The List of obvious Right-wing double standards comments

[The Yosemite Bear]

not a legal screw up, the Fuckin abusive alcoholic bastard wouldn't grant her a deviorce, and women didn't exactly have legal rights back then.

[Count Chocula]

Cuntsickle. Heh. I like that. Did you read the Monticello article, where the possibility was pointed out that Sally Heming's children could equally have been fathered by one of Jefferson's blood relatives and not necessarily the Carr side of the family? Way to selectively read. And by the way, although Jefferson manumitted Sally Heming's children before he died, there's no record of his motivations. And it was his wife who manumitted Sally...after Jefferson died. The record strongly implies Jefferson was the babies' daddy, but it's not ironclad.

I didn't miss "ma, ma, where's my pa" - Grover Cleveland fathered an inglorious basterd long before he became President. I found another Web source, unfortunately devoid of citation, that includes Jefferson (who's seemingly still in dispute) and Warren Harding, DD Eisenhower (who couldn't get it up), and Johnson (I shoulda seen that one). So, assuming both sources are true but discounting Jefferson and including poor impotent FDR, we have 6 out of 44 presidents. In 220 years. Still not anywhere near a majority, or expected behavior. If any of you can find a list that is referenced and vetted that shows infidelity among Presidents is normal behavior, I'm willing to concede.

I'mma let you finish, but until we get back on topic I'm out.

[SirNitram]

Back on topic? How about the blatant double-standard of 'misconduct' in the House?

1) Joe Wilson yells 'You LIE!' like a five year old. This is in violation of ACTUAL House rules, which prohibit declaring the President a liar. GOP solidly backs him even when he refuses to apologize in the well of the House.

2) Alan Grayson explains, quite accurately, that the GOP health plan is 'Don't Get Sick' and 'If you get sick, die quickly', because otherwise violates their insistance that people need to spend their health money wisely, not irresponsibly spend it on every little thing.

1) was backed by the GOP to the hilt, despite the fact he was Full Of Shit.
2) Is being decried by the GOP, for basically just calling the Kettle Black(Take a look at GOP descriptions of healthcare proposals. FOr example, describing it as saying to Seniors 'DROP DEAD'.)

Wow, a double standard THIS WEEK.

We could also touch on Vitter, who is railing against ACORN in a blatantly biased sting and hack job, about a fake prostitution ring, who, himself, was a client of an ACTUAL prostitution ring.

[Alyrium Denryle]

Cuntsickle. Heh. I like that. Did you read the Monticello article, where the possibility was pointed out that Sally Heming's children could equally have been fathered by one of Jefferson's blood relatives and not necessarily the Carr side of the family? Way to selectively read.

Why yes. I did, minge-mascerator. If you look at this little thing called "evidence", something you have no concept of, you will note that the probabilities are not equal. Unlike you, I am capable and in fact trained to evaluate evidence on its own merits, rather than mindlessly regurgitate what is spoon fed me by someone else.

Thomas Jefferson had the most access, the largest opportunity to copulate with Sally Hemings. Barring random bad luck events (which for one individual are rare) one must consistently copulate with a partner in order to reliably produce offspring. This is because the two individuals must copulate on or around (either 3 days prior to, or 1 day after) ovulation in order to have any chance of conception. Even then the chances are low because the sperm must run a uterine immune gauntlet, then the probability of actually noticing the pregnancy before it self-terminates is comparatively low. This translates to having to copulate with someone consistently in order to reliably produce offspring with that individual (and by this I mean an average of 500 sexual encounters per child produced. This does not mean that it takes 500, only that there is a .2% chance of producing one child per sexual encounter)

So unless one of Jefferson's brothers got "lucky" no more than one (to account for that rare event) of the six children could realistically be born to one of his other relatives. I suppose I am discounting the possibility that he offered up Mrs Hemings in particular (as compared to his other female slaves) as a party favor to his relatives when they came to visit. However if he did that the issue of whether or not he raped his slaves becomes immaterial.

And by the way, although Jefferson manumitted Sally Heming's children before he died, there's no record of his motivations. And it was his wife who manumitted Sally...after Jefferson died. The record strongly implies Jefferson was the babies' daddy, but it's not ironclad.

And it is not actually proven that it was in the year 1066 that the Normans invaded England, there is some fudge room with the dates. That does not mean we cant reach a pretty damn good consensus on the matter.

Additionally, you do not get to contradict yourself by citing equal probability in one line of argument, and unequal probability in another.

That he is "dad" is the most probable explanation. Had he freed Mrs Hemings, it would not have been legal to continue copulating with her.

Still not anywhere near a majority, or expected behavior. If any of you can find a list that is referenced and vetted that shows infidelity among Presidents is normal behavior, I'm willing to concede.

Infidelity is normal among humans. False paternity is around 10%, which means a lot more than 10% of people engage in some sort of infidelity (see above). Presidents are people... therefore...

[The Yosemite Bear]

And the shit stain never did comment on Alex Hamilton, or Jackson's tendancy to kill people because they pointed out that his marriage was illegal.

[The Spartan]

AD has covered the 'who's the father' aspect well enough that I won't rehash it too much. I'll only say that I've read the "no he wasn't" reports and they're little more than grasping at straws (namely that academic language that's often used in such papers) to cling desperately to the Sainthood purity Founding Father mythos that surrounds all of the Founders.

Now, let's talk about construing it as rape. She's a slave. Consequently she doesn't have the option of declining consent. Therefore she is being raped. It's really that fucking simple.

And yes, we are talking about sexual misconduct here, it's not a goalpost shift, because if any of the presidents who had affairs had not been married we wouldn't bat an eye (not here and now anyhow) unless they did something like, say, rape someone. To say that it's only about infidelity is a nitpick and ignores the larger issue, which, as I said, is sexual misconduct.

[Serafine666]

Gathered for research purposes is the growing list of Right Wing double standards from the year 2000 onword. Things that were acceptable in 2001 or 2002 but are now this close to destroying America. Why you might ask? Because it's a Democrat doing it not a Republican. Or what was unacceptable in 2003 or down right evil in 2004. Is now just fine.

Adultery
Bill Clinton extramarital affair while in office
Wiki
Between 1995 and 1996, President Bill Clinton engaged in an affair with Monica Lewinsky. Several times giving President Clinton Oral sex while in the White House with at least one instance occurring in the oval office.

Because of this the Republicans attempted to impeach him and gained power to launch several special investigations which in the end concluded that no serious laws had been broken by the President and he served the remainder of his term but was hounded every day for the affair by Republicans.

Interestingly enough for your point, perjury, suborning the perjury of others, and witness tampering are on the lower end of felonies but were actually specified as the best justifications for impeachment when that portion of the Constitution was written. Unless Ensign was similarly guilty and not punished (you only allege an affair, not the breaking of any laws), it is not a double-standard to persecute a president for breaking the law during numerous instances of sexual philandering and failing to go after a senator for an affair that broke no laws. As a card-carrying member of the Evil Right Wing Conspiracy, I can assure you that we care just a little more about the "broke the law" part than "cheated on his wife" part. After the impeachment, both Democrats and Republicans agreed to kill the part of the Ethics in Government Act that permitted the appointment of a special counsel since both sides now had an ox gored; ironically, if the Right Wing had gotten its way (they tried to kill that part of the act before Clinton took office), there would have never been a Kenneth Starr investigating Clinton.

[Swindle1984]

Yeah, for me it was the whole "committing a felony" thing with Clinton, not the extramarital affairs.

Then there's the whole Vince Foster thing.

[CarsonPalmer]

Yeah, for me it was the whole "committing a felony" thing with Clinton, not the extramarital affairs.

Then there's the whole Vince Foster thing.

You seriously believe in the Vince Foster conspiracy theories?

[Pablo Sanchez]

Yeah, for me it was the whole "committing a felony" thing with Clinton, not the extramarital affairs.

Then there's the whole Vince Foster thing.

You seriously believe in the Vince Foster conspiracy theories?

This little exchange goes to show that the Lewinsky Scandal was the culmination of a six-year project by right wing political operatives to hound and discredit Clinton. The fact that this was a rolling, wide-ranging persecution that took place over many years and focused in sequence on a multitude of attempts to produce scandal (from Vince Foster to Whitewater and so on) and finally settled on a hazy legal technicality indicates that they didn't actually care about Clinton breaking the law, at least not in any specific sense. Rather they wanted to find something, anything, that could be used against him. The above douche-bags are pretending that they actually care about him breaking the law, but everyone (at least every intelligent person, which clearly excludes some of our company) knew that it was just a ploy to trap him into either admitting to an affair or perjuring himself so that either way they could try to force Clinton to resign.

Finally, if these stooges are going to whine about the legal technicality which supposedly left Clinton vulnerable to persecution for perjury, they have to actually address the problems with that charge. Clinton's interpretation of the court's definition of "sexual relations" did not include oral sex. First one had to have to prove that his interpretation was legally wrong, which was a dubious proposition. Second, since perjury must be willful falsification of testimony, they also have to prove that he did not make that interpretation in good faith--that is, they have to prove he was intentionally lying rather than merely misinterpreting the court's definition of "sexual relations." This isn't realistically possible.

[Serafine666]

This little exchange goes to show that the Lewinsky Scandal was the culmination of a six-year project by right wing political operatives to hound and discredit Clinton. The fact that this was a rolling, wide-ranging persecution that took place over many years and focused in sequence on a multitude of attempts to produce scandal (from Vince Foster to Whitewater and so on) and finally settled on a hazy legal technicality indicates that they didn't actually care about Clinton breaking the law, at least not in any specific sense. Rather they wanted to find something, anything, that could be used against him. The above douche-bags are pretending that they actually care about him breaking the law, but everyone (at least every intelligent person, which clearly excludes some of our company) knew that it was just a ploy to trap him into either admitting to an affair or perjuring himself so that either way they could try to force Clinton to resign.

While it's absolutely precious that you think you have magical powers, you have no ability to tell the difference between someone lying and telling the truth about what they care about based solely on their statement. Do you have some sort of objective standard for judging whether I actually care about him breaking the law or are you just tossing a "I believe it so it must be true" bomb into the mix? If you have some actual evidence, then I obviously must treat your opinion with some level of seriousness but if it's merely your opinion, I'll thank you to not pretend you know what you're talking about.

Finally, if these stooges are going to whine about the legal technicality which supposedly left Clinton vulnerable to persecution for perjury, they have to actually address the problems with that charge. Clinton's interpretation of the court's definition of "sexual relations" did not include oral sex. First one had to have to prove that his interpretation was legally wrong, which was a dubious proposition. Second, since perjury must be willful falsification of testimony, they also have to prove that he did not make that interpretation in good faith--that is, they have to prove he was intentionally lying rather than merely misinterpreting the court's definition of "sexual relations." This isn't realistically possible.

Ah, and now you get into something we can actually dice about: the legal standard for perjury. That Clinton lied (that is, knowingly made untrue statements under oath) is so obviously true as to be barely worthy of discussion. The legal definition of sex is "contact with the genitalia, anus, groin, breast, inner thigh, or buttocks of any person with an attempt to arouse or gratify the sexual desire of any person" and this is the standard by which any claim that "I did not have sex with this person" is assessed; a witness may not create their own convenient definitions of words so they can pretend they didn't lie. Besides falsehood, the other two elements of perjury are materiality and intent to deceive. You do not deny something that is true unless you intend to cause the hearer to believe something other than the truth which is clearly intended deception. Materiality is assessed as of the time the lie was uttered without the benefit of hindsight; the lie was material on January 17 so it satisfied that element of perjury. Thus, in terms of the three essential elements of perjury (materiality, intent to deceive, and falsehood), Clinton committed perjury. Moreover, that he lied in the deposition was later confirmed when Clinton was cited for contempt of court in April 1999 for giving "intentionally false" answers during the deposition in a way "designed to obstruct the legal process" (which, by the by, brings up the separate issue of him being guilty of obstruction of justice).

So, Pablo... any other bluster to throw at the "douchebag" who "pretends" to care about Clinton breaking the law?

[Andrew J.]

Ah, and now you get into something we can actually dice about: the legal standard for perjury. That Clinton lied (that is, knowingly made untrue statements under oath) is so obviously true as to be barely worthy of discussion. The legal definition of sex is "contact with the genitalia, anus, groin, breast, inner thigh, or buttocks of any person with an attempt to arouse or gratify the sexual desire of any person" and this is the standard by which any claim that "I did not have sex with this person" is assessed; a witness may not create their own convenient definitions of words so they can pretend they didn't lie.

The court made its own definition, not Clinton, dumbass.

[Serafine666]

The court made its own definition, not Clinton, dumbass.

No, the court quoted from the most current legislation which defined sexual contact (the Violence Against Women Act). It didn't make it up; sorry, thanks for playing.

[Andrew J.]

The court made its own definition, not Clinton, dumbass.

No, the court quoted from the most current legislation which defined sexual contact (the Violence Against Women Act). It didn't make it up; sorry, thanks for playing.

I apologize for the error, and amend my statement to read as follows:

The court used a definition made up by Congress, not Clinton, you insipid fuckwit.

[Serafine666]

I apologize for the error, and amend my statement to read as follows:

The court used a definition made up by Congress, not Clinton, you insipid fuckwit.

What other definition is valid?

[Andrew J.]

I think there's a comments thread that's meant for discussing the items of the list. If you want to continue this discussion I think it would be more appropriate to take it there.

Ah, here it is.

[Dalton]

This Lewinsky scandal stuff has been split off of the main thread. Be more mindful next time of where you post your commentary.