Talkin’ ’bout you, Larry Craig (R-ID). As long as you didn’t frighten the horses, as the Duchess said.

But please note the phrase “consenting adults”—it explains why the non-consensual nature of Republican sex—exploiting the underaged, weird attitudes toward animals, even torture as sex, or even better than sex—is of great concern to me.

So, allegations that Craig, who voted for the Defense of Marriage Act, also has anonymous, erm, encounters with men don’t bother me, or get me hot. Not so with The Base, which should get bothered (and, no doubt behind the closet door, hot).

Payback is a bitch, isn’t it?

The wingers spend $70 million investigating a blow job between consenting adults, put the results on national TV for all to see, and then whine and whimper and Harrumph that their personal lives have been invaded when people call bullshit on them.

Boo fucking hoo. I’m playing the world’s smallest violin. (Thanks, CD)

You know, I’ve always had a hard difficult time acccounting for the sheer virulence of the Clinton hatred in the whole Monica fiasco. It was obviously so much more than political (at least, as “political” is commonly understood). Even at the time, we knew it wasn’t about “values” (heck, Gingrich handed his wife the divorce papers on her hospital bed when she was recovering from cancer). And even at the time, we knew it wasn’t about the sex (Hastert committed his “youthful indiscretions” when he was the same age Clinton). And if we didn’t know then, we surely know now, that it wasn’t about the lies (vide the Downing Street Memo, where “the intelligence and facts were fixed around the policy).

So, what was it that really bothered the Republicans about the Clinton-Monica affair?

Since it wasn’t the values, and it wasn’t the sex, and it wasn’t the lies, what could it have been?

The only thing that’s left. Think:

The consent.

For Republicans, sex doesn’t take place between consenting adults.

How could it? If it did, that would mean that a woman controlled her own body, wouldn’t it?

And, as we all know, Jeebus says forced pregnancy is the Word of God, and who are we, the liberals and The Damned, to argue?