By Judith Gayle | Political Waves
This has been a news week that, for me, dotted the I and crossed the T in the word idiot* — as in, “Good grief, we’re behaving like idiots!” Oh, I don’t just mean the obvious dust-up over Anthony Weiner’s penis, which has apparently named itself Carlos Danger and sexted its likeness to any woman willing to engage in its fantasies. Nor am I suggesting that the growing rightward-leaning tantrum over Hanoi Jane’s cameo as Nancy Reagan in the soon-to-be-released movie, The Butler, or the casting of lefties Robin Williams as Ike and John Cusack as Nixon, is less than might have been expected from a political philosophy gone so radical and antiquated as to be fatally anachronistic.
I suppose I’m just weary with the public appetite for the salacious and mundane, happy as clams dining on a mix of rumor, innuendo and self-righteousness, and currently found evident by our breathless desire — on all news channels, mind you — to watch a seemingly befuddled, twisted creep in Cleveland accept a plea bargain that will keep him alive awhile longer, if pinned like a bug on a board. Life plus a thousand years seems just right for sexual predator Ariel Castro, with more than a thousand criminal counts against him.
And what does this particular evil look like? Paunchy, balding, only the slightest bit defiant when in chains. While we’re at it, what does narcissism look like? Drags the wife up to the stage to make her share in the global humiliation it has wrought — as masterfully detailed by John Oliver on Comedy Central — and then expects us to respect its personal privacy in sexual matters. Right.