I realize that the Republican’s started the whole muck-raking, sex-obsessed dirty-tricks thing by spending $70 million finding a stain on a blue dress and trying to take Clinton down with it.

     I also realize that the claim of “restoring honor to the Office of the Presidency” is a bit hifallutin’ for a guy that has to hire “journalists” to promote his agenda and talk up his policies.

     And it’s a bit of tantalizing irony in the thought that an administration that has this much momentum from hateful anti-gay rhetoric might have hired a gay male prostitute with fake credentials to lob soft-ball questions to the President as part of the White House Press Corps…

      …and certainly, if this Jeff Gannon guy had ANYTHING to do with the “outing” of Valerie Plame he should be thoroughly investigated…

     …but really, even considering all of this, I have to say that reading this “expose” has left me feeling like neither side has any humanity left.  I provide the link so you all can make your own judgement…but I’d be just as happy if you would skip the link, because it will do nothing but appeal to the lowest, darkest, angels of you nature.

     And I was so inspired by Lewis Black last night, and now the wind has left my sails.

     I feel much like I did my first few failed attempts to quit smoking…you know, when the cravings build up and you just suck down five or six of those suckers, because you were totally weak and now you feel completely gross and sick and hateful toward yourself and your own humanity?

     ….yeah…like that.

     We’re better than this people.  We have plenty of damning crap on this administration, and plenty of threads to pull to get more without having to further exploit the nekked flesh of some poor, deluded, self-hating loser.  I realize that he took the pictures and he wrote the ads and he made the decision to do the things he did…but that doesn’t make our prurient interest in it right.

     And as someone who found Ken Star to be a pathetic sex-obsessed ghoul…my mind just can’t make this OK because it’s hitting the opposition.

     Like I said, if this guy was improperly credentialed and vetted, if he was given improper clearance, if he was hired to “out” Valerie Plame and do other dirty tricks for the administration, then lets find out about it, but please.  Nobody is elevated by this.  Nothing is build or won or accomplished by it.  It is scorched earth tactics and it is unworthy of us.