When Sullivan quotes Greenwald...
"This scandal is like the Cliffs' Notes version of a more complicated treatise on how the Bush movement operates. Every one of their corrupt attributes is vividly on display here:
The absolute refusal ever to admit error. The desperate clinging to power above all else. The efforts to cloud what are clear matters of wrongdoing with irrelevant sideshows. And the parade of dishonest and just plainly inane demonization efforts to hide and distract from their wrongdoing: hence, the pages are manipulative sex vixens; a shadowy gay cabal is to blame; the real criminals are those who exposed the conduct, not those who engaged in it; liberals created the whole scandal; George Soros funded the whole thing; a Democratic Congressman did something wrong 23 years ago; one of the pages IM'd with Foley as a "hoax", and on and on.
There has been a virtual carousel -- as there always is -- of one pathetic, desperate attempt after the next to deflect blame and demonize those who are pointing out the wrongdoing. This is what they always do, on every issue. The difference here is that everyone can see it, and so nothing is working,"
I agree completely. This is very similar to other Bush/Republican scandals, but because it involves salacious sex rather than illegal campaign money or dead foreigners or dead poor Americans people will actually pay attention. And usually when Republicans lie, they all shout the same lie in a well-coordinated manner backed up by all their think tanks, pundits, media outlets, and talk radio minions. But now, their lies aren't even self-consistent. I think eventually the Republican hive-mind will coalesce around throwing a bunch of their leadership out, and then the vaunted message unity will return. But until then, it's popcorn time, as they say.
By the way, this is a pretty hideous picture of Hastert that Sullivan's using:
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