a Pall on Truth and Reason.....

(Warning: the following post may be considered offensive by some readers. It contains profanity, sex, and may be offensive to barnyard animals or the animal husbandry profession as a whole.)





I normally don't read the tabloids very often. I find their writings to be to ridiculous to pretend they are actual news while at the same time not subtle enough to be good satire. Today's New York Times hatchet piece on Senator McCain caught my attention however. Apparently this "news" organization decided that it had not humiliated itself enough this decade between the Jayson Blair fiasco and the shoddy reporting done by Judith Miller and others in the run-up to the Iraq war. I think the comment I heard today from a left-wing caller to a left-wing talk show sums up my feelings the best: "he could be screwing goats for all I care". But, I'm getting ahead of myself. For those of you who have not read the "story", allow me to sum it up.
Two anonymous (meaning "lacking the balls to speak up in public like a man") former aides who've become "disillusioned with the senator" (What the hell does that mean? Were they fired or something?) claim that 8 years ago an affair may or may not have happened between Senator McCain and a young blond lobbyist. They claim advisers met with the senator to tell him not to be around her due to the "appearance of impropriety"(due to the lobbyist thing? because people might think there's an affair? we're not told and apparently the "reporters" had very little interest in finding out.) The story then re-hashes the Keating Five scandal that happened when I was in grade-school. That's about the entire story.
My first reaction to this piece of "news" was that it was the flimsiest story I've read in quite some time. The headline should have read "Two Guys Think McCain Might Have Had an Affair....Maybe". I mean shouldn't a story like this one present one piece of oh, I don't know.....evidence? Maybe a recorded phone conversation or a semen-stained dress or a line of countless women coming forward with allegations would suffice. The whole story seems carefully worded so that it doesn't go beyond rumor, innuendo, and speculation into stating a claim that could be considered libelous. I mean we're talking ZERO evidence here. Nothing even pretending to be evidence. I've heard Barack Obama speeches with more substance than this. Of course that didn't stop the "journalists" from jumping all over this shit. I've probably heard the term "raises the question" 50 times today. I've got a radical idea here, rather than "raise the question" repeatedly how about DOING YOUR FUCKING JOB and looking for any kind of corroboration before giving your opinion on what is rumored to have happened 8 years ago? "Well we're just giving both sides of the story". The problem with this line of reasoning is that the truth is often one-sided. If you're going to drag some one's name through the mud at least look for some hotel receipts or notes or something better than "they rode on a plane together" or "she showed up at fundraisers". I think if I was running the campaign I would use every means at my disposal to make the people at that paper think heaven is falling. I wouldn't stop until every one involved is fired. The reasons for this are two-fold 1) you can't let these things go unchecked as John Kerry learned 4 years ago. You need to clear your name for the sake of your family. 2) From a hardball politics standpoint, you need to make an example out of someone. This way if a shaky, poorly sourced story pops up in September or October people will think twice about running with it.
I know some people will ask me the following questions. Didn't the New York Times endorse McCain? Yeah, when he was running against OTHER REPUBLICANS. Now it's a different story. The other question is "what if it's true? Do you care about politicians having affairs?" The answer is no. I was 18 when the Clinton-Lewinsky thing happened and was too obsessed with getting laid myself to care who else was. My feelings now are that these matters are between a person and their spouse. Thomas Jefferson was banging slaves for crying out loud. As far as I'm concerned if you can balance the budget, uphold the constitution, and not use government property in the commission of any lewd act you can fuck goats for all I care. Yep, that's right, good leadership entitles you to a "goat-fucking license" as far as ol' Mr. Haircutt here is concerned.




(see that's what I mean about subtle sarcasm. Am I joking? Am I insane? Hard to tell isn't it? But I bet you weren't expecting to read the phrase "goat-fucking license" today.)