A scummy child-molesting Republican. What a shock.

The BBQ Pit
61

If anybody said that, they were wrong. But that kind of obfuscates the point, which is, to quote the New York Times, that “the House’s impeachment debate turned more than ever into a discourse on sin and morality in politics”. In the court of public opinion, that’s really what Clinton was on trial for.

Here’s the more complete context:
Hours before Mr. Clinton was impeached for his efforts to cover up his affair with Ms. Lewinsky, Mr. Livingston, who had been chosen to succeed Mr. Gingrich, shocked the House by announcing he would leave Congress because of revelations of his own adulterous affairs.

With a sex scandal now consuming one of their own, the House’s impeachment debate turned more than ever into a discourse on sin and morality in politics. Representative Tom DeLay of Texas, the House majority whip, who had helped make Mr. Livingston the Speaker-designate and has been one of the fiercest critics of Mr. Clinton, choked back tears as he praised Mr. Livingston. He said his friend ‘‘understood what this debate was all about.’’

‘‘It was about honor and decency and integrity and the truth,’’ Mr. DeLay said, his voice breaking, ''everything that we honor in this country."
http://www.nytimes.com/1998/12/20/us/impeachment-overview-clinton-impeached-he-faces-senate-trial-2d-history-vows-job.html?pagewanted=all
You will also note the pivotal role played here by Tom DeLay (R), of Texas, in the matter of his tearful declaration that this was all about “honor and decency and integrity and the truth … everything that we honor in this country”.

About which distinguished Republican representative so concerned with “honor and decency and integrity and the truth” the following was later in the news:
Following petition drives by citizens and organizations asking that DeLay be removed from office and official admonishments by the United States House Committee on Ethics, DeLay was charged in 2005 with money laundering and conspiracy charges related to illegal campaign finance activities aimed at helping Republican candidates for Texas state office in the 2002 elections. The indictment was sought by Ronnie Earle, the Democratic former District Attorney of Travis County (which includes the state capital of Austin). A first grand jury rejected Earle’s indictment attempt, but a second grand jury issued an indictment for one count of criminal conspiracy on September 28, 2005. On October 3, a third grand jury indicted DeLay for the more serious offense of money laundering.

An arrest warrant was issued on October 19, 2005, and DeLay turned himself in the next day to the Harris County Sheriff’s Office in Houston. In accordance with House Republican Conference rules, DeLay temporarily resigned from his position as House Majority Leader. On January 7, 2006, after pressure from fellow Republicans, he announced that he would not seek to return to the post. On June 9, 2006, he resigned from Congress.

62

As to the Wilde hijack, I’d just like someone to point me to the ‘family values’ platform he was running on. Never seemed like that kind of fellow to me, blatantly behaving all naughty like, but apparently I missed this. So, thanks ever so much for whoever cites it. You’ll be a peach.

63

Why a hijack ? The act for which Mr. Hastert is being excoriated is the very same that brought Wilde down; not the act that dare not speak it’s name, but the act of oral sex with young boys, in the earlier case extremely poor, of those saved by Dr. Barnado who did it for the money.

In one case the same thing is condemned and in the other is praiseworthy.

And although not a politician — vice can exist outside elected office — apart from his magnificent [ later ] poetry ( prose was more variable ), as a good Victorian Wilde was rather of a moralising bent and was happily married with wife and children, quite publicly and not even as a cover; he wasn’t wholly, nor even primarily, gay. Plus,* quelle surprise*, he was a devout christian.

I doubt in each case that the happy husband returned home at night to relate his sucking adventures with the ragamuffin class.

64

Damnit, I’d been hoping it meant pizza night!

65

That isn’t the rest of us playing semantics; it’s only you playing the fool. The only way the Republicans had to make their predetermined conclusion be presentable to their faithful as anything other than sheer spite was to phrase it the way they did.

The rest of us all knew it at the time, and ever since, too. It’s high time you realized it too.

66

I’m sorry, I’m confused. Since when has Oscar Wilde been *praised *for seducing young men and boys?

67

Are you demanding a higher standard for thread shitting? You want it to be fact based as well?

68

You’re probably confused because they both have the word climax used about them but the things that Oscar Wilde was praised for are called plays, not blowjobs.

69

I would imagine his stock will lower — as with his admirers George Bernard Shaw and Kipling — since for current generations ‘Poetry of the '90s’ means Cobain and the Pet Shop Boys rather than Henley or Dowson, and few can get through The Soul of Man under Socialism,let alone the long walk of** De Profundis**; but now, after half a dozen films about him and millions of queer-theory words written, he is mostly known and hailed as a Gay Hero and champion of unconventional love — and those guttersnipe experiences were about the sum total of his physical excursions into homosexuality.

So, as a Gay Hero — which would have annoyed him immensely — for what else is he praised ?

Still, out of that horror came Reading Gaol, and I have loved that since I was 9…

70

What happened next?

71

Well, I imagine the second he no longer had the job, he went home, sucked off a couple rentboys while sobbing and white-knuckling a bible.

72

If I may quote the OP:

As we know, the Law is the final arbiter of reality.

73

I give up reading they thread because it’s all downhill from here?

Can I expect the next 5 pages to be you defending the moral character of Tom DeLay because he won on appeal?

74

And people gave me shit for predicting this…

But to be fair, I did not predict the “Oscar Wilde was only known for sucking dicks, and you liberals celebrate that all the time” gambit.

I had no idea about the Oscar Wilde dick sucking celebrations. I must have missed my invite this year.

75

It turned out that it was all a terrible misunderstanding, and DeLay was not only reinstated as House Majority Leader but was eventually elevated to sainthood? :rolleyes:

76

It’s actually not. The act that brought Wilde down was having sex with the adult son of the Marquess of Queensbury (Yes, that Marquess of Queensbury.), and then suing the latter for libel.

I’m also unaware that Wilde spent his career in the House of Commons, and as Prime Minister, supporting anti-gay legislation.

77

I, for one, would appreciate it if instead of popping into this thread to defend DeLay, you’d criticize Hastert.

78

In defense of wolfpup, he wasn’t selectively quoting stuff to damn Delay. In fact, Delay was only tangential to the narrative he was trying to establish concerning the Clinton impeachment. So there is actually no need for Bricker to defend Delay in this instance, nor do I think it’s fair to call out wolfpup for selective editing and, by implication, posting in bad faith (which I think Bricker was doing).

Now, can we stop derailing this thread over people who are not Denis Hastert?

79

Shall we get of your lawn, too?

:rolleyes:

80

To be strictly accurate, only 3 of the 4 we know about were straight.