Christine O’Donnell is seeking federal office based in part on her self-generated, and carefully tended, image as a sexually chaste woman. She lies about who she is; she tells that lie in service of an attempt to impose her private sexual values on her fellow citizens; and she’s running for Senate. We thought information documenting that lie — that O’Donnell does not live a chaste life as she defines the word, and in fact hops into bed, naked and drunk, with men that she’s just met — was of interest to our readers.
By now, most of you are probably at least minimally familiar with the story of Christine O’Donnell’s drunken one-night stand with a much younger man in Philadelphia three years ago. This story, while it may have some problems, is, I think, a valid and valuable in that it lays bare O’Donnell’s holier-than-thou hypocrisy. As such, it deserves serious consideration- not in any policy sense, of course, but more as evidence of O’Donnell’s dishonesty about who and what she is.
The reaction to the story in Gawker has been surprisingly (to me, at least) and almost uniformly negative. It’s as if everyone with anything to say recognizes that the politically correct thing to do is to condemn Gawker for the apparent (and, in their minds, obviously) prurient, mean-spirited, and demeaning nature of this story. No one seems to be talking about what I think is the central issue raised by Gawker’s piece: O’Donnell’s rank hypocrisy and her willingness to hold herself to a different, and much lower, standard than she would hold others.
The story was anonymously sourced, which is the only part of this saga that I have a real problem with. If you are going to relate a story of this nature for public consumption, at least have the balls- and the decency- to do it for attribution. Writing the story anonymously was a cowardly thing to do…but it doesn’t take away from the reality that it reveals O’Donnell to be a world-class hypocrite.
When you lie about who you are (something I, sadly, have been guilty of far too often myself), and when you clearly fail to live out your values, you’re a hypocrite. The people of Delaware deserve to know that the Republican candidate for Joe Biden’s former seat is a liar and a hypocrite, and that she holds others to a far more stringent moral standard than she holds herself. These moral shortcomings are ABSOLUTELY germane to O’Donnell’s quest for political office and speak directly to her fitness (or lack thereof) to serve as one of Delaware’s two Senators.
I like your Christ. I do not like your Christians. Your Christians are so unlike your Christ. The materialism of affluent Christian countries appears to contradict the claims of Jesus Christ that says it’s not possible to worship both Mammon and God at the same time.
- Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi
Personally, I could care less if Christine O’Donnell has consensual sex with farm animals. Her sexual behavior and predilections are only issues insofar as she has made them so. She’s held herself up as a morally superior human being, which this story reveals to be a lie. Voters in Delaware deserve to know the truth about their candidates. While no reasonable person enjoys dissecting a candidate’s sexual history, when it’s built on lies and hypocrisy, what other option is there? O’Donnell is the same person, after all, who defeated her primary opponent by rapidly repeating variations of “I don’t know that Mike Castle is gay.” Live by the sword…die by the sword, eh?
O’Donnell has a snowball’s chance in Hell of winning on Tuesday. Depending on the poll, she’s 15-21 points down to Chris Coons. The story of her drunken one-night stand in Philadelphia isn’t going to change the reality that she’s destined for a post-election career as a Fox Noise Channel analyst. It does highlight the reality that when you lie about who and what you are, it WILL eventually catch up with you. Liars, cheaters, and hypocrites never prosper…and apparently Christine O’Donnell never got the memo.
