IDEOLOGICAL? MOI?

David Brooks in today's New York Times, writing about the Paul Wolfowitz situation:

The conflict of interest charge is out of proportion to the hubbub. But scandals are like that -- they are never about what they purport to be about. The Clarence Thomas scandal wasn't about a hair on a soda can. The Larry Summers scandal wasn't about comments at a conference. Most scandals are pretexts for members of an establishment to destroy people they don't like.

Brooks thinks charges of misconduct are being used as a smokescreen for an ideological assault from the left. He tries to think of similar situations, and all he can think of is another guy who was attacked from the left and, er, yet another guy who was attacked from the left.

Funny that Brooks can't recall any examples that went the other way.

I'm thinking of a certain scandal a few years back. It was about blow jobs, but wasn't really about blow jobs. That one certainly involved an establishment -- the majority party in Congress -- trying to destroy someone they didn't like.

Odd that it slipped his mind.

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