The normally reasonable and astute
Chuck Todd gets it wrong
here:
Here's a word of warning to the Democrats: Be careful not to gloat. Republicans overplayed the hand on the Clinton-Lewinsky scandal in '98. There's a line on this type of thing, because the public is already outraged. The last thing an outraged voter wants is someone beating them over the head with a moral sledgehammer.
Here's me, reading that:
Okay, Chuck, listen up.
1. This is not Monicagate.
The comparisons are facile at best, and nefarious at worst. You're smarter than this. Your pet ferret is smarter than this.
Bill Clinton got a blowjob from a single consenting adult, an equal participant in the flirtation that led to their dalliance.
Mark Foley predated teenagers.
I repeat: Mark Foley predated teenagers.
And all indications are that he was enabled by other Republican Congressmen and staffers.
If you do not trust the American people to discern a difference between those two scenarios, you may consider a subject besides politics about which to write. TV Guide does some nice work.
2. Republicans did not "lose" the American people on Monicagate because they "gloated."
They lost the American people on Monicagate because they (a) entrapped a beloved President, and (b) force-fed the media and the American public an embarrassing, demoralizing two-year investigation and impeachment that was about nothing more than a blowjob. They lost the American people because they were mean. They lost the American people because they hijacked the courts to achieve a political end.
Most importantly, though, they lost the American people because THERE. WAS. NO. VICTIM. There was no harm, no foul, no tort in what they chose to prosecute so they manufactured one, and spent two years dragging us through the slag.
Do you see any similarities between what the Ken Starrs, Bob Barrs and Joe Liebermans of the world undertook against Bill Clinton, and what Democrats are undertaking against evidence of institutionalized predation in the halls of Congress?
3. Public outrage has the shelf-life of warm red meat.
Have you failed to notice, Chuck, that the Republican Party has a way of hijacking news cycles and making stories evaporate?
"Look over here, something shiny!" Trust me, Chuck, it's a matter of time before the Feds discover a bomb made of cotton, we're all flying the friendly skies in our birthday suits, and the media has dutifully forgotten.
We choose not to let that happen.
We choose to make sure this story has legs, not because we wish to gloat but because we believe it has meaning. We believe it speaks meaningfully to the pattern of abuse of power that has marked the Republican rule of this country since 1994, and we believe people care.
You missed here, Chuck. Way wide of the mark. Have a donut.