Path: bloom-picayune.mit.edu!snorkelwacker.mit.edu!americast.com!americast.com!americast-post Newsgroups: americast.twt.news From: americast-post@AmeriCast.Com Organization: American Cybercasting Approved: americast-post@AmeriCast.com Subject: We must be fairer to some than others Date: Mon, 23 Nov 92 15:07:21 EST Message-ID: \SE A;NATION;PRUDEN ON POLITICS \HD We must be fairer to some than others \BY Wesley Pruden \CR THE WASHINGTON TIMES The editors and reporters of the media culture want to be perfectly fair, but it's important to be fairer to some than to others. A correspondent or columnist who suggested during the late, great campaign for president that "character" is a legitimate test for a candidate for president could count on being scorned as a purveyor of "McCarthyism." Nowhere is the double standard more carefully nurtured and brutally administered than in the erotic follies and sex scandals of Washington. The latest "victim" is Bob Packwood of Oregon, a liberal who makes all the right noises about some of the hot-button issues - abortion being chief among them - but who is nevertheless a Republican in an era when being Republican will be an expensive indiscretion. Mr. Packwood stands accused of "sexual harassment." This is an ambiguous crime, something like being accused of "fellow traveling" in the McCarthy era, as the McCarthy era is remembered in the fantasies of liberals. (Joe McCarthy stimulates the liberal libido in the way that the Victoria's Secret catalog stimulates the rest of us.) Mr. Packwood's accusers, according to The Washington Post's crack victim reporters, said his woo-pitching was unprovoked, unwelcome and unreciprocated. Sometimes he pitched the woo after he had been drinking; several said he struck without warning, lips puckered for frenzied kissing. One young woman remembered that he kissed her on the nape of the neck. The details are hazy because it happened more than 10 years ago. The senator from Oregon may well be a clumsy wooer, a klutzy swain, or a jerk who ought to have been whacked across the face or jabbed with a hatpin. He could have taken lessons from prominent Democrats, who can do this sort of thing and get away with it. Better still, he should announce that he is gay. Congressional sex fiends who are gay can get away with anything. Or he could try a race-change operation. Rep. Barney Frank of Massachusetts hired a male prostitute to be his lover, allowed him to run his whoring out of the congressman's apartment and even applied a little heat to the young man's parole officer to keep him out of the slammer. His Massachusetts colleague, Rep. Gerry Studds, was nailed for molesting children. After a lot of huffing and puffing, Congress, which is thoroughly intimidated by the homosexual lobby, censured him and he, like that sly devil Barney, was re-elected. Rep. Floyd Flake of New York, who is also a pastor, was accused of harassing a woman in his congregation. The voters in his district didn't care, and the media certainly didn't. He was twice re-elected by huge margins and when the woman was killed in an automobile accident the question became moot. Rep. Gus Savage, a black man who represents a Chicago district, suffered a delirium of kissing with a Peace Corps worker in Zaire, who said she was lured into the back seat of his hired limousine. This puckered assailant also was re-elected - once - not so much for his kissing ability as in appreciation of his skill as a racist and race-baiter. Some authorities on sexual harassment - it's possible to get a doctorate in this discipline - theorize that sexual harassment is only dangerous to congressmen who represent certain kinds of constituencies. Nobody expects much in the way of decent behavior from Barney Frank and Gerry Studds and Gus Savage, but they do of Republicans. It sounds mean and fanciful, but consider David Durenberger, the senator from Minnesota, one of our most pious states. Mr. Durenberger was thought to have been having an affair when he broke up with his wife in 1985 - an affair! in Washington! with a congressman! - and now he is the defendant in a paternity suit brought 29 years after the fact. The poor woman has had trouble rounding up witnesses, and she wants to get this settled so the child can afford initiation dues in the American Association of Retired Persons. Sen. Daniel Inouye of Hawaii was accused this summer of having gotten carried away with his barber, a woman, 17 years ago. Talk about a close shave. This article is copyright 1992 The Washington Times. Redistribution to other sites is not permitted except by arrangement with American Cybercasting Corporation. For more information, send-email to usa@AmeriCast.COM