Just because it’s fun, and true, here’s a link to our friend James Kirchick’s latest take-down of the rich, powerful and corrupt: The Rise and Fall of Chris Hughes and Sean Eldridge, America’s Worst Gay Couple.
Just one of the article’s pertinent observations:
One suspects that had this couple been heterosexual and conservative, the initial media attention would not have been quite so toadying. We would have no doubt been treated to endless stories about how a “rapacious” “right-wing” millionaire, who had done nothing to earn his fortune, set out to destroy one of liberalism’s great institutions all the while enabling his power-mad spouse to “buy” a seat in congress. But everything about the Hughes-Eldridge pairing militated against such a portrayal. The prospect of a fresh-faced, conventionally liberal, gay couple hit every media sweet spot.
More. The Washington Blade takes on Hughes. The story is really one about factions of the left duking it out, the parvenue progressives vs. the Old Guard.
7 Comments for “Spot On”
posted by Kosh III on
I’d never heard of these two until the bit about the New Republic last week.
Meanwhile, in conservative paradise there is this
http://thinkprogress.org/lgbt/2014/12/08/3600930/alabama-nohomo-license-plate/
posted by Tom Scharbach on
Oh, dear. I guess I’ll have to take the “I am NOT a lesbian” bumper sticker off my pickup.
posted by Tom Scharbach on
Kirkchick, like many of those affiliated of the “old” National Review, seems to be stomping the sour grapes, villifying the couple. I suppose that’s natural enough — bitch slaps abound in the Washington/New York “cultural elite”. But is says more about the slappers than the slapped.
As to the National Review saga itself, I think that Chris Cillizza has an interesting take (“When did Chris Hughes become the worst person in the world?“) at the Washington Post. The print media is undergoing a sea change, and nobody seems to know quite what to do about it, including, apparently, Hughes.
My view, for what it is worth, is that the couple’s “rise and fall” is an example of youthful hubris more than anything else. The twenties are a time when boys-to-men usually learn the hard realities of life, and these two were insulated enough that they didn’t seem to learn them. But both may well mature (it tends to happen if people live long enough, but not always), and I hope that they will have long, productive and useful lives, and a happy marriage.
posted by Houndentenor on
This garnered about as much media attention as it deserved. There’s not much to this story. They couldn’t even pad this to make a Lifetime Original movie out of it. As for the media ignoring stories, how did a guy who made appointments with prostitutes from the Senate floor get elected governor? Because because no Republican I know has ever heard about that story. And that one at least has some substance (because what he did was illegal and it also makes him a hypocrite as he runs on a socially conservative platform). Or why did no one ever ask Cindy McCain how she is a Southern Baptist while profiting from a company that distributed alcohol which her church forbids? I could go on and it’s true on both sides of politics. It’s more about media laziness than bias. Asking questions and doing research requires effort. Sitting behind a desk and talking out one’s ass does not, and the latter pays much better.
posted by Don on
I believe it has more to do with the “team sports” aspect of politics more than anything else. Family values candidates who get caught with hookers get a pass because they voted against gays consistently. Same thing happens on the Left. Remember how women’s groups piled on Clinton after he had tons of complaints of sexual harassment? Yep, me neither. Why? Because he kept abortion safe and legal. Voting for a republican who was faithful to his wife but nominated anti-abortion judges? That guy is a non-starter.
For me, the anti-gay whoremonger is much worse. Not because of my allegiances per se but because the positions are inconsistent. Punish all moral sins with legal consequences or don’t. Why does someone who is like you get all the compassion and someone who isn’t doesn’t?
And, for me, the Clinton stuff really wasn’t all that important. Only Paula claimed she did not have consensual sex. And that didn’t go very far. Given the debate on rape lately, can you imagine a republican politician getting hit with “she said no” and a single voice on the right saying he was wrong? I can’t.
They would pile on her as a lying slut. And strangely, the family values folks are staying really quiet in the whole “no means no” debate going on. Where are the calls for men to be Promise Keepers and only have sex when married? Crickets.
Still, I think both sides do political calculus when it comes to calling out their own parties. That’s why democratic presidents can sign free trade agreements and republican ones can’t. And how Bush can create Homeland Security, the world’s largest bureaucracy and Obama is attacked for enacting Dole’s healthcare plan. The base will toe the line.
posted by Lori Heine on
You are absolutely right. This completely nails it. People only speak out when it might benefit their “team.”
There’s plenty of hypocrisy in both major political parties. The only way to make any real sense of what goes on is to understand the “team sports” concept and how it dominates politics.
posted by Tom Jefferson III on
Yeah….but I do suspect that not too many folks in the media (or even the political right) pointed to the sexual harassment allegations directed at President Clinton as somehow proof that all or most white, heterosexual men are evil and we need to stop the ‘straight agenda’.
In general — no matter the team — I tend to get leery about political coverage reading like some sort of teen or college-something CW drama.