UPDATE: But, of course, the good Kevin McCulloch has written in to defend Jack!
It was after all the Chicago Tribune who pronounced the poll results recently showing Obama with a 22% lead. Only problem was – that most likely the Chicago Tribune used the same polling company that their subsidiary (and continual embarrassment) the Los Angeles Times used when it showed a heavy favoring of Kerry win a national poll against President Bush.
But the reason these media outlets stink is because they refused the request of not only Jack for his sealed records to remain sealed but also Jeri – who wanted them sealed to prevent embarassment to her son. The judge even supported Jack’s claim that the unsealing of the documents WOULD have a negative impact on the nine year old (EAT THAT ZORN).
At the end of the day – what you have in the documents is a she said (wild stories of sex clubs) – from a woman who DID admit adultery vs. the word of a man that ALL involved – including the ex-wife say was faithful, kind and loving.
Look the divorce was ugly – Jeri had to make Jack look bad on some level – because she was committing adultery – so she says some wild things that probably were not true – or at least greatly exagerated so that she could get what she wanted out of the divorce.
Has anyone else ever had a spouse lie/exagerate to win more in a divorce proceeding – you know they have.
Even after the release of these documents you still got zip, nada,, zero, NOTHING. LaHood needs to put a cork in it. Better yet just switch parties because he’s perfect at running ground strategies for the dems.
These documents proved nothing – and in the absence of proof – Jack must be supported and be supported from the top of the party down.
And in case you have forgotten there is an opponent in this race who wants to raise your taxes, stop fighting the war on terror, get same sex marriage legalized, and make abortion so on demand that his own daughter won’t have to have his notification for her to get one. His name is Barack Obama – and he is far more dangerous than these unproven claims by a woman who needed to asuage her guilty conscience.
GOP – its time to grow up and be adults. I suggest you start before you have a state that you don’t recognize and you don’t like…
Committed to liberating all of Middle Earth…
Shades of the Jeri Lynn is lying defense about to emerge–problem is if you back her into a corner, wouldn’t that be forcing her to admit to perjury? Serious question, but I’m assuming court filings as such are considered to be under oath–aren’t they?
I know you’re all giddy with excitement and all, but I’m not sure I follow you. Yes, article one came out against public sex. Who wouldn’t?
Article two doesn’t address public sex, and if you’re trying to claim that support for Jack means “Public Sex, Whatever” you’re stretching too far for a simple reason – Jerri alleged that Jack wanted to be watched in a non-public place – I don’t know from personal experience, but I doubt even in Paris “sex clubs” let just anybody just wander in off the street.
I have no idea if Jerri is lying or not — only she and Jack know for sure — but I wouldn’t be surprised either way.
Describing it one day as a moral outrage and then the next as a personal life is a bit too much of a stretch. You can classify a sex club as private, but I think most folks aren’t going to buy that.
I think you’d be on firmer ground as a matter of form if someone in the second article actually said it’s his personal life — not that people aren’t saying that, just not in the article. To me the article is all inside politics and not substance.
I have to disagree with you on the substance though. Nobody is going to worry about wandering into a sex club wihout realizing it or unwittingly sending their child into the sex club to use the bathroom, but people do get upset if a group takes over a public restroom for public sex for those very reasons.
In some ways it reminds me of the brouhaha over the Soulard Mardi Gras parade a couple of years ago – people didn’t complain (loudly) about the nudity until the knuckleheads in charge promoted it as a family event.
Ryan would have been smart to dump all the records on a Friday at the start of the campaign and it wouldn’t have been a big deal. The conservative compact is you can do anything you want sexually as long as it’s with your spouse and they agree. Or as a friend of mine once put it, I hope every married couple is having wild monkey sex.
I’m not even sure this hurts him the hardest with conservatives as much as people who are swing voters and pay marginal attention to politics. I could care less what he is doing with his sex life involving consensual partners who are of age. A few things come to my mind though—
1) the Leader would be apopolectic over pornography and strip clubs and any sort of sex club in general, but here it isn’t earth shattering. That seems, at best, inconsistent. I’m pretty sure in most circumstances they’d find it disturbing to be watched during sex. Now, you have a different and reasonable view that I see no problem with—that isn’t what McCullough or the Leader would argue. I don’t take the Leader as the voice of reasonable social conservatives, but more for a good dose of humor.
2) If there is a moral issue it is has forthcoming he is about a something. In this case, it isn’t so much the crime as to the cover-up. That doesn’t even bother me too much from a moral standpoint. I can live withs stupid lies about a personal life. From that though, John Kass made a point that such things can lead to blackmail. Certainly that could be big blackmail or small blackmail–veiled allusion with a suggestion to appoint a poodle to the US Attorney’s position.
3) The real thing is that he made this a far bigger issue than it had to be and the guy has the political instincts of…well he doesn’t have any. What’s weird is if you read his rebuttal in the files at the Leader–he claims that Jeri was lying to ruin his political career for which he has always had ambitions. Now given today’s interview on WBEZ and the three places that made her “uncomfortable” in the passive voice–it was a little silly to be complaining about her.
It’s seldom the issue of what you did, but how you handle that information that matters. And along with the rest of his campaign he flunked the test.
Going back to the top–the voters who will care won’t be hard core conservatives–they won’t be so thrilled, but middle swing voters who don’t pay attention every day. These sort of things that blow up make them uncomfortable. And women–women who are potential swing voters aren’t going to buy any of this regardless of what the truth is now.
Oh, and the people in the party he lied to are going to have his scalp. Lying to them was one thing–but they put themselves out for this guy and that makes them look foolish. That is a huge deal to them. Brenda Edgar must be furious right now and she is the moderate GOP woman Jack! should be targeting. I just feel bad for Jim.