That’s news to me. And probably news to this guy.
I’m opposed to outing, but I understand it. This crosses the line from outing to blackmail. It’s the same thing as saying “Vote for my bill or I’ll publish these photos of you and your intern going at it hot and heavy in this New York avenue Motel six.”
Even if Malodorous’ hypothesis is true–and it may very well be–the blogger is still an ass.
Yes, but you don’t call up their prospective bosses just before a job interview with this information. This is being done as revenge for not obeying orders. Imagine if a Christian blogger made a similar threat to an unnamed Democratic Senator. I, personally, would be going ballistic.
Will you be here all week?
So, is Alito a closeted gay man, or not?!
(Yeah, like you didn’t immediately think that when you read the thread title!)
Read my posts more carefully please? I specifically said I thought the blackmail bit was not OK. The part of my post you quoted was replying to Rune’s comment that outting gay pols in general (not as blackmail) was a form of discrimination.
There was an ancient joke, one I saw Flip Wilson turn into a skecth on his old variety show. It goes like this:
A minister is giving a sermon in which he explains the importance of contributing money to the church. The collection baskets are passed around, and when they come back, they’re almost empty.
The disappointed minister speaks again, passionately, about all the great work the church does, all the services it provides to the community, and asks the people to contribute generously. The baskets are passed around once more, and again, when they comes back, there’s little money in them.
Finally, the minister says, "I didn’t want to resort to this, but now it seems I have no choice. Brethren, I happen to know that one of you is committing adultery. We’re going to pass the baskets again. If you wish me to keep your sin a secret, put a generous contribution in the basket, and I won’t reveal you here today.
Naturally, when the baskets come back, they’re overflowing with cash.
That’s all we have here. A nobody. A nobody who doesn’t know squat. A nobody who knows nothing, but hopes desperately that he may be able to scare somebody, ANYbody, into voting his way. He took a gamble, and hoped there were a few closet gay Republican Senators.
He guessed wrong. It didn’t work. Surprise, surprise!
This is an interesting observation, because i had assumed up until this point that the blogger in question had initiated direct contact with the Senator in question and made his threat in person (or via some sort of direct communication), as well as on his blog.
Now i realise that the only place he’s made the threat is on his blog. Not only has he not named the Senator is question, as far as we know the Senator doesn’t even know about this attempted blackmail.
Is something really blackmail if the putative victim doesn’t even know of the existence of the threat, what is required of him, or the consequences of non-compliance? Say some guy says on his blog that if an Australian guy living in Baltimore doesn’t hand over $100 by the end of the day, his house will be showered with eggs. Am i really being blackmailed even if i didn’t read the blog, never knew of the threat, and could never even be certain that i was the Australian guy in question?
I was previously nodding in agreement with those who were condemning the blogger for “blackmail,” but i am now rather underwhelmed by the whole incident, and believe that its significance has been blown out of all proportion in this thread.
Forgot one thing:
Much of the discussion in this thread has turned on the acceptability of “outing,” on the one hand, and blackmail, on the other. Most people in this thread (all people?) have, rightly in my opinion, decried blackmail.
But, based on my post above, i’m not even sure blackmail is an issue here. I think a much more logical explanation is that this will be “merely” another outing.
Let’s imagine the following completely plausible scenario:
a) Senator never reads or hears about the blogger’s threat.
b) Senator votes contrary to blogger’s interests.
c) Blogger truthfully believes that a vote for Alito is a vote against gay people.
d) Blogger, based on this belief and on a belief that the Senator is a hypocrite, outs the Senator.
It seems to me that all we really have here is another case of outing, plain and simple. A guy being outed for doing something that one person (or some people) believes is contrary to the interests of gay Americans.
As has been noted, the ethics of outing is something that’s up for debate. But at the moment, that’s really the only debate i see here. I find it difficult to take seriously the accusation of blackmail when there’s a high likelihood that the intended “victim” didn’t even know of the threat’s existence and, even if he did, had no way of knowing that he was, in fact, the target.
I concur in this analysis, but would note that it turns on the assumption that the blogger did NOT make any effort to contact the senator other than the “open letter” post in his blog. I think you’ll agree that if, in addition to his post, he took measures to be sure his target knew of his plans… that changes things.
Er, the fact that even an anti-gambling or anti-gay crusader can’t resist indulging is part of the merits of the argument – it’s evidence that the hypocritical advocate is supporting laws that cannot be enforced short of police-state crackdowns.
Is what this guy is doing as bad as what Rove does regularly? He MADE UP stuff about John McCain, claiming he had an illegitimate black child. He pretty much commtted TREASON in the Valerie Plame outing. All this soul-searching over stuff that Rove wouldn’t even blink at indicates to me that the Dems still don’t understand the nature of politics as played by the Republicans nowadays.
“But they did it too! And worse!” is no better an argument when leveled against Republicans as the “Well, Clinton lied” when used against Democrats. They’re both specious and I wish people would quit using them.
That’s not really the nature of my argument – it’s not a moral equivalency thing, it’s a practical matter of politics. Dems and liberals are so worried about keeping their hands clean that they aren’t willing to fight the Republicans on their level. And they are amazed that the Republicans keep cleaning their clocks. It doesn’t matter how good you are at boxing by Queensbury rules if you let the other guy get away with punching you in the nuts and the kidneys repeatedly. If it’s a close contest – and they have been, lately – the other guy is gonna win. Oh, your hands are clean, but your face is bloody and you are on the canvas, out cold, after every bout. What a great moral victory you just won.
This is a tangent, but I don’t agree. “They did it too and worse” is a legitimate argument in the electoral context. It isn’t saying “I’m a saint.” it is, rather, saying “I’m the lesser of two evils, and you’ve got to pick one of us.” More insidiously, accepting your position doesn’t let us discriminate between every president that’s ever lived, all of whom have tried to weasel and overstep their authority to some degree – that was kind of the plan – and the really bad presidents who ignore and disparage everyone who isn’t in lockstep as a matter of course. (In this post, I make no claims about whether any particular president falls in any particular category.)
I too would love to see an presidential candidate with nothing but integrity and a view of the separation of powers and the Bill of Rights that exactly matches my own. But assuming I don’t see one in '08, that doesn’t mean that there’s no difference between the choices available.
–Cliffy
This could be illegal if he has anyone other than himself involved in this.
Absolutely.
You might think this is because Chafee is such a moderate. But actually, he’s veyr conservative. His votes are all just part of an elaborate scheme to convince people that he’s not that one gay Republican Senator.
And of course, you can prove that Rove did all those things.
I think it’s illegal, but I’m not sure it’s unethical, in the broader context of high-stakes politics.
It probably fits the definition of “extortion”.
Consider, however, the fairly narrow scope of the blogger’s quarry. Of course, there is no moral argument that says a closeted person is obliged to vote the interests of his closet minority, and if people weren’t getting beaten to death for being part of that minority, it would be easier to condemn the blogger out of hand.
I’m not sure it’s germane to the debate, which assumes arguendo the accuracy of the outing, but what if the rumor is not true? Furthermore, aren’t we more or less committed to the proposition that it is better mental health to be out than in?
Worse, do we tacitly endorse the major premise of homophobia by using the homphobia of the senators’ supporters against him. ?
I can’t really separate enough from my visceral hate of homophobes to be sure of my position.
’
Don’t have to, Bricker. Note that this is not a court of law. Rove is known to be the Repubs’ dirty trickster in chief, and all these tricks are well within his modus operandi and stand to benefit his political client, the Bush crime family.
Oh, except Rove HAS outed a CIA agent. That’s pretty much on record. Whether he did anything illegal in that case is still up for grabs, but no one except Pubbie partisans thinks it was anything but an immoral betrayal. Very much in Karl’s style.