Nah, I really didn't. I come to Popehat to laugh, and I'm never disappointed. I was just making a comment about my own feelings about this kind of story. Guess I didn't express myself very well.

Not that I excuse Sen Ensign, mind you. I have little to no respect for people who cheat on a spouse (a shame, too, because before the admission, I really liked the guy).

Linus, the way I see it, the reason politicians should be taken to task over massive hyprocrisy has to do with representation. Let me say straight up that I abhor the inequalities in rights between same-sex and hetrosexual couples. That said there are people, like Ensign, who run on a platform of "moral crusading" and there are people who want to vote for people like him. When something like this happens not only have they had their vote essentially made useless, but the positions their representative holds are made less solid for all who hold those positions because there is now a prime example to hold up for ridicule.

Once a position can be effectively ridiculed it is harder to keep it afloat as a legitimage position.

Personally, I detest people like Ensign. People who go out into the public and try to push certain morals heavily grounded in their own religions, like the evils of homosexuality, on the general population disgust me. As sorry as I feel for his wife to be treated like this by a useless douchebag there is a certain amount of schadenfreude that I'll take away from this.

Also, love the red-shirt reference.

In my small peanut of a mind, the issue is mostly two-fold: (1) what or who did you betray in your sexual escapades, if anyone?; & (2) Have you finger-wagged at someone else for similar behaviors?

(1) If you will betray your spouse, which is arguably the most true, deep and meaningful commitment a person makes in their lifetime, you will certainly betray a bunch of unnamed and faceless voters to whom you have a very vague obligation and commitment.

(2) If you will use a person's sexual preference or indiscretion for your own chance to stand on the soapbox, then in turn, act in similar fashion in the closet with ropes, handcuffs and, what did Ken say?, "smuggled Thai anal beads made out of the polished bone of dead hookers", then you truly have poor judgment and likely have poor judgment on issues of serious importance such as those for which you were elected to office.

We are ALL hypocrites to a certain degree. So, it is not so much that a person is a hypocrite. The more concerning issue, like Linus said, is that "worst of all, he’s a liar and a cheater, and a dumb liar and cheater." It is not the hypocracy that makes a person a nit, but the decisions, which are sometimes hypocritical.

It bothers me because the hypocrite thing is the easiest charge to make, because all the commentator has to notice is the inconsistency. He doesn’t have to take a potentially unpopular stand and say “people who cheat on their wives with a subordinate who is the spouse of a friend are douchebags”. Again, you’re not doing that; you did take the potentially unpopular stand. It’s just an irritation of mine with these kinds of stories.

You assume we're in the business of blogging about hard moral questions.

If one's marriage is broken, but one still has kids and wants to wait for them to turn 18, or one still loves one's spouse, but experiences a second love with another, outside the marriage, that's Tolstoy. It's tragedy. We'd rather not get involved.

But if one has that experience while swearing, loudly, in public, from a Senator's microphone, at others who practice the same vice, that's Marx Brothers. It's comedy. It's fun.

We follow the path of least resistance. We'd rather not write about Madame Bovary, because we appreciate her pain. We'd rather write about Rufus T. Firefly. We'll take comedy every time. We're doing this for fun.

And as a side benefit, adding our tiny voice to publicizing that a powerful person is a hypocrite, that the Emperor has no clothes, is a greater public service than publicizing any private tragedy.

I don't think Bill Clinton ever once, in his public career, condemned any adultery except his own. In that sense, he wasn't a hypocrite, though he was in many others.

“Douchebag” is a Popehat-sanctioned word, right?

There's a search button on the right side of the page. It would shock me if you didn't see dozens of times we've used it.

I agree.

My concern with the hypocrisy thing is not that it's not hypocrisy. It's the emphasis. And I don't mean you, or Popehat, but my gestalt reaction from the media on stories like this. Like the bloggers or reporters are telling the story of the scandal and finish breathlessly, "And, WORST OF ALL, he is a HYPOCRITE!" No, worst of all, he's a liar and a cheater, and a dumb liar and cheater.

It bothers me because the hypocrite thing is the easiest charge to make, because all the commentator has to notice is the inconsistency. He doesn't have to take a potentially unpopular stand and say "people who cheat on their wives with a subordinate who is the spouse of a friend are douchebags". Again, you're not doing that; you did take the potentially unpopular stand. It's just an irritation of mine with these kinds of stories.

"Douchebag" is a Popehat-sanctioned word, right?

I'm not sure I follow you about why the hypocrisy argument is flawed. Ensign did not merely fail to admit, in advance, to being a flawed human being. Rather, Ensign was a public and professional morals scold, about marriage in general and infidelity in particular. One of the articles points out that Ensign started this affair only a couple of months after throwing Larry Craig under the train. That makes him a classic hypocrite, in addition to being the sort of politician who thinks it is the government's job to instruct us about marriage and personal relationships.

I don't see the problem with pointing out that sort of hypocrisy. I rail about being asking intrusive and obnoxious questions to adoptive parents all the time. If I started doing that, someone ought to call me a freaking hypocrite.

I mean, I wouldn't exactly count it in a politician's favor if he advocated cheating on a spouse, and then was caught cheating. What's his rallying cry? "I may be a douchebag, but at least I'm a consistent douchebag?" I don't think I'd much like a society filled with people like that. That's why I'm not crazy about the hypocrisy charge.