Are We Disgusted Yet?

Remember how Clinton’s popularity ratings actually went up after his sexual encounters with Lewinsky came out? That scandal put the public in a good mood. The Foley mess, however, is turning everyone’s stomach.

As we all know, sex makes people a little stupid. Reading the salacious details about hot-blooded stupidity between consenting adults tends to put most people in the mood for some of their own. It’s a fair guess that even members of the Piety Party who tut tutted about a married man having sex with a subordinate found the Starr Report’s reality porn quite stimulating. I’d bet a dollar that there was a little baby boomlet nine months after it came out.

But Foley’s IM transcripts go way beyond foolishness, and we can feel the ick factor rise in our guts with each new disclosure. Most Republican’s feel it, too. The whole thing is a major turn-off. Yes, there are a few true-believing “blame the democratic secular humanist liberal media culture” spinmeisters like Rush Limbaugh, but most people will simply agree, “Foley was bad.” A few might even go as far as saying “Something must be done.” Hopefully, the story of Foley’s predation won’t get any worse than what’s been heard so far.

Unfortunately, we don’t experience the same collective sense of upchucking ick on cue each time Bush’s war of choice in Iraq claims another innocent victim. We tend to be far more curious about the behavior of pedophiles or the backstory of prurience than the proper conduct of foreign policy. But that’s the point. Sex makes us stupid.