A follow-up to an essay I wrote three years ago, about an internal dispute at the major conservative gathering, after the jump ......
But first: Top Comments appears nightly, as a round-up of the best comments on Daily Kos. Surely ... you come across comments daily that are perceptive, apropos and .. well, perhaps even humorous. But they are more meaningful if they're well-known ... which is where you come in (especially in diaries/stories receiving little attention).
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In the 5-1/2 years yours truly has been allowed to loiter on the Top Comments team, I can't remember one that I had more fun writing than in February, 2012.
After the annual Washington, D.C. conservative gathering known as CPAC in 2012, two noted conservative pundits were upset over all matters sexual. Erick Erickson was unhappy to see young men purchasing condoms (in hopes of getting lucky) and Dr. Melissa Clouthier wrote of her discomfort at seeing many young women with hemlines that she saw as way-too-short (which was not actually a widely-shared opinion).
Their public discussion opened-the-floodgates for conservatives to opine on the subject publicly (which used to be restricted to the "quiet rooms" that Mitt Romney spoke of) and which generated some mocking humor in response. After all, we are talking about the "family values" crowd meets the young, singles scene at CPAC.
(Side note: at the Netroots Nation later that year in Providence, I held a door open for a woman entering a room and I happened to notice her name badge ..... it was the Melissa Clouthier mentioned above ... but I just smiled, and she did so, too. She later wrote of her attendance, which a liberal blogger duly noted).
You can read my original essay at this link.
Now .......... an update.
Three more CPAC conferences have come-and-gone, but the discussion that was started in 2012 has not yet concluded.
In 2014, Emily Crockett of the Reproductive Health Reality Check website attended .... and did she ever come up with stories about hooking-up:
One recalled a conversation with a 'random guy' who wasn’t hitting on her, but who said, 'Oh yeah, I’m gonna hook up with five women.' "And I was like, whoa. That’s not what I thought of when I came to CPAC. I thought, politics, opportunity!"
"I’ve seen guys open up with their credentials as though it's a job interview," Moran said. "Hi, how you doing, I'm president of this club and that club, and I'm at Yale!"
A group of young women from Pennsylvania (who asked to remain anonymous) said the guys in their group had been "talking about girls non-stop," as one put it. "They’ll be like, 'did you see that one there?' and point her out." Another young woman in the group said she had gotten a lot of creepy comments from older men about her curly, bright red hair.
That same year, Betsy Rothstein of the Daily Caller attended and asked questions about sexuality (while offering anonymity) and she too, got an earful:
While many of this year’s CPAC attendees were skittish upon approach about the topic of sex, nearly everyone I asked had something to say.
Said one, "This girl I know was working hard to get her CPAC body. She was posting pictures on Facebook. She looked pretty good."
Some years ago, de Pasquale recalls a hook up that resulted in photographs being sent to the wife. She didn’t want to share names to protect the parties involved. She also remembers a CPAC staff member who met his wife here, as well as Dan and Marilyn Quayle, whose passion first ignited at the conference.
A trio of attractive young women from Ohio were equally dismissive of the idea of sex at CPAC. But they still seemed like they were up for fun and said logistics would prevent things from heating up. "A lot of us have rooms with four people," said Kennedy. "I don’t see it happening. Not much opportunity."
To wrap-up the 2014 commentary: one of the themes readers of my original posting had was to suggest that same-sex-loving might also be prevalent. Well, apparently in 2013 there were several Craigslist personals placed for this purpose .... but in 2014, a blogger only saw one personal ad .... which he suspected might be bogus.
For the recently-held 2015 conference, RH Reality Check's correspondent Emily Crockett went back, and this time wrote about a wider-angle subject: CPAC’s Worst, Weirdest 'Jokes' - and while they covered many subjects, you-know-what came up:
During a riff about how liberals are "stupid" and blame Bush for their mistakes, FOX News host Sean Hannity turned on a dime and suddenly praised the "young, good-looking" crowd at CPAC. Then things got really weird:
"I can look out in the crowd, I kind of have X-ray FOX vision—and I can see some of you women, you don’t even know it yet, but you’re pregnant," Hannity said. The confused crowd alternately gasped, laughed, and jeered.
"It’s not your fault, it’s not his fault. Whose fault is it?" Hannity continued.
Then, Phil Robertson (the "Duck Dynasty guy") went on an extended rant about pre-marital sex and sexually transmitted infections that you had to see to believe. The joke on all of CPAC itself is that almost everybody in attendance did see it; the main ballroom was packed with conference-goers waiting to hear Jeb Bush.
Lastly, a look at 2015 CPAC gay hook-ups: and it appears that Grindr has supplanted Craigslist:
Now that the gay hookup app Grindr has become a serious force in the social media world, Reason TV decided to experiment with it while at CPAC.
Using the app, host Paul Detrick found several gay conservative attendees to talk about the GOP’s social policies, and the future (if any) for gay people in the conservative movement. The results are sometimes sad: A few of the subjects declined to show their face on-camera to protect themselves and their closest associates.
Others were proud and defiant: "For conservatives, if they are going to be able to win an election, they are going to need to get younger voters," said one man. "And to do that they need to be more socially liberal. Essentially, they need to shift libertarian."
Good luck with that.
On that note, let's close with an ode to the young CPAC swingers: an old bawdy English tune as recorded by the Sex Pistols in 1979.
Now, on to Top Comments:
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From gizmo59:
In d3clark's recommended post, BREAKING: 5 of 6 Rowan County clerks agree to issue marriage licenses, terrypinder observes how an innocuous phrase can be turned into a weapon.
From
Jon Sitzman:
In the diary by Alvin K about the NPR political analyst Mara Liasson - if you hear sizzling, it's probably the ionized air in the wake of that truth laser from kovie this evening.
And, in the diary by Josie Duffy about South Carolina governor Nikki Haley telling people to chill-out over police shootings - bang on, The Lone Apple, for this comment tonight.
Flagged by
dcnblues:
In the front-page story about Ted Cruz carrying a torch for Kim Davis - I nominate this comment by Scottsdalian tonight.
Flagged by
pat of butter in a sea of grits:
In the diary by Murfster35, also about today's Kim Davis - I nominate this comment from qazplm this evening.
And from
Ed Tracey, your faithful correspondent this evening ........
In the diary by Retroactive Genius about the Washington Post's Jennifer Rubin hanging an anti-Semite tag on those supporting the Iran deal - Aware63 points out a historical analogy to those close-to-the-action who support the deal.
TOP PHOTOS
September 2, 2015
Next - enjoy jotter's wonderful PictureQuilt™ below. Just click on the picture and it will magically take you to the comment that features that photo.
(NOTE: Any missing images in the Quilt were removed because (a) they were from an unapproved source that somehow snuck through in the comments, or (b) it was an image from the DailyKos Image Library which didn't have permissions set to allow others to use it.)
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And lastly: yesterday's Top Mojo - mega-mojo to the intrepid mik ...... who rescued this feature from oblivion:
1) I saw this article. Thanks for posting about it. by In Memory of Norman Bethune +168
2) But If The LEOs Had Protected That Black by majcmb1 +153
3) And I love the reworking of that classic poetry by ontheleftcoast +129
4) Too bad that John Wooden, his coach at UCLA, by Hillbilly Dem +121
5) He's been posting intelligent, thoughtful, and by David54 +114
6) This morning I sent the following email by reflectionsv37 +113
7) And then there's this, from the SPLC link: by pico +109
8) Bernie's definitely taking the proverbial high... by markthshark +94
9) Normally I hate hearing from celebrities by Slamfu +92
10) Agree - I always thought Kareem was a by Hanging Up My Tusks +90
11) Yep and yep. You know what really fries... by Meteor Blades +89
12) It is true by joeknapp +88
13) Bigots just wanna have fun... by Queries +86
14) I once gave him a lift by stevenaxelrod +85
15) The Kid Was Engaging In A Campaign Of Harassment. by majcmb1 +83
16) Important announcement re: Bernie2016.tv by LoneStarMike +78
17) POINTS!! by Yohannon +77
18) I read that Guardian piece yesterday... by Retroactive Genius +75
19) T&R'd for by MichaelHolmans +72
20) part of the democratic platform and agenda by Laurence Lewis +71
21) KAJ is proof jocks ain't dumb. by Jbearlaw +69
22) Wow -- how much incentive by gchaucer2 +68
22) Call Darwin for a consultation on this... by The Eyewitness Muse +68
24) Pensacola News-Journal letter to the Editor by LoneStarMike +67
25) HR by gizmo59 +66
26) Post racial, ya. by CwV +64
27) Republican voters don't do 'Witty' by No one gets out alive +62
28) From Channel 4 news - London, UK by LoneStarMike +59
29) Still so wrong....law protects racist assholes too by ksh01 +56
30) WPTZ News - Burlington, VT by LoneStarMike +55
30) Normally, I love hearing from celebrities who are by tporky +55
30) Another thought provoking article from Jabbar by averageyoungman +55
30) Wow she either sees herself in these morans by wuod kwatch +55
30) Thank you FOX News, Rush, and the Rightwing by pajoly +55
30) Hey California is filed with idiot rednecks by nocynicism +55
30) Seems to me that Kareem's words hold weight... by markthshark +55