Well there's some solid psychological science for us all. The winking smiley does it for me. How can you argue with a winking smiley?

I guess the only problem with that is if we pass civil rights legislation empowering bisexual persons to sue for workplace discrimination (i.e., ENDA-the Employment Non-Discrimination Act, reintroduced in the current congress), we're not even talking about a minority anymore, are we? All women are bisexual and all bisexual men are really homosexuals. That is what I learned at Salon today. Dammit, I could have saved a lot of bandwidth and just hung out in a high school cafeteria to get this story.

Check it out for yourself. The supposed male prostitute upon whom the story was based is now thought to have been a lying self-promoter. The story basically collapsed within the same blogs that invented it.

Still, the Lott residnation is a very cute story for Republicans inasmuch as the conventional wisdom -- that Lott quit to get grandfathered into a shorter cooling-off period before becoming a lobbyist with Democrat John Breaux's new lobbying firm -- might actually be the best one for DEMOCRATS. Because the other back-story might be that Lott might be tripped up in the indictment of his brother-in-law, trial lawyer Dickie Scruggs. I don't think Republicans can ever get too much of the 2007 bounty of trial lawyer indictments. (Bill Lerach, Dickie Scruggs, Edwards-donor Geoff Fieger, etc, etc, etc. Keep those Etc.'s coming, DoJ!)

Compare the Trent Lott rumors -- basically one very kooky set of statements from one anonymous male prostitute, and exploited beyond all imagining by one blogger -- to the Hillary rumors. The Hillary rumors appear to be multipally-sourced, long-term, and from a variety of independent precincts.

Then there's the Larry Craig arrest. It's a pretty safe bet that Hillary's not going to be arrested for anything in the next six months, so that comparison will never be made. But let us remember that some highly-principled left-wingers had decried the Craig resignation for the reason that what he was charged with was a relatively tame misdemeanor, in a kind of entrapment operation. (I don't agree with that, although I understand the point.) Those people on the left know what their position would have been if it had been Barney Frank who had been busted in Minneapolis. They'd have been calling for a federal investigation into the violation of Frank's rights by local Minnesota cops. They'd have called on the civil rights activist community to picket the airport. And Frank's party would never have stripped his committee assignments. Same activity, different political parties. No way would Frank be resigning his seat in Congress.

Again, what I say is that this is all just politics. Please don't tell me that there is any great moral principle involved in protecting Hillary Clinton's privacy. At least no great moral principle that Salon's editors subscribe to.

And someone accused me of changing the subject?

Anyway, Holly, I see that where you are concerned, my work is done. All my best to you, your husband, your partner, your companion, your gumba, and all of your special womyn friends. You go, grrrl!

What are we talking about here, 10 years, 15 years? I didn't make this up today as an answer to what Tim Grieve brought up in posting about more Larry Carig "accusers." Anyway, since when was it that Republicans were so defensive about Larry Craig? He's actually been treated much more harshly by his own party than practically any other misdemaenor offender in Congress.

Somebody below mentioned Chappaquiddick. Factually, it of course has nothing to do with Larry Craig or Hillary Clinton, but it's pretty clear that Senator Craig has been subjected to much more scrutiny by his own party with respect to his misdemeanor guilty plea than Senator Kennedy was in relation to his guilty plea. And nobody died in Senator Craig's case. Patrick Kennedy, under the influence of prescription drugs (?!?) is probably lucky he didn't hit somebody with his car; it could have been another Kennedy leaving another scene of another accident. And Patrick Kennedy also saw no intra-party discipline. They just whisked him away to Kennedy rehab...