Cafe Talk | Talking Points Memo

Forbidden fruit

By Unreadable Nixters - June 1, 2008, 5:02AM

OK, this may sound kind of "totally and completely... I don't know" in the words of one of the characters from Michael Frayn's "Noises Off".

Why do the Republicans constantly get involved in sex scandals, one kinkier than another? Well, even if they don't (which is unlikely), we still notice it more often than when Democrats do. Why? Obviously, because conservatives are not supposed to have sex, much worse all those "perversions" they get caught up in.

But they know better than to do it, so why do they still do it? Because they're not allowed. So one way to, umm, "sublimate" those undesirable desires is into the aggression against them. That's why the Rebpulicans are anti-sex, anti-gay, anti-choice – because they all secretly want to do those things, they just can't, or everyone would see them for the hypocrites they really are.

So that's why so many Republicans are closet sex maniacs, etc.

Now the other side of the coin is that the Democratic party might be having a similar problem. What could it be?

Now, I think, after this whole primary campaign the Clintonistas protests at the RBC meeting, it's become clear that many Democrats, especially many of those supporting Hillary, are closet racists. Not all, not most, but still many. It's the same forbidden-fruit problem the Republicans have with sex in all its wonderful variations. Only this forbidden fruit is rotten.

Chekhov famously wrote about squeezing a slave out of oneself, drop by drop. In this case, it's squeezing out of oneself a slave of the bigoted, backwards ideas. Some of the members of this party have a lot to squeeze out of themselves. Drop by drop.