Want a treat? Here's what Michael Reagan has to say about the Craig incident (I think)

Just for grins, this morning I went intellectually slumming over at ultraconservative Townhall.com to see how its resident commentators were coping with the Craig incident. Not well, I'm sorry to report. But my reporting is limited, because I couldn't get beyond one article. It was that bad.

The one I landed on was a 583-word piece of incoherent frothing by presidential-son and talk-radio host Michael Reagan, titled "The Craig Affair: Rampant Hypocrisy." To give you some idea of just how bad, how incoherent, it was, after reading it twice I'm still not sure whose hypocrisy Reagan was referring to. I kid you not.

The piece was more of a generalized rant, with no particular point backed up by no particular reasoning, and both reinforced by particularly bad writing. But I did suspect that -- who else, what else? -- Bill Clinton grounded it all, since the very first sentence about Sen. Larry Craig found Reagan recalling how the former president had said he "did not have sex with that woman." Perhaps this was the hypocrisy mentioned in the title?

Who knows, because Reagan swiftly proceeded to other irrelevancies. Maybe the Clinton thing was merely a kind of pro forma rant. Having gotten it out of the way to his readers' satisfaction and giddy expectations, the author leapt to attacking (I think?) the media, whose principal sin seems to be that they covered the story. They "jumped on" it "as if the senator were Paris Hilton in drag," we're told with great amusement.

Ain't it just like the liberal media? -- covering this as a big story, when we heard nary a word about the Clinton-Lewinsky scandal?

Reagan failed to fully exploit this tsk-tsk opportunity, however -- if in fact that was his purpose. For he was soon off to noting for our edification that "When they involve politics, scandals such as this one are certain to find partisanship rearing its head." Make a note of that.

But he enlightened us on that, only after this: "Aside from the ribald comments it has provoked, such as Jay Leno's remark to Sen. John McCain -- who had said that his colleagues don't socialize with one another -- that his lonely fellow senators could always find companionship in airport men's rooms."

Go ahead. Read that passage again; read it a third time or fourth. I defy you to decipher the damn thing.

Finally I came to what was maybe the point of Reagan's article? "Because Larry Craig is a staunch conservative from a staunchly conservative state, Democrats and their leftist allies are dancing in the streets over his embarrassment, busily reminding every sympathetic reporter" -- members of "the overwhelmingly pro-gay media," of course -- "who will listen to them that the Idaho Senator not only espouses family values, but has been a staunch foe of gay marriage."

So Craig is the hypocrite, right? Is that the point? Well, not really. I think. You see, I'm not really sure. Because Reagan immediately treats us to his insight that "Democrats and the media define Craig as a hypocrite. By their twisted logic, therefore, anybody who espouses traditional Judeo/Christian values must also be a hypocrite." They do?

Muddled in that is some sort of argument or another, I think, that Democrats and the media are the actual hypocrites, because they're attacking a gay man -- an orientation they defend. Says Reagan: "most of the media have avoided any hint that in reporting on the scandal they find Craig's suspected homosexuality objectionable." Right. OK. So what's your point? Is that it? There's hypocrisy in that?

I was lost, as I'm sure you are as well. What one had to do with the other, I couldn't say.

The scandal, dear Mr. Reagan, had nothing to do with homosexuality itself. But this seems so bloody obvious, I'm unsure if I should correct you on a point that perhaps you weren't even making. At any rate, all this should give you, the reader, some idea of what passes for High Reasoning and Clear Thinking in right-wing circles.

I know this has been hard on you. It's been hard on me, too. I'm not usually so sadomasochistic as to put anyone through an ordeal like trying to make heads or tails of what a right winger is trying to articulate. But I hope it's been instructive. If the right's thinking process is this garbled, it leaves little doubt as to the whys and wherefores of its garbled political ideology.

Comments

[Lescoeurs]

Thanks for the Reagan mental labyrinth. It is instructive. What has made the battle so difficult since Newt's "Contract with America" is the Right's nearly psychotic confusion. They are so desperate for power that they will say or do anything to gain it; including muddying the intellectual discourse to suit their purposes. A kind of intellectual thuggery. It, of course, lacks of integrity, but it is also a profoundly disturbed personality characteristic using power to stay in a state of denial. The President also suffers this malady. With Reagan it is a jawdropping joke, but with the President it is dangerous; which is why the Nation is in jeopardy until he leaves(or is forced to leave) office. We are at the mercy of a profoundly mentally disturbed person.
Jeff Rollins
Valencia, CA

[Richard]

Maybe with Karl gone there is no one to coordinate the right-wing talking points. With the White House in disarray, there is no one to tell the mouthpieces what to say, so they resort to incoherent blather.

[Not So Rich]

I... uh... just can't stop laughing. Michael Reagan is the ballet dancer, right? Wrong?

[cincigal74]

Larry Craig is a naughty boy.He is a naughty dirty boy.He is a naughty,nasty dirty boy.

[Helga]

Wrong, Michael is not the ballet dancer. Michael is the one with a radio show who doesn't have an ounce of brains, as witnessed by his writings his elevator doesn't go to the top.

[Mooser]

Poor Mr. Craig, buffeted hither and thither by the national homosexual panic he helped create.
Or did the high taxes Americans are saddled with prevent him from renting a room?
One thing for sure, it was the homosexual agender which drove, nay commanded him, on pain of death, to go into that rest roomfeet a-tappin', gym-bag placed provocatively, into the arms of an entrapment snare.
Damn you, liberals, and your gender-bending agenda!!

[Mooser]

BTW Mr. Craig, next time you do this, make sure your state governor is a Democrat. That way there won't be any calls for you to resign, lest the governor give your seat to the other party. Ask Mr. Vitter about that, when he's through changing his diaper.

[deRein]

I suspect many right wingers will read this piece and not perceive its incoherence. They may latch onto some phrase and interpret it as Biblical wisdom.

[Elisabeth]

Ron Reagan, the brother is a likable, rasonable young man and is quite articulate about the sorry state of the union. How did these two brothers get into the Reagan family together? And yes, he is a dancer but often appears on cable news (if you can call Hardball etc news)) as a guest.

[Cugel]

"Conservative principles" are marketing props used by the Conservative Movement to achieve political power, not actual beliefs. -Glenn Greenwald

That's all there is to it. They contradict themselves and fall into endless contortions. If you think that there is supposed to be some intellectual consistency, forget it.

A Republican is found to be soliciting gay sex in the men's room: OUTRAGE at the media for covering it! It's nobody's business!

A Democrat has oral sex in the White House with an intern (not illegal)! OUTRAGE! Why is the media covering it up?

Nothing more than the political party determines whether they're for it or against it.

[SFnomad]

How did these two brothers get into the Reagan family together?

Well, Ron Reagan was born into the family (mother was Nancy), and Michael Reagan was adopted while Ronnie RayGun was married to Jane Wyman.