by Damozel | Yep, lots at stake here. But for me, the 'double standard' at play is the one between National Enquirer and other publications that don't sometimes turn out to be not quite accurate about their inferences. Reporting the details is fine. As for drawing their inferences, that's the difference between tabloid and non-tabloid: the tabloid reach the conclusion in advance of all the facts and report it as if it were true. They may be right this time---I assume the mainstream media will try to find out.
At Slate, Jack Schafer says:
[A]s I've already said, the two stories [Larry Craig and John Edwards] aren't completely analogous.
No, not completely:
A cop charged Craig with a misdemeanor, and he pleaded guilty. There's no denying the police blotter is always news, and there's no denying that Craig deserved the hypocrisy scrutiny. Edwards, as far as we know, is guilty of nothing beyond running away from tabloid reporters in a Beverly Hills hotel stairway in the wee a.m. after visiting a female friend in her room. Also, all of the Enquirer's published "evidence" of an Edwards affair comes from unnamed sources. And I should mention that an Edwards political operative, Andrew Young, claims that he is the father of Hunter's child. (Young is married with children of his own.) (Slate)
But Schafer puts down the comparative silence of the mainstream media to some sort of preferential treatment for heterosexual hypocrisy. .
Or are they observing a double standard that says homo-hypocrisy is indefensible but that hetero-hypocrisy deserves an automatic bye? That's my sense.
Doubtful. Two words: David Vitter. Another two: Eliot Spitzer.
In fact, I agree with Joe Windish at TMV about where the real double standard lies.
Schafer goes on to discuss how we should react if the NE inferences do turn out to be true.
If Edwards had no affair and fathered no love child, it should be easy to erase the hypocrisy charge, and the press owes him that, pronto. If we give Edwards the benefit of the doubt, which he deserves, visiting the woman who recently gave birth to the out-of-wedlock child of a married campaign aide is completely OK. But meeting her at a Beverly Hills hotel in the early hours of the morning and running from tabloid reporters when approached and hiding in a hotel bathroom for 15 minutes, as the Enquirer reports Edwards did, is not completely OK. Not if he wants to avoid the hypocrite label. (Slate)
Oh, fair enough. But I think it's just as well to be cautious here. When they've got a confession, an arrest, or some other reliable confirmation, then I sail in with the hypocrisy charges (and busted-up illusions).
RECENT POSTINGS
McCain's Foreign Policy Cred Is Down the Latrine
Obama Claims Credit for the Wrong Thing; Meanwhile, McCain Demonstrates Once More that Experience Doesn't Always Matter
John McCain's incredible shrinking path to victory in Iraq
The Daily Show on the Congressional Hearings: Let Us Relish This incredible Low Point in Democracy
McCain Channels the Rove Within
McCain on the Surge: Deliberate Distortion, Memory Failure, or Reckless Disregard for Facts?
Oil Executives Approve McCain's Awesome Drilling Plans
Obama: Currently Winning the Iraq Argument
John McCain: He's So Well Seasoned!
If the allegations are false, then trying to hide the story from the media, while not exactly noble, is understandable in this day and age.
If the allegations are true, well, it knocks the halo off his head. But I don't particularly have a litmus test that a politician can't have any non-criminal failures in his/her personal life. It's not as though he campaigns on conservative family values.
Posted by: Adam | July 24, 2008 at 03:41 PM