You have commented 339 times on Rantburg.

Your Name
Your e-mail (optional)
Website (optional)
My Original Nic        Pic-a-Nic        Sorry. Comments have been closed on this article.
Bold Italic Underline Strike Bullet Blockquote Small Big Link Squish Foto Photo
Home Front: Politix
Donks: John Roberts Gay Because He Wore Plaid Pants 30 Years Ago
2005-07-23
...Call it the Mary Cheney Strategy. Call it desperation. Some on the Left have started a "maybe he's gay" whisper campaign against John Roberts.
Left hits bottom, orders shovel, commences digging ...
It started with Manhattan Offender in a post yesterday asking "How Gay is This Guy?" and then he quoted Wikipedia's entry for Judge Roberts. He zeroed in on some really damning evidence from Roberts' youthful past: the all-male boarding school, studying French and Latin (gasp!), being a wrestler and, oh the horror, participating in choir and drama.

So, it was only one silly post. Today, however, Wonkette picked up the ball and ran with it:
We're not making any conclusions here -- we wouldn't want to comment on an ongoing investigation -- we're just laying out the facts: He is a graduate of an all-boys Catholic school where, as a member of the wrestling team, he regularly grappled with other sweaty, repressed boys. That is when he wasn't the drama club playing Peppermint Patty, for God's sake.
What's that about Peppermint Patty?!? Yes, well, that's where the story starts to get interesting. That's a reference to a point raised in today's New York Times profile of Roberts, "Court Nominee's Life Is Rooted in Faith and Respect for Law," written by Todd Purdum, Jodi Wilgoren and Pam Belluck. In the midst of a very lengthy profile, Purdum, et.al. just throw in the little factoid that Roberts' yearbook records that "he played Peppermint Patty in the production of 'You're A Good Man, Charlie Brown.'"

Did I mention that this was when he was in high school? So maybe that snarky little bit is just there for a little color? Ann Althouse has picked up the story and she thinks otherwise:
I do think the NYT piece was subtly constructed to plant this idea. Just look at the series of photographs they chose: young John in plaid pants, young John with his boys' school pals, young John in a wrestling suit with his fellow wrestlers, John with footballers, and -- the final pic -- John smiling in an all-male wedding photograph.
I think she might have a point. Of course it is the height of hypocrisy for the (allegedly) pro-tolerance crowd to start questioning someone's sexual preference. It's a strange and twisted tactic for those who are allied with the gay rights movement to try to make an issue out of someone supposedly being gay.

Who cares? Well, that's just the point: they think we do. They think that they can undermine support for someone among conservatives if they can dredge up some sort of homosexual connection -- or, in this case, just the manufactured whiff of a question.

If it weren't so cruel and small, it would be funny. (It's not just the plaid pants. Some of the commenters on these other sites have been questioning the Roberts' marriage, and even referencing their adopted children. That's just beyond the pale.)
The Kos Kiddies were doing that in the first hour after the announcement; I read that for myself.
The Left didn't learn their lesson when they tried this with Mary Cheney and it backfired. John Roberts may have played Peppermint Patty back in the day, but here and NOW, the Left is playing Lucy with the football...
Hat tip to 'Reasoned Audacity'.
Posted by:Anonymoose

#10  Keep it up, Donks, and in a couple more years there won't be anybody left in your Party except the drooling mucoids from Kos and DU.

Much of today's political left seems to actually believe the caricature they've mentally drawn for themselves of the right. E.g., merely invoke the term "homosexual" and religious conservatives will flock to your banner and mindlessly crusade against whomever the label is attached to.

The only really interesting question is whether the Hildebeeste will swoop in to save the Donks with an injection of sanity after they're thumped in the '06 elections or whether she'll leave the fever swamps fully filled and try to profity thereby.
Posted by: AzCat   2005-07-23 15:37  

#9  That is when he wasn't the drama club playing Peppermint Patty, for God's sake.

I remember a few years back when there was a big stink about Peppermint Patty being a lezbo. So, maybe John Roberts was ahead of his time? Ya know, he was "a lesbian trapped in a man's body". That reminds me, I saw a guy wearing that on a T-shirt one time...I died laughing "I'm a lesbian trapped in a man's body").
Posted by: BA   2005-07-23 15:08  

#8  Keep it up, Donks, and in a couple more years there won't be anybody left in your Party except the drooling mucoids from Kos and DU. All the rest will have gone elsewhere, like I did a few years back.

The crazier they get, the more elections they lose; and the more elections they lose, the crazier it makes them. Death spiral.
Posted by: Dave D.   2005-07-23 13:35  

#7  Obviously I am not supporting the leftist theory that Roberts is a closet homosexual (in fact I have no evidence to believe anything else but that he is happily married and has two great kids).

Just looking for a pattern in the Left's approach. I think the current leftist noise are trial balloons, trying to lure in someone who will step forth and make up any story that can be used to sink Roberts. Always watch for their trial balloons.
Posted by: Kalle (kafir forever)   2005-07-23 13:12  

#6  The left thinks that anyone who is homosexual MUST be a leftist. Anything else is evidence of being a repressed traitor who will most certainly persecute homosexuals.

It's twisted, and they can't make a public, explicit argument based on that notion. However, watch for attempts to sink him based on the hints listed above. A former school colleague who claims they had a sexual affair that nobody knew of, or some other attempt to smear him (a male law clerk who says he made sexual advances) and make him look like someone who leads a false life.

Remember what they did to Clarence Thomas. The Left is willing to do anything to attack those who oppose them.

In Thomas's case, the motivation was that the leftist believe any non-white MUST be a leftist else they are behaving like slaves to the Republicans. (This last is really bizarre to me, as I grew up in Europe and knew very well that the Democrats were the party of slavery vs the Republicans being the abolition party.)
Posted by: Kalle (kafir forever)   2005-07-23 13:09  

#5  
Left hits bottom, orders shovel, commences digging ...
Shovel, hell.

They've cornered the market on backhoes.
Posted by: Barbara Skolaut   2005-07-23 12:53  

#4  pure projection by Wonkette, who's obsessed with anal sex, even more than Andrew
Posted by: Frank G   2005-07-23 12:48  

#3   By their own principles, being gay is not wrong or bad or deviant. Why is it bad to be gay now? But you have to be the right kind of Gay. It's kind of like being black. You have to be a Libdim dependent black or a Jesse Jackson hanger on. One thing Dims can't stand is epople who belong to groups the Dims "own", ie balcks, gays, latinos, labor etc, thinking for themselves
Posted by: Cheaderhead   2005-07-23 12:44  

#2  By their own principles, being gay is not wrong or bad or deviant. Why is it bad to be gay now? Probably because it suits their needs for the day? The liberals in this country are totally lost and out of control. This guy has never fucked up in his whole life and they can't stand it. They cant believe someone could go all this time without having an affair or molesting a child or stealing some campaign contributions. Sad-ass arent they?
Posted by: bigjim-ky   2005-07-23 11:26  

#1  Looks like W really caught the left flat-footed with the Roberts nomination.
Posted by: AzCat   2005-07-23 11:25  

00:00