Liberal arrogance is parading around in the Sunday funnies again – in Garry Trudeau’s Doonesbury strip – misplaced arrogance about how the major Democratic presidential contenders have no "infidelities." How, pray tell, do we know that? How IS the Hillary math done on that – no "infidelities" in the Clinton marriage?
The Sunday comic strip features gay radio host Mark Slackmeyer interviewing religious-right leader Dr. James Dobson: "On the GOP side, the three front-runners, Giuliani, McCain, and Gingrich have five divorces among them, four of them really messy, and all of them involving adultery. On the Democratic side, the three front-runners, Clinton, Obama, and Edwards, have no divorces or infidelities."
It continues with Slackmeyer asking: "So my question is, which party best represents family values?" Fake Dobson replies: "The Republicans. They don’t support gay marriages." Slackmeyer replies: "Nor their own, apparently." Fake Dobson, sounding utterly fake: "That’s private! That’s between a man and a woman and another woman, and sometimes one more woman!"
Trudeau is here is playing around with facts. Start with the point that Newt Gingrich isn’t actually a declared candidate for president. In some polls, he places third, but not in others. Using Mitt Romney, for example, would ruin the "joke."
This all sounds like the kind of argument liberals used in the mid-1990s to deflect attention from Bill Clinton’s private life, mocking conservative leaders for having bad marriages. But using that spin is one thing. It’s entirely another to assert as fact that there are "no infidelities" in marriages that the national press corps has no record in pursuing. They did far too much kvetching about the "sex police" in 1998 and 1999 to lower themselves to investigating Trudeau’s unproven point. If liberals don’t want reporters hunting through motel dressers, they shouldn’t do this kind of boasting.
PS: Personally, I’m disgusted at Republican candidates who cannot keep marital oaths. Social conservatives ought to have higher standards of character, and deny liberals these lame arguments.
Oh, and The Washington Post is especially cruel to Doonesbury, putting it on the front page of the comics section right above "Opus." Trudeau isn't even attempting to be funny most of the time, since it gets in the way of the diatribes, and Opus man Berkeley Breathed is routinely funny, even when he mocks conservatives.
