To be fair, it does happen in the movies all the time.
Obviously, we were in on it.
If only we had somebody that good at it. Of course, maybe ours are so good we never hear of them. Or maybe I am incorrectly assuming that the Democrats have national level dirty tricksters. We would need evidence, wouldn’t we?
Well, the silence does suggest a knowing sense of shame at having been caught and a complete absence of disapproval.
Also, it should be noted that the reporters caught Hart and Rice coming out of his townhouse together the day before his famous challenge was issued. The challenge really had nothing to do with him getting caught. They had been researching the rumors before the challenge.
And here’s the thing. We now know exactly who gave the tip-- Dana Weems. If she was a Republican (or Hart-adversary Democratic) shill, it should be relatively easy to prove. Have at it.
Well, we’ll always have Paris.
“Caught” is an interesting choice of words. Encountered would be more neutral. It is not illegal, immoral or unethical to exit a townhouse with a married or unmarried person of the opposite sex, regardless of one’s own marriage status. It could be perfectly innocent, or not at all. It is not at all inconsistent with either your or my interpretation of events.
Caught in the act of fucking is another matter.
And Hart’s challenge reminds me of Clinton’s “I was not having sex with that woman.” Again, Monica didn’t think she was part of a honey trap, but she was. She was being carefully cultivated by Goldberg and Tripp, and then used and discarded, just like Clinton did with her, except that she could have figured that Clinton was going to do that.
To this day the women involved with the “Monkey Business” incident keep their mouths shut about it. More like Tripp and Goldberg than Lewinsky.
In real life, just like Schrodinger said, the cat is either alive or dead inside the box, not in “superposition”. Hart was a cheater, Rice and Weems have kept their comments to a minimum, not saying whether they worked for an opponent (Dem or Rep) or giving interviews on the subject. Weems has said that she was just disgusted. But that doesn’t give us a picture of what was really going on.
Still silent on Paris and Tripp/Goldberg, are we?
Yes, Weems is the subject of an article that I linked to. I’d love to take her deposition, or see her interviewed at length, but we just have her “I was disgusted” comment to go on and her not wanting to talk further. According to the original author at the time, she wanted a lot of money, didn’t get that, and was still convinced to talk on the condition of anonymity. The reporter still does not confirm it was her, she does.
Our discussion is directly on the subject of her motivations (assuming it was her). We don’t have a candid and ranging interview or deposition on that subject, just the reporter’s comments about money and anonymity, and his eventual trying to motivate her by patriotism, and her twenty years later claiming she was disgusted.
Our discussion is more broadly on the subject of whether a conspiracy may exist even if the public does not have the proof, and whether it is okay to talk about that in discussions without the proof. I say it is. The Paris Peace Talks sabotage, the Clinton/Lewinsky scandal, denials and eventual proof, Watergate and countless others throughout history say it is. I am of the opinion that political scandals are default dirty tricks because that is the nature of humankind. You require proof prior to entertaining the discussion at all. But when proof, such as Paris, Lewinsky or Watergate come forth, you go and hide behind an event that is not yet proven. And in all fairness may never be proven.
I am of the opinion that a politician cheating on a spouse, or a single politician having out of marriage sex, isn’t really a scandal, it is entertainment and political ammunition and part of human nature.
Why would anyone need to say anything about that? Lewinski was not a plant. The relationship was already there-- they just exploited it for public consumption. Nixon and the Paris peace talks had nothing to do with a “honey pot”.
You are the one who is being silent on a request to show even one example of a “honey pot” wrt a national figure in the last 50 years. Something you claimed was “nothing new or at all unusual”. We’re not holding our collective breath on that one…
I don’t see the point of the ‘honey pot’ argument except it’s entertainment value in this thread. If he had been set up, and even if that was proven at the time, it wouldn’t have made the least difference in the actual primaries, he would have been disqualified by the voters, and would not get the nomination. He had a better chance as a voluntary adulterer than as a fool caught in a sting.
You ignore the need, by some, to pin Democratic foibles on Republican maliciousness. Or at least to channel every discussion about the former into a discussion about the latter.
And yes, we see that on the other side, too.
Sigh,
Second Stone, you have been asked twice to present a documented instance of an American politician set up for a Honey trap and have twice been either unwilling or unable to produce one.
You’re the one who made the foolish statement implicitly arguing they were common.
For the third time, please either produce a reliable cite for this claim or withdraw it.
If once again you refuse to answer, I think it’s fair to take your silence as an admission that you made a false claim.
Note, making a false claim is not tantamount to lying.
The Second Stone, if you want to assert that this was a set up, why don’t you address the first and most screamingly obvious objection, which is that somehow the Evil Conspirators managed to get Hart to tell the press to follow him around and investigate his adulteries? How did they manage that? Mind control rays? Was Hart a sort of Manchurian Candidate, where he would drop his pants whenever he saw the Queen of Hearts?
On some level I hope that the Republicans could bring something like that off. It would make the next Presidential debate a good deal more entertaining.
Regards,
Shodan
Hart’s dare makes sense once you understand the timeline. He thought he was “almost caught” in the act on the night of May 2, 1987. He sent Rice off with some friends thru the backdoor of his townhouse and never saw her again. It was the next day, May 3 that he made his famous dare. He was expecting to be on the straight and narrow, and didn’t realize that reporters had be investigating him for weeks already.
Lewinsky certainly was put up to it like a fool by Goldberg and Tripp. Absolutely she was used as a honey pot. Unwittingly, but that is exactly how she was used. Tripp and Goldberg don’t dispute it and don’t talk about it at all.
You are changing the subject from conspiracy to the narrow variety of conspiracy of honey pot, rather than old fashioned treason as an example of a conspiracy that was not able to be proven until four decades later. Your method of reasoning is that a conspiracy cannot be discussed until it is already proven. That is a load of malarky, as the Paris Peace Talks example shows.
Good God that is entertaining.
Hart was arrogant and wrong. Clinton made the exact same mistake. That doesn’t mean the mistress of either wasn’t spilling the beans, wittingly or unwittingly, to the people who egged them on.
Beauregards,
TSS
Lewinsky began her sexual relationship with Clinton almost a year before Tripp became involved. No one set it up.
That’s rich. You are the one hiding from your own claim that the “honey pot” was “nothing new or at all unusual”. A claim you are unable to back up and so wish to move the goal post to general duplicity.
Sorry, not going to allow it. Wouldn’t be prudent.
Yes, and Tripp and Goldberg egged her on to continue it and use it against her. You are the one who keeps moving the goal posts. I’ve cited a bunch of such incidents, and it is rather common. It is even more common in spying. You might want to look into it. I’ve provided the cites.
Ok, you’ve been asked, at a minimum, four times to provide a cite for you bullshit assertion that the use of honey traps in American politics “was nothing new or unusual” and can’t provide any examples of this.
You tried to claim that Monica Lewinsky was an example of this, but as John Mace demonstrated, proved ignorant of the fact that neither Goldberg nor Tripp had anything to do with encouraging Lewinsky to engage in such behavior.
Can we take it by your failure to provide an example of a honey trap being used that you’re conceding your claim was stupid and wrongheaded?
Repeat citation to honey traps use in American politics. Are you folks asserting that they have never been used? If so, are the above citations fictions?
Here are some more:
Sen. John Ensign, blackmailed by a staffer for Ensign having an affair with staffer’s wife.
Brian J. Doyle, set up by police to think he was seducing a 14 year old girl.
David Dreier, congressman who opposed gay rights outed as gay by man who befriended him for just that purpose.
Robert Bauman, attempting to solicit.
Thomas Evans with lobbyist Paula Parinson
Walter Jenkins
David Walsh
And, of course, the previously mentioned Alexander Hamilton affair and blackmailing which might have doomed his career all by itself had he not lost his life in duel due to rigging the pistols incorrectly.
Those are just federally related cases and prominent ones. The suggestion that honey pots never happen is ludicrous.