Your blog or mine

NYT Magazine ^ | December 19, 2004 | JEFFREY ROSEN

[mathprof]

One of the first sex scandals of the blogosphere ended, of course, in a book deal. In May, Ana Marie Cox, the Internet gossip whose Web log, Wonkette, focuses on Washington, published a link to another blogger who called herself the Washingtonienne. In the blog, Washingtonienne, a Capitol Hill employee, used a Senate computer to post intimate details about her experience sleeping with six different men, some of whom were paying for her favors. Washingtonienne listed her partners by their initials and occupations, from the married ''Chief of Staff at one of the gov agencies, appointed by Bush'' to her current boyfriend, a fellow Senate staff member. Praising Washingtonienne for her candor and honesty (''You go, girl!''), Wonkette identified her as Jessica Cutler, a 26-year-old mail sorter for Senator Mike DeWine, an Ohio Republican, who promptly fired her from her $25,000-a-year job. After a flurry of interviews in the newspapers and on TV, she sold a novel based on her blog to Hyperion for a figure that Wonkette estimated at $300,000. Cutler's agent announced that she would pose nude for Playboy but would not talk to the media until the book was published. Her privacy, after all, had to be respected.

The men whose initials Cutler posted were not so lucky. In an effort to identify the Bush appointee who was paying for sex, Wonkette posted pictures of 13 chiefs of staff at federal agencies under the headline, ''Would You Sell Sex to This Man?'' One of the suspects was a law-school classmate of mine, Frank Jimenez, who had recently served as chief of staff at the Department of Housing and Urban Development. When I saw the photo, I wondered if his career was over. Happily, the following day, Jimenez was completely exonerated by Wonkette

[goldstategop]

"I Slept With Official Washington." Film at 11.

[angkor]

The skanks on Capitol Hill by Michelle Malkin

"This female Beavis and Butthead duo illustrate what normal Americans hate about the Capitol scene: narcissism, moral bankruptcy and self-congratulatory media-political incest."

[Mad Mammoth]

"I Slept With Official Washington." Film at 11.

That about sums it up. Say Jessica? Better put some ice on those blisters.

[buffyt]

This female Beavis and Butthead duo illustrate what normal Americans hate about the Capitol scene: narcissism, moral bankruptcy and self-congratulatory media-political incest. The Washington Post's legitimization of this shallow "story" illustrates something else: the mainstream media's perverted moral values. The paper's recent profiles and features of social conservatives drip with condescension and ridicule. Religious activists are portrayed as intolerant homophobes; Republicans as gun-toting rubes; abstinence promoters as freaks.

But give The Washington Post two vain, young, trash-mouthed skanks who couldn't care less about what their parents think of their sex-drenched infamy, and the newspaper can't wait to help make them full-fledged members of the media elite.


And this is exactly why it is so difficult to get good young people interested in politics, current events, elections...
When they hear trash like this, they are turned off. They want their leaders to be good people. My kids are so turned off by cr*p like this.

[yoe]

”… this is exactly why it is so difficult to get good young people interested in politics, current events, elections...
When they hear trash like this, they are turned off. They want their leaders to be good people. My kids are so turned off by cr*p like this.”

Also makes you wonder just how good a terrorism analyst Peter Bergen is or how reliable Howard Kurtz is. The Washington, D.C. moral incontinence is just as egregious as the United Nations – both supposedly bastions of brilliant humanitarians and leadership are in reality – cesspools of global offal.

I pity those who still revere ethical and righteous behavior and have to live and work in D.C.