time for my weekly frank rich slam, i guess.
i think he's sort of saying what i said here. but instead of, you know, developing a point of view, he  recites every scandal that the people he's writing about have ever been near, and many that they haven't been near. he could have actually done some cultural analysis, but instead he does what - i'm realizing - frank rich does: just smear, in the sense of drawing vague associations meant to discredit everybody across the right of the spectrum: he wants you to leave the column just feeling that every person he mentions is personally polluted. even if that were true (and as a tendentious hit job, there have been worse), it wouldn't really get to the heart of these questions.

you know, he's even throwing out gay rumors about the lt. gov. of sc, no doubt in order to accuse him and every person to the right of michelle obama, of hypocrisy, but also of course without any evidence, and just that hint of sexsmarm that characterizes the whole piece.

and of course, it's an easy strategy for anyone to employ, and if you weren't, you know, the kind of columnist who would defend bill clinton no matter what, you could frank rich everybody over on the other half with cigars etc. the current secretary of state, selected by the president, is bill clinton's wife. remember when she said "i'm no tammy wynette, standing by her man"? really, do you think the main or most substantive problem with republican politics is sexual misbehavior? is that what we learned from the sotomayor hearings? i don't think this does anyone any good, even frank rich himself, who should think rather than merely smear shit all over everything.

let's ay you think lindsay graham and tom coburn are completely wrong about everything. nothing requires you to nod along as frank rich just tosses in ensign, sanford, mark foley, jack abramoff, etc in order to discredit them by mutual party affiliation. you could repudiate this merely irrelevant claptrap and try to say, exactly, why lindsay graham and tom coburn are wrong.