Plaidgate
Ann Althouse weighs in on what she is calling “Plaidgate.”
To her credit, Ann isn’t backing down:
But you have to see the sequence of photos of Roberts grouped with lots of men and not one woman. The overall picture of enthusiastic male comradery is quite strong. Yet, of course, the NYT has complete deniability. Shame on me, they can say, for reading anything into it. That’s why I considered it “subtly constructed.”
That’s key, the “complete deniability.” That’s what caught my attention, the question: Was the piece hardball politics? Bob Sikes, wrote in Ann’s comments, that the Times profile was “a fine, well-crafted ‘dog-whistle’ piece.”
Anyway, Ann does have some very smart reader-commenters. (Meaning: they agree with me!) One man, Dirty Harry responded to Ann’s “plausible deniability” refrain by saying:
No, they don’t [have deniability]. What [the NYTimes has] is a long track record of brilliantly written but biased hit pieces. And they’re the only ones getting “outted” in the dust-up.
Then lastly, Jay Random zeroes in on an important point:
Yoest . . .led with the pants and emphasized them by including the picture. She reinforces your point, . . .but has also selected a single detail to highlight in order to expose or accentuate how ludicrous and contrived the implied insinuations truly are.
He gets it. Funny how the Lefties in their rush to brand me humourless, missed the joke right in front of them.
Bill Kristol says that the confirmation will be a battle. The Americablog throws a dud bomb, Is Supreme Court Nominee Roberts Lying Already?
Little Miss Attila gives us a flavor of the upcoming months with Anita and Clarence; John and TBA.
Villainous Company has the true Liberal Litmus Test. Tip of the bonnet to MaxedOutMama and John Roberts the Catholic.
Might I take this opportunity to point out that if Judge Roberts went to than all boys school and the press is using pictures availible to them through say yearbooks and such that the odds of him being with a bunch of guys goes way up? And the pants–oh God the pants–I bet his mother bought them for him…
If you were joking and I missed it, I’m sorry. I am not sure when anyone is joking anymore when it comes to stuff like this but why come out and say he is gay when we could just say he is stylishly challenged? Queer eye for the Straigh guy here comes Judge Roberts…
Agree w/you Chris as to why some of those clothes & pics may have looked so “foppish”: they’re all out of his high school yearbook!
Which raises the question: why are they all out of his high school yearbook? It’s not as if justices’ high school years typically warrant extensive coverage by the Times, with photo montages of his boyish charms.
No other photos available? Doubt it. Could it be that they knew publishing these would cause people to ask questions of the sort you & I both find distasteful?
RD, you are the only one asking distateful questions. It sounds like you are wondering if Roberts is gay, and you’re questioning whether or not you should drop your support for him because of that. That’s nuts on so many levels.