Imagine this fictional scenario: Barack Obama has a $50,000-a-plate fundraiser at the home of a man who once hosted a party so raunchy that guests "cavorted nude in the pool and performed sex acts, scantily dressed Russians danced on platforms and men twirled lit torches to a booming techno beat" and "a man and woman stripped, jumped into the pool and later performed sex acts on a lounge chair before stunned fellow partygoers."
Do you think Fox News and the right-wing media might have a field day with the story, even though none of those things happened at the Obama fundraiser, but just because the host had thrown the other party, too? They'd be all over Obama, demanding explanations for how he could be involved with someone who'd sanction such activity. Romney's campaign team would produce commercials with code words like "family values" that would turn the party host into the new Jeremiah Wright.
Now, imagine that the presidential candidate the fundraiser was thrown for was not Barack Obama, but Mitt Romney. Think the conservative blowhards would say the same things for a guy from their own team? Of course not, as they're proving by mostly having no comments about Mark Leder, the multi-millionaire co-owner of the Philadelphia 76ers who actually did host both the raunchfest and the Romney fundraiser that's garnered so many headlines after the secretly-taped video of his "47%" comments were made public by Mother Jones. The lone right-wing media exception is Murdoch's New York Post, which reported all of this on its Page Six.
I happen to think it's fine for Leder to throw any kind of party he wants -- black tie or white g-string -- and couldn't care less about it. But I'm not a member of the political hypocrisy that talks a lot about "family values" and sneers at what people on "the other side" do in their personal lives, but doesn't flinch at this affiliation as long as the campaign contributions keep rolling in.Labels: politics