Did no one notice that James Webb wrote a book and happened to include scenes showing not only gay sex, but sex with young boys? Did no one think that this wouldn't become an issue, especially after the revelations surrounding the Mark Foley situation?
Is Webb going to be forced from the race? Will the Democrats who were shouting so loudly for the heads of Hastert et al., going to call on the Virginia Democrats and anyone else who knew about this stuff going to call on Webb to withdraw from the race?
This is all a rhetorical question since these books have been in circulation since the 1980s.
All this leaves more questions than answers. It also makes me wonder what other skeletons are in the closets of those leading our nation - and do I really want to know?
It is interesting to notice that people are taking Allen's campaign to task for publishing this information in a presser, despite the fact that all they did was put all the salacious bits in one easy to read release. Webb was the person who wrote all this stuff over the course of his many books.
Will this even matter to voters, who have probably tuned out all this kind of thing by now? I don't think it will make much of a difference, even if it should raise some kind of flags.
Dinocrat wonders at all the October surprises so far. I just wonder how much of a surprise this should have been if these books had been out since the 1980s. I guess no one bothered to read them until he ran for the Senate seat?
Radley Balko thinks that this isn't much of a scandal - lame fiction. Well, it is fiction... and it makes for interesting political theater.
UPDATE:
Others noting the ickiness factor and the salacious bits, and what to make of it all: Lorie Byrd, Sensible Mom, Dan Riehl, Joe Bardi (who was wondering when the Democrats would start imploding), and Strong Conservative.
Gregg Hurwitz wonders if there's anyone who's written anything of fiction who could ever make it into politics at the rate we're going, but I guess it depends on what the writing is. We are talking fiction after all, but who knows what evil lurks in the hearts of men. Also, he thinks it's a calculated absurdity on Allen's part, one that will probably work.
I sense a general theme among those on the Left versus the Right on this matter.
The Left thinks that Allen's the sleazy one who brings Webb's fictionalized tales into the discussion instead of talking about the issues. They think that this will have little effect on the race, and that Allen's own missteps are far worse than this issue.
The Right, on the other hand, can't quite figure out how Webb managed to get this far considering the extent of his writings about sex with children and other sordid tales. Some think that it's fiction, but note the ickiness factor. By and large, they want to see Webb gone.
This is an election cycle that has seen a race to the bottom, and each side has tried hard and long to be the one to get that last gotcha. I don't think we're done for this cycle, though it might be the last of it in Virginia. After all, there's less than two weeks til the election. That's plenty of time for a few more October surprises.
Technorati: george allen, james webb, mark foley, democrats, republicans, sex scandal, politics.
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