A Little Know Fact: Republicans Invented Boring Sex...

(This is a seriously not Matthew Yglesias safe post. Honest. No fooling this time.)

My BFF Matthew seems to be rather cranky this week. Even John Ensign's troubles can't seem to perk him up:

Interestingly John Ensign, like David Vitter but unlike Elliot Spitzer or Eric Massa, hasn’t yet been driven from public life:

Previously undisclosed e-mail messages turned over to the F.B.I. and Senate ethics investigators provide new evidence about Senator John Ensign’s efforts to steer lobbying work to the embittered husband of his former mistress and could deepen his legal and political troubles.

Mr. Ensign, Republican of Nevada, suggested that a Las Vegas development firm hire the husband, Douglas Hampton, after it had sought the senator’s help on several energy projects in 2008, according to e-mail messages and interviews with company executives.

Man, that John Edwards sure is a scumbag!

Like I said, cranky!

Now I'm sure Matthew thinks there's some sort of cosmic double standard in all this (I blame the Constitution, personally), but the fact of the matter is this: Republicans almost always have boring sex scandals. It's as simple as that.

Let's look at l'affaire Ensign, for example. Senator boffs bimbo. Bimbo's husband gets pissed. Senator attempts to buy off husband with lobbying contract.

BORING.

Where's the flair? The imagination? The je ne se qua? Ensign's about as interesting as Fred MacMurray in The Apartment. Which is to say, in fact, that he's not interesting at all. That's the sort of sex scandal you expect from the mayor of Peoria. 

Now look at l'affaire Edwards. Senator boffs bimbo. Bimbo has love child. Senator attempts to buy off bimbo with personal fortune and campaign funds.

YAWN.

But now add this: Senator's wife has terminal cancer, bimbo is a new age featherhead with the IQ of a kumquat, Senator and bimbo made sex tape, Senator is rumored to be hung like a horse, and the fact that all this happened while Senator was running for president.

BINGO! JACKPOT!

That's got a What the fuck? What the fucking fuck?? factor that's off the charts. It's interesting. It's like saying:

Last night at 8 PM the Senator left the Capital parking lot alone in his car to go home for his daughter's birthday party. This morning the bodies of the Senator and a masseuse named Bruno were found in the Senator's car, which was lodged in the smoke stack of the U.S.S. Harry Truman. At present the Harry Truman is ninety miles off the coast of Okinawa.

Now that's good stuff. And it's just the sort of stuff Republicans don't do. I mean, look at the facts:

1. Wilber Mills: Caught fighting with a stripper while driving drunk.
2. Ted Kennedy: 'Nuff said.
3. Elliot Spitzer: Wire transfers to hookers and forgetting to take off his socks.
4. Bill Clinton: Gets his horn honked in the Oval Office.

You just can't beat that sort of thing with tales of missionary position sex and six figure bribes.

Now you've got Eric Massa. Even without the whole Kirk Douglas-Laurence Olivier sauna scene from Spartacus vibe, you've still got the whole Village People In The Navy vibe. Throw in a bizarre interview with Glenn Beck, who throws off a serious "Someday I'm gonna get caught in public drunk and in a dress" vibe himself, and you've got must-see TV.

The problem is that Republicans just don't know how to have a good sex scandal. When you read a headline like this:

Senator found naked in Washington bath house with two yaks, a vat of lime jello, a cattle prod and half the Vienna Boys Choir. Claims all were rehearsing 'Hallelujah Chorus' for church appearance.

You just know you're dealing with a Democrat. Republicans don't have the imagination to pull that sort of thing off.

So Matthew needs to take a nap and get over it. Big honkin' sex scandals are the price Democrats pay for having style.

Comments

[richard mcenroe]

Yeppers, because all them photos in the Enquirer just crap style.

Remember Larry Flynt's advice, Dennis: When you use a feather, it's kinky. When you use the whole chicken, it's perverted.

[Dennis the Peasant]

I guess I'll be having a pork chop for dinner tonight.

[Allen]

I don't know Dennis, Mark Sanford was a pretty good one. I'll be hiking on the Appalachian Trail, while sneaking off to Argentina to visit the love of my life, that I met on the internet.

Here's an example of his "love" letters.

"I could digress and say that you have the ability to give magnificent gentle kisses, or that I love your tan lines or that I love the curve of your hips, the erotic beauty of you holding yourself (or two magnificent parts of yourself) in the faded glow of the night's light -- but hey, that would be going into sexual details."

Hey, with prose like that... Pathetic, sure, but imaginative.

[Dennis the Peasant]

Allen-

You know, I thought about Sanford and came to the conclusion that he's the exception that proves the rule.

[Eric Blair]

I think Dennis is right, plus Sandford refused to resign, argued with his state party about the whole mess and basically was unrepentant about it.

[Allen]

I forgot about my State Senator Roy Ashburn. Arrested in a state vehicle for DUI, with a male passenger, after leaving a Sacramento gay bar.

Talk about coming out of the closet the hard way. He was co-operative the CHP said. Bwahahaha, I'll bet.

[Dennis the Peasant]

Points off for only being a State Senator.

[JeffS]

Is Matthew a closet Republican, secretly yearning for boring sex?

[Zimriel]

Back in the mother country, we Tories have pioneered the art of the conservative sex scandal.

Try googling "Stephen David Wyatt Milligan". You'll be glad you didn't.

[Jim Ryan]

Sanford's was too pathetic to count. It wasn't racey. It was doofus-y.

[Jim Ryan]

I now see that Allen called him "pathetic," too. Case closed. Not a cad but a pathetic doofus.

[Randy Rager]

So this is why I never made it into the Republican club. My sex isn't boring enough!

Ladies!

[richard mcenroe]

"Senator found naked in Washington bath house with two yaks, a vat of lime jello, a cattle prod and half the Vienna Boys Choir. Claims all were rehearsing 'Hallelujah Chorus' for church appearance."

How's this? Close enough?

[kinky trekkie]

What about Seven of Nine and Jack (candidate-R) who gave us Obama? Dennis, he wasn't in Congress yet, but doesn't he get points for wanting public congress?

[Nodrog]

Vitter - consorting with prostitutes.

Larry Craig - a public lavatory stall. Tawdry and pathetic. Those stalls are pretty small, and I bet they get smelly.

Point well taken, Dennis.

[Tim P]

Hey remeber Rita Jenrette? Representative Jenrette's estranged wife. He of ABSCAM notoriety back in the early 80's? Ok, ok not a real sex scandal but she was hot and did pose nude for playboy. I'd have had boring sex with her any day. Just sayin...

[Tim]

Trekkie, I think Ryan only gets partial points. After all, the person he wanted public congress with was his own wife. Intra-marital sex? Who does that?

[richard mcenroe]

Tim -- You don't understand. It's bizarre heteronormative transgressions like that that will keep this country down!

[MJH]

LOL However: instead of "...Kirk Douglas-Laurence Olivier sauna scene.." don't you mean "...Tony Curtis - Laurence Olivier bath scene..."?

[Dennis the Peasant]

You're right. It was Tony Curtis! Then again, that's not the sort of thing this fat, white, homophobe is gonna go back and refresh his memory about. Ick.

[MJH]

"I have that memory which is seared -- seared -- in me."