Thursday, November 3, 2011

From Legal To Political

While the facts of the Herman Cain sexual harassment story seem to be fluid, the defense mechanism of the right wing is intact: it’s all the liberals’ fault and besides, what’s the big deal? So the guy hit on some chicks; it’s not like he did anything illegal. Maybe he was paying them a compliment. And besides, Bill Clinton and John Edwards did it and got away with it.

It’s like arguing with eight-year-olds (Bill Clinton was impeached; John Edwards is being prosecuted), but what is most impressive is how quickly they’re willing to come to the defense of someone who never had a chance to become the nominee, much less president. And they have made this a political matter, as if sexual harassment and the fallout was a campaign tactic as opposed to a legal matter.

In other words, they trivialize it: if you make it about the politics, then the people who filed the charges only did it make a quick buck or to get revenge against someone in a position of power. After all, sexual harassment is just a politically correct way for liberals and women’s-libbers to tear down the God-given patriarchal order of things. Unless, of course, it’s a liberal who does it. Then it’s an assault on the very fabric of womanly virtues and nothing less than the maximum penalty will do.

It’s all very easy when you frame it that way.