This Is Not About Larry Craig

This is about Dinesh D'Souza making up columns out of whole cloth. The legendary D'Souza has managed to com eup with this garbage on the Larry Craig scandal. It's such complete trash that it's hard to find anything that stands out as a key quote.

First off, he's factually wrong (not that anyone expects that to bother him). As guest blogger BC points out at AmericaBlog, Arianna Huffington and Matthew Yglesias have defended Craig on grounds that D'Souza brings up. Even Josh Marshall, who seldom expresses an opinion, comes up with support for Craig. Hilzoy questions the justification for Craig's arrest. In fact, I don't recall seeing any condemnations of Craig coming from the left (except for those commenting on his own hypocrisy, which is the impetus for Mike Rogers' comments, which, granted, were a little over the top), only from the right. (And actually, those condemnations I've seen from the right mostly seem to be based on "the good of the party," which is a chilling thought.)

Of course, if Craig were a Democrat, he wouldn't have to be hiding out about his sexual proclivities, would he?

D'Souza is merely taking this as another platform for some reflexive left-bashing, with, of course, the requisite Clinton-bashing as the core. (Clinton was a "bad boy.") The two gay-related cases that D'Souza manages to dig up are over thirty years old. And let's not forget "liberal hypocrisy." It must be there, because D'Souza keeps repeating the phrase. Even if he doesn't manage to come up with any links or quotes or any other documentation. Of course, this is an opinion piece, and therefore doesn't have to be based in any sort of reality, fortuntely for D'Souza. Reality seems to be his weak point.

So D'Souza comes up with a screed about liberal assaults on Larry Craig (which didn't happen) while ignoring the fact that Craig's problems are coming from his own party, and liberal hypocrisy., which makes its appearance in some form known only to D'Souza but it must be a matter of national security, since he never bothers to give us any concrete examples.

Does anyone wonder why I seldom waste time reading what right-wing commentators come up with?

(Footnote: I want to clarify a statement I made earlier about public sex, which I realize may have sounded somewhat holier-than-thou, whcih I didn't intend at all. I don't engage in that, and never have, mostly because I'm too shy to approach people, and clueless enough that I have been known to suffer approaches without even realizing they were happening. It's still not something that's high up on my list of things to do, because, given the choice between unzipped, fast and anonymous and naked and totally engaged, I'll take the latter every time. But you never can tell.)