This dead-letter past is not dead. It's not even past
The wild buckraking the president and his family are doing is no less active or ethically profane than it was when the Qataris gave him a jumbo jet and his family was holding soirees for foreign cryptocurrency patrons this spring. But sex sells, and the more taboo and shameful the better.
And that tension in the Epstein case is understandable because of the centrality of the issues of sex trafficking and pedophilia to the current Republican Party. Even a whiff of sex scandal can turn a boring old corruption story into a scandal with legs.
Teapot Dome 100 years ago wouldn’t have wrecked the Harding administration the way it did if it had just been about oil leases. The tawdry behavior of Harding’s Ohio Gang in Washington and the poorly kept secret of the president’s many infidelities let every story about bribes and kickbacks be suffused with a prurience that could really sell newspapers. Games on. The games afoot. There will be blood - and justice will prevail though Olympus falls.
No comments:
Post a Comment