Charles P. Pierce reminds us how Ken Starr is one of those people who long ago lost the moral right to scold anyone about anything. One quote…
Speaking in the condescending tones of a Baptist preacher who you know has bondage gear stashed in a steamer trunk somewhere, Starr presumed to lecture the Senate on the parameters of its constitutional duties. It was altogether remarkable to hear the author of a soft-core-porn-novella of an impeachment report wax sententiously, and in cathedral tones, about being in "democracy's ultimate court." It was altogether remarkable to hear a guy who lost his job at Baylor University after he oversaw a period where the school's athletics department was plagued by sexual-assault allegations lecture a chamber full of lawyers about how precious due process is. If a more sanctimonious toad than Kenneth Starr ever has crawled through American politics, I'm hard-pressed to know who it was.
A few years ago, a producer I know slightly asked me if I had any ideas for Reality Shows because that's what he's producing these days…or at least trying to sell. I told him I didn't because my mind, to the extent it works at all, doesn't work in that direction. He said, "Well, if it ever does work that way, remember the fundamental rule of Reality Shows." I know when to be the straight man in a discussion so I asked what that rule was.
He said, "There is nothing you can think of that someone won't do to get on television."
He was thinking of feats involving physical danger, eating insects, getting naked, humiliating themselves and/or their families…things like that. But it strikes me that it also extends to folks who once advocated a position on allegedly moral or legal grounds now advocating the exact opposite because they think that at this precise moment, doing so will yield fame and/or fortune. And in so doing, making you wonder if they ever stood for anything, then or now.