Lindsey Graham’s Shamelessness

Lindsey Graham, a/k/a the Palmetto Queen - a study in hypocrisy.

One of the things that has been illuminating about Donald Trump and his candidacy and toxic and pathologically lying regime is just how morally bankrupt so many Republicans have proven to be.  For reasons I still cannot grasp - other than fear of the increasingly ugly GOP base - those who once pretended to have some basic understanding of both decency and constitutional and legal norms have shown themselves only too eager to prostitute themselves for Trump.  Among the worse is Senator Lindsey Graham who flatly stated the standard for removal of a president from office during the Clinton impeachment debacle.  Indeed, under Graham's own enunciated standard an indictable crime was not a prerequisite for use of impeachment to "cleanse the office" and "restore honor and integrity to the office [of the presidency]."  Now, faced with far more egregious conduct by Trump, Graham has thrown aside his own standard and is only too willing to look the other way and whine a far different song.  A column in the Washington Post looks at Graham's shameless hypocrisy.  Here are highlights: 

One difficulty about a career in politics is that the longer you’re in the business, the longer a track record of quotes and video your opponents can scour to undercut you. It’s something former vice president Joe Biden is contending with as he enters the Democratic primary, and it’s an obstacle his old Senate colleague Lindsey O. Graham (R-S.C.) has run into in the wake of the Mueller report.

On CBS’s “Face the Nation” on Sunday, Graham spoke to host Margaret Brennan; naturally, much of the interview focused on Attorney General William P. Barr’s planned testimony to Congress this week. As the new chair of the Judiciary Committee, Graham has shown enthusiasm for thoroughly investigating some scandals through to the end, such as the FBI investigation into Hillary Clinton’s email server. He showed the same enthusiasm during President Bill Clinton’s impeachment, when he was one of the House’s prosecutors during Clinton’s trial in the Senate.

But Graham’s doggedness has disappeared when it comes to a Republican White House, replaced by a deliberate ignorance. “From my point of view, I’ve heard all I need to really know,” he told Brennan. He reiterated the sentiment again and again, especially regarding Trump’s ordering then-White House counsel Donald McGahn to fire Mueller. “It doesn’t matter,” he told Brennan. “I don’t care what he said to Don McGahn. … I don’t care what happened between him and Don McGahn. … No, I’m — I’m done.”
 Asked what he wants the Barr hearings to focus on, Graham replied, “Does the report support his summary? Does the report actually indicate there was no collusion between the Trump campaign and the Russians?” Graham left out, of course, that Mueller made no finding regarding the nonlegal concept of “collusion,” only one regarding the higher standard of criminal conspiracy. And he left out that there was significant evidence that individuals associated with the Trump campaign conspired with WikiLeaks over the release of stolen Democratic emails.

Democrats are suggesting that a president who orders his staff to obstruct an independent investigation maybe shouldn’t be president — hardly a crazy standard.

Then Graham had to face his past, as Brennan played his words from the Clinton impeachment trial:

The point I am trying to make is you don’t even have to be convicted of a crime to lose your job in this constitutional republic, if this body determines that your conduct as a public official is clearly out of bounds in your role. Thank God you did that, because impeachment is not about punishment. Impeachment is about cleansing the office. Impeachment is about restoring honor and integrity to the office.

Graham tried to reconcile his hypocrisy. “What President Clinton did was interfere in a lawsuit against him by Paula Jones and others, hide the evidence, encourage people to lie. So, to me, he took the legal system and turned it upside down.”

Note the words “encourage people to lie.” Note that Graham didn’t say, “People lied with his encouragement.” That Clinton allegedly told people to lie was enough for Graham (then and now), regardless of whether the Democratic president’s entreaties were successful. But this president is a Republican, so Graham’s standard changes.

Graham is far from the first hypocritical politician. But the South Carolina senator particularly prides himself on being no-nonsense and on his legal experience. That he has opted for such an obvious double standard is especially shameless.

Why Does the Far Right Demand Respect It Doesn't Give to Others?

Whether the issue be gun control or the right's false flag of "religious liberty," conservatives demand that their beliefs and sensibilities be afforded respect even when they are directly controverted by empirical and objective fact, yet  they afford no respect to the beliefs of others.  Being gay, one sees the double standard all the time, especially from ignorance embracing Christofascists who want respect for their "deeply held beliefs" yet who attack anyone who rejects such antiquated and  scientifically impossible beliefs.  Then, of course, there are working class whites who voted for Trump and Republicans even though they advance policies that directly harm such voters.  Personally, I am over respecting the beliefs of  those who are bigots or simply dumb as bricks when facts do not support their claimed beliefs.  Deciding to embrace ignorance and bigotry is a choice and deserves no deference or respect. This is especially true of "conservatives" who slime those (i) who refute their beliefs, or (ii) with whom they disagree.  A prime example is what is being done to the Parkland high school students now being dragged through the mud by right wing sites and conspiracy theory formenters.  A column in the Washington Post looks at the hypocrisy of gun fanatics who want respect from others while giving none in return.  Here are excerpts:

Supporters of even modest restrictions on firearms are regularly instructed that their ardent advocacy turns off Americans in rural areas and small towns. Those in favor of reforming our firearms laws are scolded as horrific elitists who disrespect a valued way of life.

And as the mass killings continue, we are urged to be patient and to spend our time listening earnestly to the views of those who see even a smidgen of action to limit access to guns as the first step toward confiscation. Our task is not to fight for laws to protect innocents, but to demonstrate that we really, honestly, truly, cross-our-hearts, positively love gun owners and wouldn’t for an instant think anything ill of them.

What is odd is that those with extreme pro-gun views — those pushing for new laws to allow people to carry just about anytime, anywhere — are never called upon to model similar empathy toward children killed, the mourning parents left behind, people in urban neighborhoods suffering from violence, or the majority of Americans who don’t own guns.

Depending on the survey, somewhere between 58 percent and 68 percent of us live in households without guns. But no one who belongs to the National Rifle Association is ever told to prove their respect for our way of life. Rarely is it pointed out that the logic of the gun lobby’s position is to create a world in which everyone will need a gun, whether we want one or not. 

The students at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School, an institution that suffered the worst effects of our inaction on guns, have not gotten the memo that they are supposed to shut up, and may they be blessed for this. You can tell their angry outspokenness is having an impact, and not only because President Trump has taken modest steps to suggest he hears the message. More telling is that some of the same right-wingers who demand deep respect for gun culture have shown no scruples about trashing the kids.

Bill O’Reilly was so upset at the attention their protests are drawing that he accused the media of “promoting opinions by teenagers who are in an emotional state and facing extreme peer pressure in some cases.” The condescension is revolting, and never mind that without emotionalism and peer pressure to conform, O’Reilly’s former employer, Fox News, would go out of business.

Former representative Jack Kingston (R-Ga.) doubted the capacity of these students to think or act for themselves. “Their sorrow can very easily be hijacked by left-wing groups who have an agenda,” he said on CNN. Young people who disagree with him can’t possibly have minds of their own.

No wonder the foes of gun sanity are worried. On Wednesday, the students and supporters gathered at the state Capitol in Florida shouting “vote them out!” — a day after the state’s Republican-led legislature voted down a ban on many semiautomatic guns and large-capacity magazines.

How come only one side of the supposed culture war on guns is required to exude respect for the other? Because the culture-war argument is largely a gimmick pushed by the gun lobby as a way of demonizing its opponents. None of us who endorse stronger gun laws wants to disrupt anybody else’s way of life. And none of the measures we are proposing would do that.

What truly alarms the gun lobby is that many steps to curb the scourge of gun violence enjoy broad support, from those who own guns as well as those who don’t. A Quinnipiac pollreleased on Tuesday, for example, found that 97 percent of Americans favor background checks for all gun buyers. 

I am all for Americans reaching out across our cultural divides. But if we wait to act until our cross-cultural understanding is complete, many more who might have been saved will die.

The Double Standard on Male Nudity and Sexuality

The image that was labeled "deeply offensive"

For almost its entire existence, this blog has posted "male beauty" photos which celebrate the male form and what at least I view as beautiful males.  Critics said that I should omit these posts, but a poll I once set up on the blog showed that 70% of readers said "keep the pictures!"  (Women readers were most vocal on retaining the male beauty posts.)  Why is it fine to glorify - or objectify depending on one's outlook - women, but not men?  The reality is that if one looks at almost any fashion magazine, woman are depicted in all manner of undress and perhaps objectification. The same treatment of males, however, is something that is rare outside of gay publications and blogs.  A piece in Huffington Post looks at the puritanical double standard and the bizarre aspect of American society and male indoctrination that makes male beauty and sexuality something scary.  Here are article excerpts:

The photo in question was my chosen pic for an article I wrote about, among other things, the selling of sex. The site removed the piece and banned me for a week, then sent me a not-safe-for-hurt-feelings email saying the photo was “deeply offensive” and “soft-core porn,” and that I ought to be ashamed of myself for placing it on a respectable, liberal site. They threatened me with permanent blockage if I ever tried such a stunt again, “even in jest.”

And I just thought the photo illustrated my satiric point.

Before I try and figure out the answer, let me post the entire photo, not just the cropped version used for this piece. This is your official warning, so you might want to lock the kids in the closet, close the curtains, hide the bibles, keep the smelling salts handy, and chain yourself to something secure so you don’t throw yourself out the window or jump into oncoming traffic.

But why is it “deeply offensive” and “soft-core porn”? The Urban Dictionary’s Top Definition for the latter is “pornographic material that shows everything excluding insertion or penetration.” Other examples say penetration with a partner and masturbation is okay provided you don’t show ejaculation or an erection or cunnilingus. Playboy is often depicted as soft-core porn.

Forgetting for a moment that the photo has been displayed on mainstream gay sites worldwide, and that almost every “serious” cable show now shows male nudity, Grand isn’t naked in the photo—you don’t even see the Facebook-forbidden butt-crack or pubic hair. He’s not masturbating, there’s no partner, unless you count the showerhead, and he’s not erect. He’s wearing the male version of the type of undergarment female Victoria Secret models show off on posters and commercials and TV ads on a daily basis.

[M]y educated guess is that the photo was removed, and I was body-posting shamed, because you can see an imprint of Grand’s penis. (I hate to sound vulgar, but I felt it necessary to use the technical term.) It’s also homoerotic.

We’ve come along way in regards to male nudity and homoerotism (while straight women are likely to get excited by this photo, the artistic feel of the shot, the clothing, the openly gay model, are geared toward homosexual men). But for reasons that I still don’t understand, we’re major prudes when it comes to male genitalia.

This makes sense in the GOP world, where all risqué photos are taboo and all semi-naked men are an abomination (unless the former are nude modeling pics of the First Lady in lesbian-bondage poses and the latter are the male prostitutes they found on Grindr). We know they’re hypocrites.

Penis-phobia in the progressive world is far more surprising. You’d be hard-pressed to spend a day on social media or looking at ads without finding allusions to male anatomy. It’s everywhere, even in our political discussions. It’s in our puns, our jokes, our masculine “measure of worth”—you can’t even write a sentence about the subject without unintentionally finding a pun. Yet show any suggestion of it in the open and it’s a crude, graphic display.

Not only is this a perverse double-standard, and one that adversely affects the gay community, it reinforces the notion that the male body is shameful. When we’re only allowed to allude to it, and not celebrate it the way we do the female form, it’s tantamount to saying our admiration should be kept in the closet. I’ve met few straight men who will admit they appreciate the nude male body, and many who won’t even admit that a man’s face is attractive. That’s an unhealthy way to live and a choice most women ignore.

Our macho sensibility tells men it’s wrong to admire each other’s physicality, which leads to insecurity, fear, and a general lack of self-awareness.

It’s also time to stop the patriarchal, outdated nonsense about male genitalia and start treating the male body in the manner it deserves: as a thing of beauty, as something to admire, to be inspired by, to get excited about, to love, and to look at.

A parting thought: Could the double standard be due to (i) GOP and Christofascist males being afraid of the desire such images invoke in them, and (ii) such photos reminding the majority of straight males that they look like Hell physically?