[Sorry, Seamus.]

Never mind that (apparently) it's not illegal to ask somebody to have sex*, even in the airport men's rooms of The Land Of Luther.**

And never mind that Craig apparently thinks--or at least says***--that being gay is like being a Communist or an ACLU member: You can tear up your membership card and regain your standing among the decent people, maybe with a little rehab (see Haggard 6:9).

And never mind that operatives like Craig who make a good living preaching and peddling hate to the gullible and the lost have a curious tendency to practice in private exactly what they excoriate in public. I suppose that adds to the thrill of it all. ("It's the abuse of power, stupid!")

And never mind the glee we all feel--all thinking people must feel--watching the wingers scuttle for cover.

Such, such are the joys of your typical Conservative Himbo eruption. Personally, I don't care about any of it. Vitter can pay to have his diaper put and taken off, Craig can assume his "wide stance," Barney can put his rawther ill-chosen friends up in his home. Who cares? At this point in my life, I can really live without knowing about people's sex lives, and especially the sex lives of politicians.**** Prurience is for bored teens, or bored consumers on line at the supermarket, or bored courtiers in Versailles on the Potomac.

But, touchingly, Willard Mitt Romney does care, and in a way that unfits him for the high office he seeks. After showing his charity by precipitously dumping the extremely not-gay Craig from his campaign, Romney gives us this:

"[WILLARD MITT ROMNEY] I think it reminds us of the fact that people who are elected to public office continue to disappoint, and they somehow think that if they vote the right way on issues of significance or they can speak a good game, that we'll just forgive and forget. We've seen disappointment in the White House, we've seen it in the Senate, we've seen it in Congress. And frankly, it's disgusting."

No, no, no, no, no. Romney is just so wrong on so many levels.

1. People do "disappoint." That's human nature, even if you're not religious. (See, e.g., Romans 3:23).

2. People do "forgive and forget." Not only do most world religions enjoin such behavior (I haven't studied Mormonism), it's empirically true. It's reality based. People forgave Clinton on Monica. People forgave FDR on his adultery. People forgave Reagan's divorce. And on and on and on.

If Clinton's blow job and Bush's destruction of the Constitution were weighed in a cosmic, karmic balance, which would sink the scales more heavily? Suppose an all-powerful God presented the choice of restoring Constitutional government at the prices of "forgiving and forgetting" Clinton's blow job. What would you do? I know what I'd do, and if Romney would refuse to forgive and forget, he's not fit to be president.

Or take Social Security. Suppose the same God gave the choice between preserving Social Security at the price of "forgiving and forgetting" FDR's adultery. What would you do? I know what I'd do, and if Romney did differently, again, he's not fit to be President.

These great issues of public policy, which affect, quite literally, the lives and the happiness of millions, trump the personal sexual peccadilloes of politicians.***** If Romney doesn't understand that, he's not fit to be President.

3. Romney's notion of "disgusting" is bizarre (and seems more than a little defensive). What could be more disgusting than torture? What could be more disgusting than destroying the Fourth Amendment, and every other fucking amendment? What could be more disgusting than abolishing habeas corpus? What could be more disgusting than setting up as a dictator? What could be more disgusting than looting the country of billions? What would be more disgusting than timing a war to win a mid-term election? And on and on and on and on. If Romney equates those grossly disgusting public acts with the pathetic, private acts of a single individual, he's unfit to the President.

4. Finally, Romney's purity test plays into a subtle, vicious, and destructive meme that's gradually propagating all over our discourse: The "leader" meme. This is the essentially European philosophy that, if only we had a Leader who was pure in heart--perhaps one who rode a white horse--that all our troubles would be over and there would be ponies for everyone. (This is why the Christian Embassy loons targeted "leaders" (read: bureaucrats) in the Pentagon.) Not so. Heed the words of Federalist 51:

The great security against a gradual concentration of the several powers in the same department, consists in giving to those who administer each department the necessary constitutional means and personal motives to resist encroachments of the others. The provision for defense must in this, as in all other cases, be made commensurate to the danger of attack. Ambition must be made to counteract ambition. The interest of the man must be connected with the constitutional rights of the place. It may be a reflection on human nature, that such devices should be necessary to control the abuses of government. But what is government itself, but the greatest of all reflections on human nature? If men were angels, no government would be necessary. If angels were to govern men, neither external nor internal controls on government would be necessary. In framing a government which is to be administered by men over men, the great difficulty lies in this: you must first enable the government to control the governed; and in the next place oblige it to control itself.

The problems of the country are systemic, and must be approached systematically. One person, no matter how pure in heart, can't solve those problems; a good President is a necessary, but by no means sufficient, condition. And, as I have tried to suggest, Romney's view that the absence of "disgusting" personal habits is the key qualification for high office is not only historically wrong but, in the context of the office he seeks, immoral.

NOTE * Though I have to say that the idea of having paper shoved into my stall--let alone fingers waggled at me--while I'm, er, quietly (hopefully) seated on the throne gives me the creeps. None of us can claim purity (let alone make that a political platform) but I'm a "Do what you want in the privacy of your own bedroom" kind of guy, with the emphasis on the words privacy and your own bedroom. It's the WASP in me. Sorry.

NOTE ** Or Big Potato Country. Although, as Barney Frank points out, if Republicans have their way, that wouldn't be true for gays.

NOTE *** When Craig says "I am not gay. I never have been gay," is anyone else reminded of the Republicans question from the 50s? "Are you, or have you ever been, a member..."

NOTE **** Except when they confuse sex and torture. Torture is violation, and that I do care about. That's also why I care about Romney's dog crapping itself when strapped to the roof of Romney's car: It's abuse of the powerless.

NOTE ***** Naturally, one of the objects of the VRWC is such a massive campaign of distraction, deception, and distortion (which has the added benefit of being cheaper to do than actual reporting, so the bottom line of the media properties they control remains healthier).