand grenades and of course pi.


    ...

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  32. Rugosa8:35 AM

    and thus we have nothing useful to say on the subject! The mind boggles.

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  33. Provider_UNE9:00 AM

    I can't yet make it to the masthead or past the Wells Fargo add in the top left corner with a picture of Jane Goodall and a chimpanzee engaged in some non verbal communication next to the tag-line "When people talk, great things happen." followed by "See where conversations can take us"

    [Blinking followed by a quick glance at the battery and orange shirt looking around the room, (oh that's where the bandanna got off to {thinking "I really should clean up my room, but it is a day off and my Birthday so I need to keep 'shiftless, lazy and drunk in the quiver...}) followed by more blinking]

    Following that are a list of the Articles, led off with Michael Rubin attempting to demonstrate that he is a member of the Alliterati, Conrad Black suggesting that we should stomp on Syria and North Korea, and what the hell, Iran (I'm assuming the lBlack in question is Conrad and that the title: "Topple Outlaw Regimes" refers to the neocon boogie-men du jour.)

    Once upon a time in this country, moral integrity, emotional (and even spiritual) maturity, and a servant’s heart were considered important characteristics of public leaders.

    When ever has a conservative public leader this side of Lincoln demonstrated any single one of these characteristics or, allow me if you will to move the goalposts a bit, this side of Gerald Ford.

    In Mark Sanford
    we find a case study in how far removed we’re becoming from that
    standard. When did abandoning one’s spouse and children for an
    extramarital affair become compatible with conservativism?


    Now that it becomes clear that we are dealing with someone who believes, (contrary to shit tons of evidence that would suggest otherwise) that History began on the midnight of the 20th of January 2009.



    I'll take this as an invitation to tidy up the room and start drinking shortly afterwards. I'll leave all of the hanging curveballs in the second and third sentences to my betters here.


    ...

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  34. Kurzleg9:57 AM

    Exactly! 'Cuz what good are "family values" if you can't tout your devotion to them at every opportunity on the campaign trail, along with everywhere else?

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  35. tigrismus10:03 AM

    Holy Christ, he's indignant that people notice hypocrisy.

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  36. Gavin62310:14 AM

    That commenter gives his game away: "Conservatives, being human" -- because everything's permissible if it's towards that goal of putting liberals in their place. Also, too, liberals are godless heathens.

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  37. Ellis_Weiner10:14 AM

    "For now, suffice it to say the times have changed."


    Yes, dear boy, but DOES it suffice? Surely not. One must also say that time is money, that time will tell, that haste makes waste, that man is the measure of all things, that anything can happen when you're cookin' on a Tappan, that things go better with Coke, and that--as who knows better than you?--there's always room for Jell-O.

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  38. Ellis_Weiner10:19 AM

    "Spitball"? Spit boulder, you mean. Well done, all hands.

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  39. M. Krebs10:20 AM

    Seconded. And that closing can never get old.

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  40. Kurzleg10:29 AM

    Repression, projection, rinse, repeat.

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  41. Kurzleg10:31 AM

    What a great gift idea!

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  42. After incoherent, pointless babble, we get this:

    "But I’m not sure liberals have anything worth listening to on the subject."

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  43. fraser11:12 AM

    Good lord, that was vapid even for a Goldberg column. It would be nice if we punished cheaters. But until then, let's vote for Republican adulterers. Marriage matters but not if it gets in the way of politics. And liberals vote for Clinton so there.

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  44. reallyaimai11:21 AM

    This line shows Niall ferguson and Jonah Goldberg are genetic twins, sharing the close moral DNA of a head of lettuce and a chimp (look it up)--ferguson ends his multi second apology tour baby basically saying the same thing about Keynes. "I may have been an asshole but Keynes and his defenders have nothing to teach me" is ferguson a version of Jonah's "my party is full of philandering hypocritical assholes but I won't be lectured to by liberals."

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  45. Uncle Kvetch11:25 AM

    I can't believe Jonah ate the whole thing. Ah, who am I kidding? Of course I can believe it.

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  46. Rugosa11:43 AM

    Having his cake and eating it, too, indeed. He wanted to end his marriage, but keep all the rights of property to his ex-wife and house. I really hope he gets 30 days in the slammer for the trespass charge.

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  47. KatWillow11:58 AM

    "Yet they seek to govern all of us". Or rather, they want everyone to follow the rigid laws & rules they claim to follow. Because God's Will!

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  48. Derelict12:16 PM

    Because God's Will!
    And FRRREEEEEEDDDOOOOOMMMM!!!!1!

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  49. Scott P.12:17 PM

    Sanford was running against a liberal, so of course Republicans voted for him. But if someone like Newt Gingrich were running against a family man like Mitt Romney in South Carolina, no way Republican voters would go for the adulterer.

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  50. Or do [liberals] place less stock in the value of fidelity (it’s just sex, who cares?). It seems to me there are a lot of ways to dissect that.

    Jonah is actually making a metaphysical argument here that immoral conservatives are superior to moral liberals because at least immoral conservatives hold the correct beliefs. In Jonah's view, liberals - even when they act in a virtuous manner - have their deeds hopelessly tainted; they can never be good because they hold the wrong beliefs.

    And thus a whole industry is spawned devoted to explaining away the meritorious actions of liberals as flukes or aberrations.

    This goes to the whole national security argument as well. For conservatives it's better to have two wars, thirteen Benghazis and one devastating 9/11 attack under George Bush rather than be safe under Obama - because in their view George Bush is just a better kind of person. A morally superior kind of person. Someone enjoying a kind of Divine Right, even.

    If you recognize this line of reasoning and you should, it's because it's the same reasoning used by religious fundamentalists for millennia to argue that pagans or heathens can ever do good deeds because their souls are depraved.

    In other words, it's shit.

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  51. Jay B.1:19 PM

    He just wrote a kabillion equivocating words trying to say "so this is moral relativism."

    But I’m not sure liberals have anything worth listening to on the subject.



    Yeah, "don't be such a hypocritical douchebag" and "show some basic human empathy" and "life is complicated" are so invalid.

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  52. Derelict1:26 PM

    And just in case you thought we were running short of recent examples of the genre:

    http://livewire.talkingpointsmemo.com/entry/arizona-ag-pleads-no-contest-to-leaving-scene?ref=fpblg

    Family values my ass!

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  53. Waffle_Man1:47 PM

    Man, that dumbass hypocrite Goldberg, pretending to care about marriage but backing down because the most important thing is to get a conservative elected!

    Can you imagine somebody who would give a politician a pass on some heinous moral failing just because that politician was closer to them politically than the only viable alternatives?

    Can you imagine the kind of whacky moral relativism it would take to hope for the election of the least bad candidate, rather than drawing lines in the sand that could mean undermining your party and possibly leading to the election of a candidate who is at odds with you on almost every conceivable issue?

    Actually, I bet you can.

    Goldberg's position here is completely orthodox lesser-evilism, a position you yourself endorse.

    Granted, the rest of his column is total bullshit, but it's always really weird to me when you make fun of conservatives for not disagreeing with you more.

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  54. whetstone1:52 PM

    How much longer can conservative stewards of family values turn a blind eye to the very narcissistic lifestyle choices of our leaders that we are fighting so hard to weaken (and ultimately transform) in society at large?

    Let's reframe this with a more specific question in order to get a more realistic answer: how much longer can men continue fucking women who are not their wives?

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  55. whetstone2:00 PM

    There's also a certain drama to it. I write professionally, and I was taught and trained to structure an argument. But that's really boring, it turns out--you make a point, you make another point to strengthen it, the reader knows where you're going, etc.


    Jonah's writing is wonderful because he's actually trying to chase down his point with his words, always falling one or two steps behind it, walking into doors, going down alleys as it shakes him off. It's high drama and high comedy.


    My dream is that Jonah starts writing one of his "I think I have a point, wait, I have to walk my dog" pieces and then just keeps going, on to epic length: The Dunciad.

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  56. Kurzleg2:04 PM

    I don't think he'll like the answer to either question.

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  57. mrstilton2:09 PM

    You are Glenn Greenwald and I claim my five pounds. (Or at least, you are Chuckling and I claim my £2.50.)

    ReplyDelete
  58. Jay B.2:10 PM

    I'm curious what you actually think Roy was critiquing here. Goldberg's rationale for voting conservative or the logic behind it? It's self-negating. When you represent (and espouse) the family values crowd, "moral relativism" is supposed to be evil. Which just makes it funny. I doubt anyone really cares that Goldberg supported Sanford. What's funny is the stupid flailing he makes in an effort to make it fucking noble.

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  59. edroso2:10 PM

    As you will see at the very beginning of the post, I found Sanford's election hilarious, not a moral outrage. As for Goldberg, he doesn't even forthrightly endorse "lesser-evilism" -- in fact, the entertainment comes from how hard he's trying not to admit to it, and how poorly equipped he is to do so.

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  60. Gromet2:19 PM

    I sincerely wish Jesus would come back, just for a day or two. Watch him talk all pro-meek, have a wine-fueled dinner party with a bunch of IRS agents and strippers, and see if it changes any conservative's idea of Christianity. I'll bet nope. "I'm voting Nero. He's a real Christian, not a socialist like that Jesus Christ."

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  61. Megarhyssa macrurus2:22 PM

    Dude, the tarantula hawks are Pompiliidae; we're not even in the same superfamily! THEY are totally family-values conservative; WE just stick our ovipositors in any old thing.

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  62. mrstilton2:26 PM

    Here, let me take stab at the evenshorterer:


    "We conservatives may be sociopaths, but we're armed with weapons-grade cognitive dissonance".

    ReplyDelete
  63. AngryWarthogBreath2:26 PM

    ...I believe this only strengthens my point. (cough, fart, post about cartoons.)

    ReplyDelete
  64. Gromet2:35 PM

    So libertarians & liberals are by choice morally weak, but conservatives choose moral weakness? And that's okay, because unlike libertarians & liberals, conservatives are human? Doyoyoy.

    ReplyDelete
  65. sharculese2:43 PM

    When people notice conservative hypocrisy it means Jonah has to do work. Of course he's indignant.

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  66. reallyaimai2:49 PM

    One problem for "lesser embolism" as a description if anything republicans do is that their morality tends to be all or nothing. They dial the noise all the way to eleven and that's just where they start. Look at abortion--the party has committed itself to asserting that a fertilized, test tube generated egg is identical in moral value to a full grown, born child. The condom and the morning after pill, gay sex and cannibalism and genicide are all the same to these people--if you listen to their actual rhetoric. So they don't believe in the lesser if teo evils at all. All evils are the big evil.

    A related right wing/purity troll move which is to refuse to partake in efforts to reduce harm because it might lead people to think the behavior was ok. That is specifically why right wing sex Ed does not include contraception or the hpv vaccine--because those things might lead you to consider that sin doesn't have to equal death. And if authorities didn't let god punish you for errors with stds or aids you might not realize how important god was.

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  67. Provider_UNE3:02 PM

    I occasionally think of Ignatius C Reilly when the subject of LoadPants comes up. No offense to the former is intended.
    ...

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  68. smut clyde4:14 PM

    In each column's shapelessness and flaccidity, Goldberg's prose reads like segments cut at the desired word length from one continuous extrusion of Word Product, the pink slime of punditry.


    One of the Situationist artists / provocateurs created a Continuous Art Machine, which slowly unrolled a broad ribbon of paper from its spool while a mechanism of pulleys and springs splashed and slathered on the paint. You could buy as many metres of Art as you wanted. That was back in the early 60s; Goldberg is 50 years behind the times.

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  69. Gromet4:35 PM

    The jig is just so up on "conservatism" when you have its cheerleaders admitting the whole goal of their movement is massive social engineering. "Transforming society at large" should be anathema to anything called "conservative," unless I woke up in Soviet Krgrgrzristan.

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  70. willf4:36 PM

    Hah!

    That's because he's a walking pyloric valve.

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  71. willf4:42 PM

    Roman Hruska, our nation turns its lonely eyes to you.

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  72. willf4:44 PM

    They still might vote for Gingrich because Romney's not a christian.

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  73. willf4:49 PM

    I think Glennzilla probably has better things to do with his time.

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  74. The Dark Avenger5:11 PM

    "Hypocrisy is the tribute Vice pays to Virtue."



    François de La Rochefoucauld (writer)

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  75. smut clyde5:31 PM

    It does seem strange (a) to resent the suggestion that people should apply to themselves the standards that they dictate for others, and (b) to say so in as many words.

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  76. Meanie-meanie, tickle a person5:33 PM

    Or, to borrow from Randy Newman: "No one likes us-I don't know why / We may not be perfect, but heaven knows we try"...

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  77. JennOfArk5:45 PM

    There is no bigger moral flaw than being a liberal.

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  78. M. Krebs6:11 PM

    I still don't understand why "lesser-evilism" is such a bad thing. What would you prefer, the greater evil?


    (Oh shit, I'm probably going to regret this.)

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  79. redoubt1:14 AM

    Liberal "values": honesty, inclusiveness and arugula
    Conservative "values": hypocrisy, adultery and Cheetos

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  80. redoubt1:17 AM

    Plop, plop, fizz, fizz, oh what a belief it is

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  81. redoubt1:23 AM

    Bottled Anus And The Jonah Sharts, now playing live at the Corner

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  82. Let me say upfront: I would rather we lived in a society where adultery had a higher social cost.

    Punishment is key to the conservative worldview. Without it, they believe the moral order would collapse (well, their moral order).

    (Also, too, it's so cute when Jonah pretends he has actual principles and isn't a hyperpartisan hack.)

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  83. smut clyde4:49 AM

    Also, too, it's so cute when Jonah pretends he has actual principles

    He does! Multiple sets of them, in fact, depending on the political situation!

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  84. OT, but your nom de plume fills me with the urge to divide my kingdom and offer it to the meat sin parsons.

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  85. Krokamo5:23 PM

    More people have died in Afghanistan under President Hopey than under evil BushHitler, moron. And the Iraq War ended on Bush's timeline.

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  86. Waffle_Man4:35 AM

    To clarify, it's Goldberg who sees Sanford as morally abhorrent, not you.

    I see where you're coming from better now, but I'm not sure I really agree.

    I guess I come from a place where Goldberg's writing style is so much made up of equivocal bullshit that this is what a full-throated endorsement of lesser-evilism would look like from him. Like, he's not so much trying to hide his view as he is just too awful of a writer to ever express any opinion of his much more strongly and coherently than what he does here.

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