Ryan’s Defense: Former GOP Candidate Slams Focus on Sex Life, Weighs Another Run
You know, I find it very difficult to work up much sympathy for Jack Ryan. I could care less about his sex life. Hell, he could spend his spare time buggering goats. It's a free country, and that's his business. Whatever gets you through the night, man....
Still, it WAS Ryan's party that pilloried Bill Clinton about his sex life. It was Ryan's party that gave Kenneth Starr a blank check to dig up every possible lurid detail and air them in public. And, yes, it was Ryan's party that worked to impeach Clinton. So much for "high crimes and misdemeanors", eh? If Clinton's actions met the criteria for impeachment, half of Congress should be dabbing nervous perspiration from their brows.
Now the shoe is on the other foot and it sucks, doesn't it? Now you want to complain that " the media's focus on candidates' personal sex lives serves no public purpose and is harmful to democracy." Of course, it serves a useful purpose if you're talking about the sex life of a Democrat, no?
Jack Ryan may not be personally responsible for the atmosphere created by Kenneth Starr and his Republican masters, but the genie is out of the bottle. Ryan, who may well be a thoroughly decent human being, just happens to be the latest victim. Too damn bad. Reap the wind, sow the whirlwind.
The advent of what Hillary Clinton called "the politics of personal destruction" is an unpredictable and fickle phenomenon. The practitioner of this "art" would be well advised to be wary, for he may find his own weapon subverted and turned in his direction. When one blazes a new trail in muckraking, one cannot be surprised when someone turns the tables on you. Once unleashed, this cannot be controlled or reigned back in. It is out there, to be used and abused in any manner deemed appropriate. Don't say you weren't warned.
When Republicans begin to decry the unfairness of it all, I'll be sitting here laughing. Crying me a $%^&*#@ river....
