Redemption only for the liberal crowd
More than two weeks have passed since the revelation of an archival 2005 “Access Hollywood” tape on which Donald Trump can be heard mouthing vulgarities and boorishly depicting imaginary sexual conquests.
Like scavengers gnawing on the barren bones of grisly roadkill, his critics have no intention of slowing down or easing up in their feigned outrage over his salty language.
Yes, he spoke like a jerk, but that hardly makes him unique among men; in unguarded moments, boys will still be boys no matter how old they are or how enlightened they’re supposed to be.
That should not come as a bulletin this morning.
While it certainly doesn’t excuse Trump, it might explain him, unless you really believe he’s a knuckle-dragging hedonist void of any sense of decency.
The initial wave of criticism was clearly warranted, but when is enough enough?
Now that Barney Frank is back in the good graces of his neurotically liberal constituency, it’s easy to forget that a Boston Globe editorial once declared his career “displays a chasm between the high ideals of his public life and the squalor of his private life,” concluding, “he should resign.”
And remember Gerry Studds? The late New Bedford congressman was re-elected six times after being censured by his House colleagues for seducing a 17-year-old page.
Though unrepentant, both congressmen found redemption.
During a break in the taping of a “60 Minutes” piece on minority borrowing, Mike Wallace, the late CBS icon, once suggested applicants might have difficulty reading complicated contracts “over their watermelon and tacos.”
When a Herald columnist heard about it and chased him down Wallace pleaded, “It was light-hearted. I ask you to be fair.”
Speaking last week of drugs pouring in from Mexico, Trump referred to “bad hombres” and was quickly vilified, unlike Bill Clinton, who once likened Protestant-Catholic negotiators in Ireland to “a couple of drunks” who can’t leave a bar.
That was reminiscent of Alan Dershowitz’s insistence Louise Woodward, an English au pair, couldn’t expect a fair trial in Cambridge because “it has a very large Irish population.”
Was that not like Trump questioning the impartiality of a judge with Mexican heritage?
Meanwhile he’s now pilloried for lumping minority neighborhoods into one monolithic demographic by the same people who thought it was no big deal when Jesse Jackson slammed New York as “Hymietown.”
The contradictions are endless.
To paraphrase a line from Hollywood, being liberal means never having to say you’re sorry.
That not only offends the sensibilities of a fair-minded electorate; it also insults its intelligence, which is much worse.