IOKIYASPRPTVC (IT'S OK IF YOU'RE A SELF-PITYING REPUBLICAN PLAYING THE VICTIM CARD)

So I've been reading about right-wing online vultures who are writing passages such as this:

This was never about the kids, Graeme, or otherwise. It's tragic that they were injured so severely. But it's also tragic that apparently F Halsey Frost, otherwise known as Daddy here, never learned to take responsibility for himself, or give up options he wasn't prepared to support.

At the same time, on the book page of The New York Times, I'm reading this:

Justice Thomas describes ... his struggle to keep body and soul together on meager government pay, in some of the book's most absorbing and self-critical chapters. He regretted his early marriage, but for years could not bring himself to end the relationship and abandon his young son as his own father had. (Eventually he did.) He began drinking heavily. His finances were a shambles. At one point a rental-car clerk, after calling Sears for confirmation, cut up his credit card in front of him.

Why did Clarence Thomas get married and have a child when he was a drunk who couldn't pay his bills? Why did he run up bills he couldn't pay, anyway? Why didn't he stop drinking, learn to live within his means, and save that first marriage?

Nah -- those are the wrong questions to ask. Not only is it fine that Clarence Thomas stopped drinking, married again, and achieved career success (and made $1.5 million on his memoir), it's also fine that the Yale Law School graduate was an irresponsible mess as a young man -- because he's a Republican, and therefore none of his failings are his fault. Graeme Frost's parents, by contrast, are Democrats, so even the things they've done right are wrong.