"My," said the pot to the kettle, "how black and sooty you are!"

[thatcrazycajun]

From the "Public Eye" section of CBSNews.com, this page on Mike Wallace's sit-down this past Sunday with Republican presidential candidate and former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney on 60 Minutes:

>>It would have been a surprise if last night's "60 Minutes" profile of Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney and his family hadn't generated some criticism directed towards CBS News. But I must admit I did not anticipate the outrage in some quarters that greeted interviewer Mike Wallace's decision to question Romney about whether he'd had pre-marital sex. We are living in a post-Starr Report era, after all.

And yet:

"Must everything be about sex – or at least have a sexual component – these days?" asked Carol Platt Liebau at the conservative Townhall.com. "Remarkably, in the course of an interview for '60 Minutes,' Mike Wallace actually had the nerve to ask presidential candidate and former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney whether he and his wife had engaged in premarital sex." <<

Umm...excuse me, Ms. Liebau, but wasn't it your side that, less than a decade ago, insisted quite loudly and publicly that the private sex life of the President of the United States was not only the voting public's business, but if conducted improperly, an impeachable offense? And if that is in fact the case, would it not logically also hold true for those who are not yet President but have begun a formal campaign to win the job? Or do you only see that as applying to candidates from the Democratic Party?

That flapping sound you hear is the chickens you and your GOP buddies hatched during the Clinton Adminstration coming home to roost. Deal.

Comments

[pocketnaomi.livejournal.com]

Oh come on. I don't like the Republicans or their tendency to have a bee in their nonnet about sex any more than you do, and I also think this is their own chickens coming home to roost, but the reasons you claim for it are the kind of sloppy analysis that gives partisan propaganda a bad name. Clinton wasn't impeached for having sex, he was impeached for lying under oath. Yes, he shouldn't have been asked about it, but nobody ever claimed or implied that the sex itself was an impeachment offense. Not the most rabid of them. For that matter, an elected official having sex with a subordinate employee *is* probably the voting public's business -- certainly more than doing so with one's equal is. It's bad business ethics. If Romney had been asked whether he'd ever had sex with a campaign worker, you'd have an analogy.

I don't mind the question asked of him, but due to an entirely different precedent -- that of the furor which caused Gary Hart to drop out of the presidential race years before Clinton was ever on the national scene.

[madfilkentist]

Democrats have been repeating over and over again that Clinton was impeached for having a blow job, hoping that people will forget that he was actually impeached for lying under oath. It's tiring.

[stevemb.livejournal.com]

The obvious rejoinder is that Clinton's offense was perjury, not illicit sex. In any case, it isn't really relevant.

The bottom-line issue is that at a significant number of voters regard premarital sex as a significant moral failing, indicative of poor character. As long as this continues to be the case, such questions will naturally arise about candidates for public office.

[thatcrazycajun.livejournal.com]

I'm sorry, but you have it wrong. Clinton was not impeached for lying OR for having sex; the lying under oath was only the pretext. The REAL reasons he was impeached were A) that the GOP and conservatives loathed him and his policies, even though he kowtowed to them on actual legislation far more often than they should have had any right to expect, starting with the "gays in the military" flap; and B) because the original matter Ken Starr had first been charged with investigating, the Whitewater land deal, was turning up exactly bubkes that the GOP could plausibly use against him in law.

And I don't think this quibble obviates the point: If the right is so willing to make political hay out of a Democratic official or candidate's sexual misconduct, real or alleged, or any fallout thereof, they have no right whatsoever to complain that the press is "obsessing" about sex when they ask sex-related questions of GOP officials or candidates.

I agree with you that the "gotcha" mentality of the press that has made running for President in this country such a meat-grinder for privacy of candidates and their families is bad, and know full well it predated Clinton...but the GOP and their sycophants such as Ms. Liebau richly deserve whatever they get for pouring gasoline on the fire, in my book.

[zsero.livejournal.com]

excuse me, Ms. Liebau, but wasn't it your side that, less than a decade ago, insisted quite loudly and publicly that the private sex life of the President of the United States was not only the voting public's business, but if conducted improperly, an impeachable offense?

No, actually, it wasn't. Her side of politics tried to keep it to a matter of perjury and obstruction of justice. Your side successfully made it about sex, in order to distract the public's attention and play the victim. I don't recall many Republicans denouncing Clinton's sex life; I definitely recall then-Democrat Joe Lieberman doing so in a highly-publicised speech on TV, right before explaining why he should not suffer any penalty for that sex life.

Oh, and Starr's inquiry didn't turn up bupkes, it turned up enough evidence for several dozen convictions, including that of a sitting governor. Unfortunately, all those able to testify about the president's own involvement in the various frauds kept their mouths shut, confident that they would not suffer for doing so. Susan McDougal kept her mouth shut, and was rewarded by being released from prison as soon as the matter was out of Starr's hands; the total time she served, for embezzlement and contempt, was less than she would have served just on her embezzlement conviction alone.

To Starr, Monica Lewinsky was supposed to be the chink in the Clinton armour; he expected her to give him the dirt on Vernon Jordan, and then he would use that to lean on Jordan to tell what he knew about Clinton. This didn't work, because Lewinsky's incriminating testimony turned out to be about Clinton himself, rather than Jordan. And obviously you can't force someone to testify about his own major offense by threatening to prosecute him for a comparatively minor offense.

[stevemb.livejournal.com]

Well, if you want to look for something that is actually relevant, how about this item from Ms Liebau's blog last month:

...So what's the terrible message that the states are being harshly required to convey? As the Times puts it, "Students are to be taught that bearing children outside wedlock is likely to harm society and that sexual activity outside marriage is 'likely to have harmful psychological and physical effects.'" Is this untrue?... Part of the problem is that, these days, "comprehensive sex ed" becomes little more than a way that groups like Planned Parenthood and educators who ascribe to its philosophy convince young people that having sex is normal and expected of them -- and that refraining from doing so is freakish and weird. The abstinence programs are important in large part because they level the playing field....

It would seem that she takes a dim view of premarital sex, and thinks that people ought to cast a baleful eye upon it... except in this case. Certainly, it seems odd that she would wag her finger at a reporter for inquiring into whether someone who is asking to be entrusted with the Presidency of the United States has been engaging in activities "likely to have harmful psychological and physical effects".

[filkferengi]

I was very disappointed with the "60 Minutes" interview. I don't follow politics that much in general [that's lawyerspouse's job ;)], & certainly not details of Yankee politics, so I don't know that much about Mr. Romney. I would've enjoyed hearing details about his experience: just how *did* he turn the Olympics Committee around, balance the budget in Massachusetts, etc.? It was most disheartening, seeing a newsman of Mike Wallace's stature reduced to sniggering prurience.