[UPDATE: Random politeness requests that I note that Ethics Alarms has splutteringly responded to me. Random professional pride suggests that I note that my “let’s add an ‘as-near-as-I-can-tell’ to that one” impulse did what it had to do: which is to say, handily avoid the need for a potentially embarrassing correction. Random schadenfreude more or less demands that I cheerfully note that my larger message – that entire “self-absorbed, pretentious websites that hate hardcore social conservatives” thing – seems to have… hit the target pretty mostly on-target, nu? It’s so nice to have them admit that you’ve had an impact. Particularly when doing so rips off any… pretenses… that might have existed.]
Via Instapundit comes this shocked, shocked, tut-tutting examination of the recent unforced error that Harry Reid has found himself in. The background: it was recently demonstrated that the Senate Minority Leader was and is apparently able to lie in public and get away with it. Specifically, Reid demonstrated that he could make up a story about Mitt Romney evading his income tax – see here for a brutally precise examination of why anybody who believes this attack by Reid should not be allowed to operate heavy financial institutions – and be… not humiliated and shamed for it. Alas for Harry Reid, there is a critical mass of people who are currently unwilling to simply let things like this slide, which is why Harry Reid’s name is currently being linked with pederasty even as we speak. Also, apparently Reid was unprepared for this, which is why his office did not actually, well, deny the charges*.
Hence the aforementioned shocked, shocked response from this Ethics Alarms site, which is very disapproving of the whole thing, and goes so far as to call it ‘santoruming.’ For those unfamiliar with the concept, Ethics Alarms provides a footnote: “Thanks to blogger Dan Savage, the former GOP Senator’s name is now a synonym for a disgusting bodily discharge.” And that, of course, is just as bad when it happens to Harry Reid as it was when it happened to Rick Santorum.
…which, given that (as near as I can tell) this seems to be the first time that Ethics Alarms has bothered to mention to the world that, hey, attacking Rick Santorum like that was bad, just indicates to me that the “Reid is a Pederast” meme is having the desired effect. It’s getting self-absorbed, pretentious websites that hate hardcore social conservatives** to stand up for those self-same social conservatives! Without prompting, even!
Lo, indeed, truly we live in an Age of Wonders.
Moe Lane (crosspost)
*You can deny the charges. You can (sometimes) ignore the charges. But you can’t respond to the charges without denying them. Well, OK, you can… but it’s dumb to do it that way.
**I mean, hey, I thought that I was moderately unfond of Rick Santorum. Turns out that I have nothing on Ethics Alarms. The hypocrites.
Mr. Ethics seems to believe that a lifetime of being lied about is insufficient grounds for using your opponents’ rules against them.
And from what I can tell, he was more upset at what is being said about Reid than what Reid is saying.
Tsk. I think the flap over poor Harry Reid is based on a misapprehension. Someone, somewhere, overheard that Harry Reid has sexual intercourse with kids, and jumped to the conclusion that he’s a pederast. While that may be true, I suspect that the impetus for the claim was a simple misunderstanding: Harry Reid practices sexual congress with goats, and the kids/kids confusion begat the rumor.
Don’t believe me? Would you like to see photographs?
Reid could clear all this up tomorrow by simply providing proof that he’s not in fact a child molester. In fact, now that the charge has been leveled, it’s his responsibility to do so.
Why doesn’t he?
Maybe Reid’s office has responded poorly because, even though the charge has been filed in (somewhat) jest, it is actually true. As a high level Democrat, I’m certain he’s guilty of something dark. In retrospect, maybe a simple note to Mr. Reid may have been more effective than a specific charge, “All is discovered, flee at once”
Have to hand it to Ace, after the epic Weinergate, this is classic .
Am I the only one who feels this nothing more than a variation of the smear job Reid pulled on judicial nominee Henry Saad in 2005?