Gene Lyons: Everybody loves a good sex scandal

[CatWoman]

Never mind the hand-wringing. The simple truth is that everybody loves a good sex scandal. The more exalted the poor bozos caught in the klieg lights with their knickers around their ankles, the better we like it. The seamier the details, the more preposterous the alibis and rationalizations, the happier it makes us smug voyeurs out in TV land who do our own furtive coupling in the dark.

That was the great value of the Clinton / Lewinsky episode to the Republicans, until they got nasty and spoiled the fun. Generally, however, the more sanctimonious the sinner, the bigger the laughs. Some enterprising bookie in Las Vegas ought to open a betting pool on which “family values” Republican will be next to atone for Kenneth Starr’s sins. With any justice, it’ll be one of Sen. Larry “Wide Stance” Craig’s GOP colleagues, who elbowed each other aside like roller-derby contestants racing to the TV cameras to urge the poor dope’s resignation, John McCain of Arizona, Mitch McConnell of Kentucky or Trent Lott of Mississippi. So long, Wide Stance. Don’t let the stall door hit you in the butt.

Mitt Romney would be another fine candidate for public humiliation. Here’s a guy who’s changed his mind on every imaginable “family values” issue, from abortion and gay marriage to cross-dressing Barbie and Ken dolls. OK, I made that up, but you know it could happen. Before he’s done, I expect Romney to claim he was governor of Utah rather than Massachusetts. But he’s foursquare against his Idaho campaign director getting arrested in a sex sting in a men’s room in the Minneapolis airport and he doesn’t care who knows it. That’s leadership.

By contrast, Sen. David Vitter of Louisiana reportedly got a standing ovation from his Republican colleagues after being forced to admit that he’d called an escort service that federal prosecutors allege was a prostitution ring.

Today’s GOP is all about what I call “heterosexual panic.” About half the abusive e-mails and 100 percent of the anonymous calls this column generates deal in sexual insult.

Remember when President Bush swaggered across the flight deck of the USS Lincoln on Mission Accomplished Day in 2003 ? If it wasn’t embarrassing enough hearing conservative pundits swooning over a 57-year-old politician in a Village People costume, some actually marveled at how well Capt. Codpiece filled his flight suit.

It gets worse. In his book, “The Wimp Factor: Gender Gaps, Holy Wars and the Politics of Anxious Masculinity,” Stephen J. Ducat reports that he bought one of those “George W. Bush Top Gun Action Figures” for the cover art. Guess what. “The studly twelve-inch flyboy,” he writes, “not only comes with a helmet and visor, goggles and oxygen mask, but underneath his flight suit is a full ‘basket’ —a genuine fake penis, apparently constructed with lifelike silicone.”

Top that, Barney Frank.


http://www.nwanews.com/adg/Editorial/200546/