Okay, I'll have a go at this.
I'm not asking anyone to apologize. There's room to disagree here.
But . . .
Remember this line?
IT'S NOT THE SEX, IT'S THE LYING
But we knew different.
We knew that they hated Bill Clinton, hated that a Democrat won the White House, hated every policy and everything he stood for. They hated that his election implied that the policies of their icon and his successor were being rejected.
They hated him and his wife with every fiber of their being.
And then he, stupidly, had sex with an intern. They had their ammo!
They were elated, and we knew it. They pounded away at this, gleefully and without mercy, with complete callousness towards his wife and his young daughter, all the while claiming:
IT'S NOT THE SEX, IT'S THE LYING
But we knew different.
Because if it were just about just lying, Ken Starr wouldn't have written page after page of detail about the sex. We wouldn't know about thong underwear, or what exactly he said to her just before he gave up trying to do the right thing.
And we defended him. We called them on it - because we knew it was about embarrassing him, and we told them to move on, nothing to see here. It's just sex.
Bill Clinton had sex with an intern, in the White House, while presumably he could have been in a meeting discussing NAFTA.
And we defended him, because sex, or even lying about SEX did not disqualify him or justify impeachment.
And now we here on the left are saying:
IT'S NOT THE SEX, IT'S THE HYPOCRISY
We hate these sanctimonious hypocrites, we hate that they were ever in the White House, we hate them running things and holding their sanctimonous, intolerant, hypocritical views and trying to legislate morality. We hate them with every fiber of our being.
And then yesterday they gave us (even more) ammo!
And some of us are elated and we are showing it. And we pound away at it, cackling and jeering, all the while claiming:
IT'S NOT THE SEX, IT'S THE HYPOCRISY
But we are acting like that's not the case.
The GOP knew Bill Clinton had lied about sex. We all knew it as soon as they wrangled some way to put him under oath and ask him. And he lied. And then he admitted he lied. And we said okay, he lied, now let's MOVE ON.
But Ken Starr didn't stop there. He wasn't done cataloging all the salacious details. He wasn't done embarrassing that Democrat in the White House, and the GOP wasn't done flogging it all to death to try to get rid of him.
And it made us sick.
Now we know that Mark Sanford is a sanctimonious hypocrite. His intolerant, judgmental, homophobic holier than thou policies angered us to no end, and then we found out he had an affair.
So the world knows we were right - he's a sanctimonious hypocrite.
But:
IT'S NOT THE SEX, IT'S THE HYPOCRISY
Right?
And we know his career is over, he'll get voted out of office if he doesn't resign (and we can all send our money to his opponent if we want). As a politician, he's finished. He won't be able to govern with his intolerance and bigotry and callousness.
The politician is done for.
So then why do we have to go further, cackling at his love letters, flogging this to death in the media, gleefully tearing down the MAN?
He's been publicly humiliated, his hypocrisy revealed for the world to see. The GOP are a bunch of sanctimonious intolerant hypocrites!! We have proof and this man just joins all the other boys on the GOP "we are hypocrites" poster.
But he's also a man, with a wife and family. And we show the same callousness towards his wife and sons that they showed towards Hillary and Chelsea. They blamed Hillary for supporting her philandering husband all the way to the White House. And they didn't give a shit about how their witch hunt and salacious report affected Chelsea.
Some Kossacks are saying, to the effect: [edited to remove the words "fuck his wife" because "to the effect" is confusing, I guess] "I have no pity for his wife, she knew about this and hid it and put the state in peril". Well this is as fair as blaming Hillary because Bill got a blow job. She knew before he admitted it to us. Was she supposed to say "My husband's a skeeve, danger danger, he can't lead you anymore"?
We are getting entirely too much glee out of this. (Even hypocrisy is not a "high crime and misdemeanor".) But he also went AWOL from his job (although if there had been an emergency, only the lamest Lt. Gov in the world wouldn't step in and do what's necessary), and he may have flown on our dime, he misled his staff, and he's a lying sack of sanctimonious crap. For that he should step down.
But he's also a man with a family, and if we have one ounce of compassion left in us, if we put our money where our mouth is in terms of separating governance from personal behavior, we should consider the innocent victims here, leave aside ridiculing the sad, embarrassing personal details and be content that his hypocrisy has been revealed because:
IT'S NOT THE SEX, IT'S THE HYPOCRISY
Right?